Berkeley’s Jihad Against Bill Maher

Maher 726This whole Bill Maher controversy is as illuminating as it is entertaining. Bill Maher was a darling of the Left when he was criticizing Christianity, but now that he has turned his gimlet eye to Islamic supremacism, the foes of free speech have turned against him with venom. Maher is scheduled to give the fall commencement address at the University of California-Berkeley, but Muslim students there have begun a petition drive to get him canceled.

The Daily Californian reported Sunday that

the Change.org petition was authored by ASUC Senator Marium Navid, who is backed by the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition, or MEMSA, and Khwaja Ahmed, an active MEMSA member. The petition, which urges students to boycott the decision and asks the campus to stop him from speaking, has already gathered more than 1,400 signatures as of Sunday.

Anticipating that this petition would be outed as the fascist endeavor it is, Navid explained:

“It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus climate. The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his mind, but it doesn’t give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform as the commencement. That’s a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don’t give him.”

The campaign against Maher is called “Free Speech, Not Hate Speech.”

“Free Speech, Not Hate Speech”: this is the mechanism that today’s Leftist and Islamic supremacist authoritarians are using to shut down any free and open discussion of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and oppression. This slogan was thrown at me last May when I spoke at Cal Poly; I responded (as you can see toward the end of this video) by pointing out that “hate speech” is in the eye of the beholder, and the one who is granted the power to determine what is or isn’t “hate speech” has been given extraordinary control over the public discourse, such that any opinions disliked by the ruling elite can be stigmatized and ruled out of bounds by means of this label.

Anyway, this was predictable: now that Bill Maher, despite his impeccable Leftist credentials, has dared to criticize Islam, he is “racist and bigoted,” and must be denied a platform. The reality is that anyone and everyone, no matter who they are and what they have done, is targeted in exactly the same way by Islamic supremacists and Leftists. They are determined that there be no genuine public debate about Islam and violence (and Islamic violence). They are determined to tar those who deviate from the “Islam is a religion of peace” line with smear labels that will make the broadly uninformed majority shun them and be intimidated into thinking that it is wrong to question the mainstream line.

There is no free speech, no free debate, no honest discussion about these issues in American academia today, or in the mainstream media. Maher is so prominent that he has shaken the Left’s stranglehold preventing public discussion of these issues, but they are circling the wagons now, and either Maher will be driven out of the circles of the enlightened elites, or will stop talking about this altogether. My money is on the latter.

There is, however, just a small chance that this targeting of Maher will bring mainstream attention to this neo-fascist effort to destroy the freedom of speech altogether and stifle public debate about jihad and Islamic supremacism.

Certainly the controversy itself has drawn mainstream attention: MSNBC had Ibrahim Hooper of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations on to discuss whether Berkeley should cancel Maher, and Hooper promptly likened Maher to “the grand dragon of the KKK.”

The way that Leftists and Islamic supremacists operate in order to demonize and destroy anyone who dares speak the truth about Islam and jihad is on full display during Hooper’s MSNBC appearance: first, they claim that someone who points out that Islam has doctrines encouraging violence and supremacism is “calling all Muslims terrorists” and charge him or her with racism and bigotry. Then they proceed as if those charges are already established as true, and demand that the truth-teller be denied a platform, canceled from speaking engagements, etc., because of this racism and bigotry.

The next step, if the Islamic supremacist campaign to get Maher disinvited from Berkeley succeeds, will be to use their victory as evidence of the correctness of their claims, when in fact it is only evidence that many event organizers and public officials don’t like controversy and will make whatever concessions they need to make so as to avoid it. If the campaign succeeds, then a few months from now, when Hamas-linked CAIR is trying to get Maher canceled from some other event, “Honest Ibe” Hooper will say, “The University of California at Berkeley was so disgusted with Maher’s bigotry that they canceled his planned appearance as their fall commencement speaker…”

Then a few more cancellations, and it will look as if all decent folk are shunning Maher out of disgust with his “hatred,” when all that is really going on is the victory of Hamas-linked CAIR’s intimidation and smear tactics.

Now what is needed is a public discussion of how Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists are trying to stifle free discussion of the jihad threat, and smear and destroy everyone who dares discuss that threat honestly. How about it, MSNBC?

*

Don’t miss Robert Spencer on The Glazov Gang discussing The Fog of Jihad-Denial:

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  • ping

    https://www.change.org/p/university-of-california-berkeley-stop-bill-maher-from-speaking-at-uc-berkeley-s-december-graduation

    Here’s the petition for those who would like to sign it and make Robert Spencer mad. I just did.

    • http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org Alexander Gofen

      I would rather make you mad: http://www.judeochristianamerica.org/Islam/

    • logdon

      How does it feel to be a useful idiot?

      • ping

        You’d have to ask “former” communists like Robert Spencer and David Horowitz. Spencer of which is still an apologist for Chinese communism when it comes to massacres against Uyghurs.

  • http://JudeoChristianAmerica.org Alexander Gofen

    Now what is needed is a public discussion that islam is an enemy ideology which has succeeded to make numerous inroads into America. Islam and moslems do not belong to America: http://www.judeochristianamerica.org/Imminent.htm

    • Lightbringer

      Mr. Gofen’s link to the Judeo-Christian America website is worth pursuing. All of the items on the platform are very common-sense, but unfortunately those of us who feel that way might by now be a minority. Common sense is becoming an increasingly rare commodity.

  • Texas Patriot

    One never knows what kind of world one will be born into or have to live through, and sometimes it is clear only in hindsight. But it now appears that the last forty years since the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 were merely a prelude to the 21st Century. It will be interesting to see how Bill Maher responds to this. If he starts apologizing for the truth, we’re all in trouble.

    • brenda640

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    • Yehuda Levi

      Still cheering for Obama?

      • Texas Patriot

        Of course I am. I’m a citizen of the United States, and he’s the President. What’s your nationality?

        • http://islamsfatalflaw.blogspot.com/ BobSmith101

          Obama may be the president. But he is still a fool at best.
          I also believe his years spent as a child in an Indonesian madrassa succeeded in brainwashing him. Just the same as most Muslims.

          He is clearly incapable of addressing world affairs without Islamic rose colored glasses. His bungling in of Middle East politics will be his biggest legacy. And it won’t be good.

          • Texas Patriot

            Obama is only the latest in a long line of American Presidents who have bungled Middle Eastern politics. At least he hasn’t gotten quite so many American soldiers killed.

            Where I fault Obama the most is in not recognizing the Arab Spring as an Islamist Spring, and not pulling out of Afghanistan sooner. His wake up call was September 12, 2012 when the rebels whom we had assisted in overthrowing Gaddafi turned on us and assassinated our diplomats in Benghazi to the accompaniment of Muslim demonstrators worldwide chanting “Obama, Obama, we’re all Osama.”

            Actually I don’t really find a great deal of fault in how Obama is handing the ISIS onslaught. Short of putting boots on the ground (which would be another form of mindless insanity in my view), massive and strategically directed air power combined with regional Peshmerga forces is probably the best way to deal with it. Personally, I’d like to see a lot more airpower to “degrade and destroy” ISIS, but I think we’re just getting started with all of this.

          • Yehuda Levi

            The same old liberal argument of moral relativism – “Obama is only the latest” – in other words, all presidents are equally bad. Baloney, he is one of the worst not the latest.

            Even Carter has criticized Obama and 63% of the country thinks he is doing a poor job but you still support him.

            Fortunately, most voters in Texas are wiser than you are.

          • http://islamsfatalflaw.blogspot.com/ BobSmith101

            The way to handle ISIL – get out of the way and let these brainwashed fools kill each other. The fewer of them the better.

            The non-Muslim world needs a comprehensive strategy to deal with the cult of Islam. And Obama is part of the problem.

          • Texas Patriot

            I really admire the Kurds, and I think Obama is acting in the best traditions of American Exceptionalism in coming to their aid in their hour of desperate need.

          • http://islamsfatalflaw.blogspot.com/ BobSmith101

            I admire the Kurds too. Unfortunately they have also been infested with Islam.

            Islam is nothing but Arab colonialism under the disguise of religion. And Arab colonialism is quite hard to expel.

          • claspur

            He’s ‘aiding’ them? lol You haven’t been paying attention.

        • http://crownofkingnothing.blogspot.com/ King Nothing

          I was born in America, and he’s not MY president!

        • claspur

          Just need to check this… so, you’re cheering for what Obola has done and is doing to this country?

  • Cyrus Trance

    Islam is an evil ideology disguised as a religion.

    • http://crownofkingnothing.blogspot.com/ King Nothing

      With the goal of complete submission, and world domination.

  • Cyrus Trance
  • Elizabeth capecod

    Bill is smart enough that he should be able to see the writing on the wall: Liberals are the intolerant ones. It seems they have that affinity with muslims.

    • cree

      Yes, hopefully Bill’s intelligence will realize an epiphany about the futility of the utopian impossibility from leftist delusions.

      • Gordon Fraser

        Like a lot of these celebrity leftists I suspect it will come down to: ‘Have I had enough of fame and have I made enough money yet?’ Usually the answer would be: ‘It’s never enough’

  • Consider

    The kettle calling the pot Black!
    Maher was a villain for the right when he criticized religion in general ( and Christianty in particular) and now he becomes the darling of the right when he criticizes Islam (only)…

    • Gee

      I believe that he is a darling of the rights of Americans regardless of political affiliation.

      The bill of rights is not for leftists, or the right – but for all Americans period.

      • Consider

        I am only reffering to the opening paragraph of the article: “Bill Maher was a darling of the Left when he was criticizing Christianity,… etc.”
        Somewhat hypocritical.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Lecturing Charlie Rose was easier than lecturing socialist and islamofascist brown shirts at Berzerkly.

        • johninohio1

          Perhaps it’s hypocritical, but is it false? And what’s more important, being truthful or being perfect?

    • fmobler

      Not quite. It is possible to disagree with someone when they are wrong and agree with them when they are right. That does not signal hypocrisy.

      Maher’s earlier blanket caricature that ‘all religions are wrong for the same reason’ was not particularly welcome because it was so obviously wrong. And yet, many prominent conservatives (including Horowitz, the folks at the Weekly Standard, NR, and others) have maintained, correctly, that he has the right to say what he thinks (and HBO has the right to pay him, fire him, or do whatever they want to do with his show). Conservatives have consistently defended his rights, but not necessarily his ideas. Liberals used to defend just his ideas that they agreed with, and never (as we now know) his rights.

      How the liberal elite treated Christopher Hitchens was only a precursor to what is happening now.

      By the way, pots call kettles black sometimes. But only racist kettles call pots Black.

      • Consider

        Mocking of all relligions (or at least those which we are most exposed to) blanket or selective, is difinitely not wrong.
        I am tired of copy-pasting quotes from the Bible that prove that Christianity and Judaism are as much ‘religions of peace’ as Islam is.
        The only advantage of the former two is that their followers take them less seriously.
        Much less.

        • Captlee

          A severely stupid comment as is anyone who compares Christianity or Judaism with Islam.

          • Yehuda Levi

            I agree.

            It is another version of the moral equivalency argument (all religions as just as bad). This is absurd.

            Some religions are better than others.

          • Consider

            “Some religions are better than others.”

            How comes?
            Those from Apocalypto believed that their religion was the best…
            The assertion is absurd only in case that one accepts that religion is not the source of morality, and that moral standards lay outside religion.
            Something that definitely is not accepted on these pages.

  • margstar

    Yes, the leftists have decreed that they alone are the supreme judges of all speech. If they agree with it, it’s free and acceptable; if not, it’s hate speech and the speaker must be humiliated and shunned or worse.

    • Sheik Yerbouti

      Yes, this is ultimately what their rant is about.

    • Yehuda Levi

      Free speech includes hates speech.

      You can’t have one without the other.

      • coffee_now

        True.

        Of course, the leftists classify anything that a *conservative* says as “hate speech” (and that’s how they try to shut people up).

  • pennant8

    If Bill Maher does get to speak, he should scrap the traditional blather and adopt the role of a professor standing before his students. Maybe even bring along a blackboard as a prop.

    He should start out by saying “I am here today to deliver a lecture on the concept of empirical evidence, a subject many of you seem not to understand because nobody has ever explained it to you during your time here at the university. So let me try to squeeze it in here at the last minute before you leave the campus and go out into the real world.”

    • claspur

      …and don’t forget to bring-along a few ‘choice’ Religion O’ Peace head-lopping videos to the commencement.

  • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

    Maher got flack when right after 9/11 he said the perps weren’t cowards. If I remember correctly David Horowitz defended his right to say that and continue to be welcomed to the debate about terror. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

    Maher has been critical of all religion but has the honesty to single out Islam for special censure. He’s done this is the past; this is not new. If he sticks to his guns we should defend him vigorously. We may not always agree with Maher but he’s willing to debate and he’s honest.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Here is a video of Bill Maher on Charlie Rose.

      GREAT.

      Wait out the 30 second commercial and you can save time by jumping to the 8:30 mark – till 14:30 – or watch the whole 20 minute segment.

      http://charlierose.com/watch/60442899

      • I_Am_Me

        His epistemic arrogance means he’s going to be forever trapped on the Left.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Please watch the video.

          Bill Maher on Islam, is AKBARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

          To save 8 minutes, jump to 8:30.

          • I_Am_Me

            I saw that video a while back. Charlie Rose is a moron and a buffoon. Idiots like him will lead to many, many people getting killed by Islamists.

  • Gee

    I find it ironic that Ibrahim Hooper is closer to Paul Joseph Goebbels than Bill Maher is to the KKK

    • Harald Eigerson

      Not if you have even a passing familiarity with who Haj Amin Al Huesseni and Hasan Al Bana were, what they preached, and who they allied themselves with during WWII. Pro tip, one of their common friends was an Austrian painter who “dabbled” in politics.

      • SCREW SOCIALISM

        1941 The Grand Mufti meets Hitler
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSUEx1cKUlg

        • Harald Eigerson

          Thank you for the post. As good as the clip was, the related History Channel video Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was even better. Again I say thank you.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            This 30 second video of their meeting is useful to inspire further investigation.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Does the History Channel video show this clip???

            This clip is better than the poorly retouched picture of the two.

          • claspur

            Yeah, thanks for that vid.
            Never saw this one before, Harold.

      • barney59

        … and a connoisseur of dextroamphetamines…

      • Gee

        More than a passing familiarity

    • claspur

      Ibrahim ‘Doug’ Hooper used to run a Hotdog stand-around
      the UofM,. in Minneapolis. He’s just a radical Islamic dupe., an anti-American traitor with a suit and tie, representing an un-indicted co-conspiratorial organization called CAIR.

  • DontMessWithAmerica

    Get behind Maher and let’s book him in 50 universities.

    • claspur

      Problem with that-though is, what else will come out of his pie hole? ;o)

  • http://www.clarespark.com/ Clare Spark

    Few are taught about the German Romantic sources of “hate speech” and PC. See http://clarespark.com/2013/06/23/the-origins-of-political-correctness/: “The origins of political correctness.” (The first of two parts.)

    • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

      The link doesn’t work because you have an extra character, “:”, appended to the end. Delete the character and it works. Clare, might you go back even further to Rousseau?

  • SCREW SOCIALISM

    You left out Socialism – the enabler of the 3 you listed.

    1 Soviet Socialism
    2 National Socialism
    3 Red/Green Axis

  • trickyblain

    Be nice if the MSA explained where Maher is factually inaccurate in his criticisms.

  • barney59

    One wonders if this might be the catalyst for Maher’s “Hitchens” conversion?

    Not holding my breath, but who knows?

  • johninohio1

    I see no reason to accuse Ms. Sparks as you have. I read the blog article, and it seems to be academically objective and correct.

  • glpage

    Hopper has stated that he hopes Sharia will someday rule America. Form that statement alone it is obvious he has no interest in freedom of speech or religion. From that, in my lame opinion, he is a fascist. Given the affinity by Muslims for Hitler, he shouldn’t be upset by my opinion.

  • Del_Varner

    As I wrote in the comment section of another article about the same this, Bil better watch his back. He might become the victim of “sudden lone wolf jihadi syndrome”. Consider Theo Van Gogh.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Bill probably has security who pack heat.

      • I_Am_Me

        I hope he does, even if he’s a Bloomberg-esque gun control hypocrite. Maher can do a lot for the forces of freedom if this pisses him off enough.

  • coffee_now

    I’m from New Zealand and I can tell you that I *utterly despise* the left.

    The damage that they have done and are doing to the world is unforgivable.

    Their alliance with Islam, their “long march through the institutions” – the schools, universities and teacher-training (sorry – *indoctrination*) colleges and the media. Their brainwashing of the young. Their THEFT of the right to freedom of speech (you can now be convicted in Europe and the UK for criticising Islam). Their *obstruction* to better education of the young via charter schools.

    Universities – at one time the *guardians* of freedom of speech and thought – are now reduced to castles of cultural Marxism and “political correctness”.

    Scumbag leftists……

    • Yehuda Levi

      Yes, the left believes in free speech – with the exception of what they consider “hate speech.”

      In other words, they don’t believe in free speech at all. Never have, never will.

      • CosmotKat

        As David H says we need to define who and what they are (radical left wing extremists) and continue to shout it from the roof tops and drive them into the pits of hades where they belong. This is not just a battle for our country this is a battle for an enlightened civilization of which these leftist scum do not belong.

      • SCREW SOCIALISM

        The Lefts version of “free speech” and “anti-war” are Socialist “New Speak”.

        War = Peace
        Bad = Good.
        Socialism = Good.
        Islamofascism = Good.

  • Jack Schitt

    “Nothing in our faith says it’s OK to kill anyone.”
    (Ahmed Bedier of CAIR)

    “Slay the unbelievers wherever ye find them…”
    (The Quran, Verse 9:5)

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      That’s because according to the Koran, Infidels are not people, not innocent.

      • Jack Schitt

        Unlike Infidelophobia (Quranically-inspired hatred and fear of non-Muslims ), Islamophobia doesn’t involve dead bodies, but rather bruised Muslim feelings, which – according to the teachings of the faith – are far more important than the lives of infidels.

  • Dan Knight

    LOL, thank you Robert: Doing for Maher what no Leftist would do for you! Namely, to defend your enemy’s right to free speech. I completely concur, but must express my frustration: As usual, we seize the moral victory on the field of the soap box … while wondering if our children are the next to feel the Jack Boot.

  • Gordon Fraser

    Alexis de Tocqueville wrote this in 1838

    “Jihad, holy war is an obligation for all believers. The state of war is the natural state with regard to infidels. These doctrines of which the practical outcome is obvious are found on every page and in almost every word of the Koran. The violent tendencies of the Koran are so striking that I cannot understand how any man with good sense could miss them.”

  • joe kulak

    “Hoist by his own petard.”

  • Consider

    Nice words, but you are wrong about Jesus, both about what he said and what he did.

  • Hugh Vincelette

    The rant about leftist, progressive, liberal thinking is erroneous. I am a moderate to liberal. It depends on the issue. Anyone I know who is liberal in their perspective , including myself; would fully support Bill Maher’s right to speak at the ceremony.Free speech is an essential component of liberty.