The 9/11 Comments That Cost Bill Maher His Job
Author: Jon Martin | Saturday, September 11th, 2010 |
A week after September 11th 2001, Bill Maher sat down with his panel on ‘Politically Incorrect’ to discuss 9/11 but little did he know that his comments on this show would eventually get the show cancelled. During a debate about terrorists, Maher refused to call the terrorists cowards, Maher said the U.S was lobbing cruise missles from thousands of miles away and he thought that was more cowardly.
Maher’s comments sparked a huge controversy and soon advertisers began to pull out, in the show’s final months it struggled to find support but was eventually canned. In retrospect, I’m not sure Maher was looking at all sides of the issues. It takes balls to fly a plane into a building, but killing innocent people? Sorry, I can’t find a way to call that brave. There’s no doubt that America should not be lobbing cruise missiles from thousands of miles away but that’s no way to justify the killing of 3,000 innocent people.
“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”
Below is the entire interview, I recommend checking it out. It’s strange to look back and see how much our country was effected by the terror attacks. September 11th was so surreal, it was like watching a big-budget movie unfold on live television.
Some people believe the entire thing was staged and that the government either let it happen, or a la Operation Northwoods, created the entire situation as an excuse to go and invade the Middle East. Though I have a hard time believing our government would have killed 3,000 people, I have an inkling that we don’t know all the real facts about 9/11, though some day I bet we will.
PART 1
PART 2
- Bill Maher and Craig Ferguson Discuss Religion
- The View vs Bill Maher
- Bill Maher and Seth Macfarlane Talk Atheism and Gay Rights
- Bill Maher Hosts Muslim Fashion Show (Video)
- Bill Maher calls out Obama on Offensive Joke
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“Though I have a hard time believing our government would have killed 3,000 people”
Our government has killed millions around the world; many innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
""Sorry, I can’t find a way to call that brave. There’s no doubt that America should not be lobbing cruise missiles from thousands of miles away but that’s no way to justify the killing of 3,000 innocent people.""
This is one thing I hate about journalism. He never once said they were brave men, nor did he say that the terrorist's actions were justified. He simply stated that they weren't cowards because they put themselves in harms way rather than pressing a button.
We kill innocent people when we bombed Iraq, before the ground invasion. We did it by pressing buttons. Does that make us cowards? No. Then, does it make us brave? No. Not being one doesn't simply imply the other.
I agree with Steve. Just to add more to his comment, I feel that advertisers are too swept by their feelings when making decisions whether to stay or unplug, when Maher stated simply what he thought was true, which is that it takes no ordinary (but crazy) human beings to perpetrate 9/11. I mean, you have to admit, no normal person would even have the guts to pull off such catastrophic attack, directly head on.
Don't get me wrong, the term bravery should belong to men and women serving overseas on ground as medics and infantry who literally are under fire to protect lives of not only themselves but foreign civilians as well.
But if you think about the influence religion can have on people, not just Islam but also Christianity and other controlling religions in the world, that can even bring something as grotesquely imaginable as 9/11, religion should have no foothold on earth.
I meant intentionally kill their own innocent civilians in a organized and televised act of terror.
Bill is just looking at the other side. Many times people only look at issues from one point of view, when really there are thousands of other ways to see it.
An individual have to risk going too far to discover just how far an individual can truly go
Bill Maher is a cumstain.
CONTEXT, moron. He said "the US is cowardly, the terrorists aren't," IMMEDIATELY after 9/11. And the US wasn't "lobbing cruise-missiles" at any mid-eastern country.
That's taking their side, no matter how you slice it. I guess Maher doesn't care that Bin Laden wasn't on the jet when it sliced into 3,000 non-combatants, but tricked 19 stupid punks into doing it with promises of celestial reward. They're BARBARIANS, HELLO?
Maher is so out-of-touch with reality that he belongs in a padded cell, not given his own show to spew his contagious idiocy. He also defended sending Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, as if it's a free country and he'd be better off as a slave to Castro.
Maher is INSANE, and is only funny as a sideshow-freak of ignorance and insanity.
And Iraq was AFTER 9/11, STUPID.
Geez, no wonder you like Maher: morons defending morons.
Hitler said what he thought was true, as well– that doesn't mean anyone has to SUPPORT it.
So you think cowards can't be suicide-bombers? It's the most cowardly act there is, esp. since they BELIEVE they're going to get rewarded for it.
Islam is a PSYCHO-CULT– FACE IT. The biggest irony is that Maher is anti-religious, but he doesn't TOUCH Islam, the most psycho religion there is.
Brian & Brad, your logic is a bit skewed to put it lightly…..
On “Bravery” :.
This is one thing I hate about journalism. He never once said they were brave men, nor did he say that the terrorist’s actions were justified. He simply stated that they weren’t cowards because they put themselves in harms way rather than pressing a button.
We kill innocent people when we bombed Iraq, before the ground invasion. We did it by pressing buttons. Does that make us cowards? No. Then, does it make us brave? No.
Simply stating that suicide bombers are brave (rather than the opposite, cowards), is a statement one must dissect with a rational mind. In most instances the use of the word brave, is meant to describe as the dictionary defines it (in 3 ways)…..(as an adj.) “1. Possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance”, (or as a verb) “to meet or face courageously; to brave misfortunes.”,
It is also true that a “brave” action doesn’t constitute a moral or correct action. There is however two other definition for brave, also defined by the dictionary as “2. (noun) A Warrior, especially among North American Indian Tribes), 3. (adj.) excellent; fine; admirable”. (verb) to meet or face courageously; to brave misfortunes.
Both definitions are for the same word, I think it is convenient though how some jump to the conclusion of definition #3, instead of the more widely used definition of the word #1.
It is understandable that if someone calls suicide bombers as “excellent; fine; admirable“. One would be very disturbed, but this is not the case here. Also note that right and wrong are subjective terms depending on the audience’s culture & established ethical code under which the action is being scrutinized. A student of history knows this well, one group may classify another as religious extremists while that very same group may classify themselves as loyal followers of what they believe to be as the only way to obey their . In 1980 Regan called Russia the “Evil”, where they truly evil? Are Russians evil? I bet most Russians of that time would disagree, and most Russian politicians as well, probably arguing that they have the right to govern live by their rules and their own economic system. Was it evil, for Russia to acquire atomic bombs? What if Germany had completed the atomic bomb project before their brilliant Jewish scientists defected to the US? What if it was the US that sent spies to Germany and later developed the bomb to protect themselves against a possible threat from Germany? I’d be willing to bet that most “rational” people would deduce that it wouldn’t be “evil” but “right, or fair”, and “a matter of national security, or self defense”. My point is that the lines of right & wrong are typically skewed by who’s side one is on.
Had the rebels in the colonies not succeeded in defeating the British, the history books on this continent would describe Paul Revere & George Washington very differently…. Yet their motives & logic would have been the same, the only difference is the perspective in which their actions would’ve been viewed in, traitors like __ might have been written in the history books as great “whistle blowers” that helped secure colonies for the United Kingdom from guerilla rebels.
Case in point, Bush seemed to convince the whole country that God told him to invade Iraq, that there were WMDs there, most Americans believed him, and if anyone would have asked who was right the day before it was announce that no WMDs were there, and neither was Al-Qauida…. All those same people would have sworn that the US was right in invading. Hind site is 20/20, now most people have flopped, and admit that with the info we have now, what we thought was “right” is now considered “wrong”. Now we have an Iraq that is no longer the capable of being the balancing force against Iran, so thus Iran is a larger threat…
This exercise is not to upset anyone, or to state that any one view point is right over another, only to point out that Brave, means just that brave, and is not mutually inclusive of “right”, and history will decide, who was on the right, not you or me.
Note that this is the danger of intermingling religion and politics. The two should never mix, or that group will always be at odds with other groups that practice a different set of beliefs.
On Religion’s Role:
I agree with Kevin, religion (& I mean ALL of them) is an infantile (but mostly un-informative) way of attempting to explaining the once, mysteries of life, earth & the universe… Religion simply encourages people to stop asking questions, to ignore all logic and abandon scientific research and scholarly thought, and replace it with a simple childish explanation written, re-written, mistranslated, mis-interpreted, taken out of context by dozens of human scribes who had no connection to each other over hundreds of years. In a nutshell it tries (and throughout history succeeds) to simplify (or dumb down) the cosmos & evolution by claiming that a jealous and vengeful white bearded old man sits in a could, and listens to millions of people all at the same time, occasionally changing the course of nature by altering plate tectonics in order to punish a multitude of “wicked” sinners located in a certain part of the world, never mind the “god like” followers that are caught up as casualties in his wrath, but yet we are supposed to believe that he loves us! but if we don’t believe in him we’ll burn in hell for eternity, doesn’t matter if we are the nicest most caring, giving person in the world, if we don’t believe in him we will suffer for eternity….. Ha, ha, what a load of BS, still can’t believe I fell for that for so many years growing up.
The greater problem arises from those that know how to wield this false belief…. since religion causes people to NOT think “rationally” – all of a sudden everything is out the window… and even though these people “believe” they are doing “god’s work”, they are so blinded by faith, that they can’t see – not even for a moment, how hypocritical they are being. Many wars have been fought in the name of religion (Crusades), or under a different guise but still for differences in beliefs (Ireland)…Not to mention the death toll during peaceful times (Inquisition, Witch Trials to name a few). This happens mostly in Islam, Christianity and Judaism…. Especially when so many dangerous & terrible things are described and preached in the Bible & Koran, glorification of genocide, the backwards treatment of women, ridiculous punishments (stoning) for “mild” offenses (such as talking back to one’s parents, or picking up sticks on the Sabbath). Not to mention the fact that mainstream of Christians & Muslims choose to “ignore” a large part of the laws & teachings of these books, backed up by past generations of religious scholars who claim to have the “correct” interpretation” of scripture. If most Jews/Christians followed the bible to the letter, as many believe they should, we would be stoning people in the US for adultery. The popular argument by theologians has been that Christ intended (b/c he never said it if you read the New Testament), that the Old Testament laws were thrown out and replace by his teachings…. But that doesn’t jive b/c many so called sins that Christians preach against are only talked about in the Old Testament. Some of those that follow the scriptures word for word (literally) are now viewed as religious fanatics/extremist (or fundamentalists in the US). Another problem is that b/c the scriptures were written over hundreds of years by different unrelated scribes, then translated by very possibly faulty monks /scribes who may have had their own agenda, there is much contradiction and room for misinterpretation. Not to mention the fact that the books included in the bible differ depending where in the world you live, and were decided by appointees of emperor Constantine about 600 years after Christ supposedly lived. Dozens of books were thrown out & never made it to the bible b/c these (again quite possibly faulty scholars and maybe with their own political & religions agendas) deemed them unworthy of inclusion…..In contrast most eastern religions, although you really can’t call some of them even religions… more like moral codes, since they do not emphasize the worship of a god (save Hinduism) and they are not about “converting the wicked”…(I am referring to Taoism, Buddhism etc…). Look at fundamentalist Christians, who commit mass suicide, or the branch dividians, or those loons that kill Doctors at abortion clinics… I’m sure history in some near future will dub these doctor killers as “terrorists”….look at the American Taliban movement (If you don’t know what that is, do yourself a favor & look it up before automatically assuming they are Islamic & commenting). Religion can be wielded by those in power to do all sorts of unethical & unlawful things…. it happens in the US all the time, and of-course in the middle-east via Al-Qaida, Taliban etc…
In summary & to put it bluntly… bravery means having the balls to do something, that most people wouldn’t do because of fear of repercussion of physical harm – Kamikaze, throwing yourself on a grenade or suicide bomber (although all three seem rather crazy conclusions to arrive to) are all brave by definition, this doesn’t mean that they may also be stupid things to do… In fact the definition for brave mentions nothing about “stupidity” or any “mental state”. And religion is a waste for the intellectual mind – that should be used ofr the advancement of science, as there is nothing that Religion can backup with proof while science is built on proof. In short, Religion is a way for the few to control the many (gullible) … kids are brought up believing in Santa clause, the tooth fairy & god, and naturally believe it b/c their parents ingrain them with these beliefs. However, 2 of these beliefs, parents later admit are false, and the kids naturally believe them, however the latter god, is claimed to be true, and kids continue accepting this misguided information, just as their ancestors did about the sun god, mother nature & father time, the lochness monster & bigfoot – the startling fact is that no real proof has ever been presented for the existence of god that can’t be explained by modern science….yet it is alarming and almost scary that stories like the creation story, the virgin birth, the resurrection, and so many other miracles proclaimed in this book are truly believed by intelligent adults of the 21st century.
A wise man once said… Yesterday’s Religions are today’s mythological literature.
And here’s some other great quotes …
“The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” — Benjamin Franklin
All thinking men are atheists. — Ernest Hemingway
I don’t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life. — Andrew Carnegie
The most henious and the must cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives. — Gandhi
Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities. — Voltaire
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