Oh Lord—now Berkeley students want to ban a commencement address by Bill Maher

October 27, 2014 • 11:29 am

I always considered myself pretty much on the left politically. When the University of California at Berkeley had the Free Speech movement fracas back in the 1960s, in which students vehemently asserted their right to discuss political matters in public on campus, I was fully behind it.

But somehow, now, I feel like the left is closing circles and meeting the right.  The Free Speech movement at Berkeley has turned into this, according to yesterday’s Daily Cal (the student newspaper; my emphasis):

In response to an announcement last week that comedian Bill Maher would speak at UC Berkeley’s fall commencement, an online petition started circulating Thursday that demanded that the campus rescind its invitation.

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.

Maher, a stand-up comedian and host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, is best known for his often-polarizing political commentary. Recently, Maher faced some backlash after controversial remarks regarding Islam during a segment on his Oct. 6 show.

“It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus climate,” Navid said. “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.”

No, of course not. Only those people with Politically Approved™ viewpoints can have such a privilege. And God forbid that they criticize religion, for that’s bigoted and hateful.  Of course, if a left-wing speaker criticized Republican views on, say, fiscal policy or abortion, that would be fine. It’s the criticism of religious ideas (not religious people) that has become an act of bigotry. And it’s worse if the religious ideas are those of Islam.  The article continues:

Navid, however, said a different set of expectations must be held for a commencement speaker. According to her, Maher insults people of all religions and backgrounds.

“(Jon) Stewart and (Stephen) Colbert are critical of religion, too, but Bill Maher has, on several occasions, said to rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action,” Ahmed said.

Navid’s office launched a campaign called “Free Speech, Not Hate Speech” asking students to contact Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Helena Weiss-Duman, the director of external relations.

Get it: “Free Speech, not Hate Speech”? Doesn’t that sound so reasonable. But one person’s reasonable speech is another’s hate speech, and in a democracy they all should be heard.  Who is the arbiter of what is “hate speech”? Why, the fragile students of Berkeley, of course!

Navid and the members of MEMSA should grow up. You don’t need to agree with all of Maher’s views to recognize that a lot of what he says about religion is thoughtful, and, even if you don’t agree with him, he makes you think—and leads you to hone your own arguments if you want to remain a believer in belief.  These students are like little kids: stopping their ears and going “nyah nyah nyah nyah” when they hear something they don’t like.

When my own college class graduated in 1971, and the College of William and Mary chose as commencement speaker a right-wing politician (Thomas Downing, a congressman from southern Virgina), we didn’t demand his removal. Instead, we organized a “counter-commencement” featuring Charles Evers, the brother of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers. (Notice as well, that although I was valedictorian of that class, they didn’t let me give a valedictory address—the College had none in 1971 and 1972—because I was a known “radical.”)

If you don’t like who your college chooses to speak, oppose his or her speech with counter speech, but don’t try to prevent people from speaking. It’s the clash of opposing ideas that I found the most exciting part of college. The coddled and misguided students at Berkeley don’t recognize this, for they want to hear only the words that are soothing to their ears.

189 thoughts on “Oh Lord—now Berkeley students want to ban a commencement address by Bill Maher”

    1. In his celebrated little book, On Liberty, the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is ‘a peculiar evil’. If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the ‘opportunity of exchanging error for truth’; and if it’s wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in ‘its collision with error’. If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that; it becomes stale, soon learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth. Mill also wrote, ‘If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up as mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame.’ Jefferson made the same point even more strongly: ‘If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.’ In a letter to Madison, he continued the thought: ‘A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.’

  2. I don’t find Bill Maher likable but have never come across a remark of his that could rightly be deemed racist. Can anyone give me an example of Maher’s racist comments as defined by Marium Navid?

    1. These are her examples:

      Some examples of Bill Maher’s hate speech:

      Religions are maintained by people. People who can’t get laid, because sex is the first great earthly pleasure. But if you can’t get that, power is a pretty good second one. And that’s what religion gives to people. Power. Power is sex for people who can’t get or don’t want or aren’t any good at sex itself.

      Rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.

      “But I’ve often said that if I had – I have two dogs – if I had two retarded children, I’d be a hero. And yet the dogs, which are pretty much the same thing. What? They’re sweet. They’re loving. They’re kind, but they don’t mentally advance at all. … Dogs are like retarded children.”

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

        1. See the first line of Grania’s reply. She quoted you Navid’s examples of Maher being racist. If you don’t find them convincing…well neither do I. But that isn’t Grania’s issue.

        2. You asked for what they defined as racist comments by Maher. Those were the examples they gave in their petition. I agree, it is hard to see how they qualify as racist or hate speech, let alone to the degree that it merits Maher being muzzled. But clearly the petitioners think these examples speak for themselves.

      2. Good grief. Hate speech is about riling people up to go to something violent like, “hey, let’s all go behead apostates” or “you should kill Jews because they are bad” usually followed by organized efforts at doing so.

        And using language that some find offensive or vulgar isn’t hate speech either. People can be so delicate!

        1. I’m wondering when they say he has called for unspecified bogeymen to “rise up against religious people” they have mistaken “come out of the closet and assert themselves” as a call to arms.

          1. Yes probably. Maybe atheists should assert that Christians are out to get everybody because of “onward Christian soldiers”.

          2. I dunno. “Marching as to war” is nothing compared to people brazenly coming out of the closet and asserting themselves. Very threatening behaviour that, coming out of closets.

          4. True, people jumping out of closets is frightening. Especially if they are your closets in your own house and you didn’t know people were in there to begin with.

          5. Funnily enough I just got home from a reunion ( in Utah) with 8 other female high school classmates from The American School in Vienna. One of the stories we laughed about was when one night when my parents and brothers were out and one of the other ” girls” was over chez moi, we heard scary creaking, went up to my bedroom, and two of our male classmates ( good friends) jumped out of my closet.
            Scared the living hell out of us. Sneaky bastards…

          6. If people coming out of closets is scary, imagine the terror inside the closets. These students are clearly anti-wardrobist and should not be given privilege to speak at institutions of higher learning. Free speech, but only if they are mumbling to themselves in an empty room, or perhaps a walk-in closet.

      3. Reckon there should be a new course introduced for today’s uni students:

        “How to stop taking yourself so fucking seriously and learn to distinguish comedic piss-takes from real hate speech & racism – 101”

        (No feelings were harmed in the composition of this comment)

      1. And Maher – at least in the above quotes – doesn’t even address Islam explicitly, only Religion. Even more, there is one further quote of him about half of the Ten Commandments being stupid. Of course, if you check the statements of the people who signed, it’s almost exclusively Muslims who whine about being offended. Boo-hoo! And it goes without saying that Maher must be sexist, a bigot and Islamophobic. He’s also branded “liberal” and “rational” – that’s obviously intended to be an insult (and to religious people it might well be). Oh yes, and a last one because it’s so bloody telling: “Kaffirs like him shouldn’t have a platform”. Don’t they do basic IQ tests at Berkeley at all??

    3. there are several “arguments” here: http://billmahersucks.tumblr.com/

      the problem is none of the quotes they use seem to be racist. i haven’t gone through the whole blog. near the top they quip, “muslims who mistreat women should ‘f#$%ing go to hell'” is racist because he fails to mention americans. i would imagine that the sentiments and non-logics are similar among the MEMSA/berkley kids.

      1. The quotes I’ve listed above are the ones that they have handpicked to illustrate his “hate speech”. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.

        1. In America, people toss the word “hate” around casually. Right-wingers do it all the time: if you don’t support creationism, then you “hate” Christians; if you support gay marriage, then you “hate” The Family; if you criticize sexism, then you “hate” men; if you don’t worship The Flag, then you “hate” your country, and so on and so forth.

          Several years ago, Hispanics in Connecticut complained about a restaurant whose sign featured a caricature of a stereotypical Mexican; they called it a “hate crime.”

          Both the left and the right do this. The word “hate” is being diluted to meaninglessness.

  3. Freedom of Speech, but only to those I agree with.

    Bill Maher is an entertainer, and can be a complete berk at times. I do not know why any university would choose to invite an entertainer to give commencement addresses – other than the more usual candidates tend to bore everyone to death. But hate-monger? Only if you are delusional.

    Change.org may have been set up with the most noble of intentions, but it attracts every lunatic, twit and pants-wetter under the sun.

    1. I think it’s fairly common (in the US anyway) to have celebrities conduct commencement speeches.

      Yeah, I don’t see the hate either. Well, except that of the petition organizers, who hate what he has to say.

    3. Yeah, I could see opposing having him as commencements speaker under the grounds of wanting to set the bar higher than him, but claiming hate speech is absurd.

  4. Wow, now the bigots and racists and terrorist supporters are calling others (Maher, Stewart, Colbert) bigots and racists.

    If this wasn’t so dangerous it would be amusing.

    “(Jon) Stewart and (Stephen) Colbert are critical of religion, too, but Bill Maher has, on several occasions, said to rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action,” Ahmed said.

    Yes, they rise up to call out the terrorists who murder women, children and civilian men by decapitation and genocide. They call out the bigots and racists and mysogynists who base their less-than-human behavior mostly on their religion.

    1. The fact that the supposedly best and brightest are trying to shut down someone who criticizes religion, especially Islam recently, for sexism, homophobia, and murder for heresy and apostasy, makes me despair that Islam will reform any time soon.

      The brains of these kids haven’t finished growing yet, but there’s a serious flaw in their logic circuits at this point. I’m sure they’d oppose someone like Tony Perkins (Family First) too, but his views are moderate compared to Islam, which they’re defending.

      I think a speech by Bill Maher would be really entertaining and I would love to hear one.

      And while I’m at it, what’s this thing with people expecting public figures to always agree with them, or they stop admiring or even liking them? I like and admire Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne and others, but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say. I don’t get people actually getting angry because a person they respect offers a differing view.

      1. Yeah, I don’t agree with Jerry about dogs, cilantro, or zucchini but I don’t have a hissy fit about it or get all “offended”. How DARE he not like cilantro – lol.

  7. But somehow, now, I feel like the left is closing circles and meeting the right. The Free Speech movement at Berkeley has turned into this, according to yesterday’s Daily Cal (the student newspaper; my emphasis)…

    Berkeley has been this way for at least 20 years.

    In the early nineties students prevented the Free Speech Club from bringing a holocaust denier in to speak. Some of the protests against the speaker were perfectly reasonable and fully got my support. Candlelight vigils remembering holocaust victims, calls to not attend, calls to attend and challenge him (yeah I know the last two are contradictory, but I’m saying I’m supportive of either tactic as potential responses to a speaker), and so on. However, a number of students also blockaded the building and parking lot, preventing him from even being able to get to the event. And THAT form of protest is beyond the pale. Particularly given the nature of the club – you pretty much know they’re going to invite controversial speakers, it’s in the nature and title of the club. Preventing a campus free speech club from bringing in controversial speakers pretty much means you’ve missed the point of the free speech club.

    1. ” However, a number of students also blockaded the building and parking lot, preventing him from even being able to get to the event.”
      This sort of behaviour was also common at “White” South African universities during apartheid. I think the South African students had a better case than the muslim/lefty students at Berkeley. The apartheid government tried to silence freedom of speech at “White” English speaking universities. The “White” Afrikaner universities would never have invited someone with contentious views, or decidedly right-wing views.

    2. In the last couple of decades both Berkeley and Stanford have had their fair share of political correctness taint or even retract freedom of speech. If anything falls under the radar as culturally relativistic it usually ends in descent and retreat and the category of ‘let’s not talk about that’.

      As hurtful as some things are, ignoring race, religion, or gender is not aways the best solution even if slander is invoked to engender the discussion.

  8. When my daughter graduated from William and Mary law school in the late 90s, they invited Orrin Hatch (R, Utah) to be the commencement speaker. Everyone just put up with it. He gave a terrible speech full of partisan attacks on President Clinton, some very old stale lawyer jokes, and the usual meaningless commencement speech blather. Having once lived in Utah, I did make a few comments about my opinion on the speaker choice to my wife, only to find out that Hatch’s wife was sitting right in front of us.

    I don’t always agree with Maher, but at least he is well spoken and funny.

  9. 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.

    Well on the plus side, Berkeley has 25,000 undergrads and and 10,000 grad students, so the petition represents about 4% of the student body. Even being generous and only counting the undergrads (because the grad students care far less about the all-school ceremony part of commencement…none of the ones I knew even attended it), it’s less than 6%.

    1. The question should be: how many of the Muslim students signed it?
      What percentage of Muslims going to University (supposedly the enlightened elite) support this anti freedom of expression, hold these bigot views, are excessively defensive of Islam, would like to see blasphemy laws, consider the cartoon riots more or less justified, etc. etc.?
      The Pew polls (posted earlier on this site) lead us to believe that that number would be far from insignificant, possibly even a majority.

      1. My own personal experience tells me it’s most likely the far left liberals on campus driving this effort, as extreme political correctness would not be out of the ordinary for Berkeley.

        Note also that even at a mere 4%, the number of signees is much higher than the expected muslim student population of Berkeley, which going by PEW’s numbers for US demographics should be about 210. So whether or not most of the muslim student body supports it, this is probably not a predominantly muslim protest.

  10. “But somehow, now, I feel like the left is closing circles and meeting the right.”

    Some thoughts – I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. As a progressive liberal it’s felt like these people were pushing me to the right, as I couldn’t sympathize with their views and tactics.

    I don’t think this is the case however (that is, I’m not being pushed to the right), and I feel that these people aren’t progressive liberals, they’re the authoritarian left and, being so driven ideologically, have more in common with the religious right than the progressive left. For example, their ideology seems to trump reality, their unwillingness to engage in rational discussion, their misrepresentation and marginalization of those whom don’t agree with them 100%.

    I see their tactics in the atheism/skepticism movement, in gamergate, and now in incidents with Bill Maher (and a while back with Ayaan Hirsi Ali) – and others – the end is listless.

    There was an article that appeared a few weeks ago (sorry I can’t remember the title or source) about the moderate left and moderate right finding common ground and addressing these kinds of extreme tactics. I think that’s a good thing. Anybody remember the article?

    2. That’s pretty much the case. People for a while now have conflated left-wing with liberal (or “progressive”, which is in fashion but adds nothing over the correctly applied meaning of “liberal”). People forget that authoritarianism and totalitarianism are not picky about where they live, and both have homes on every end of any political spectrum you care to conceive of. For example, the “communism” and “socialism” of Stalin and Hitler were manifestly left-wing ideologies. But only a fool would call those regimes liberal.

      The prominent examples in our society today, of left-wing ideologies that reject reason in favor of dogma would be feminism and “social justice” (both of which are embodied in Atheism+). I hasten to add that I don’t mean dictionary feminism, which is supposed to be concerned with equal rights for women (which I support entirely). I mean actual feminism, as it’s taught in academia and lobbied for by feminist organizations.

      Quite apart from the havoc they’ve played in the atheism/skepticism movements (building for years and set off by Elevatorgate), and the current fracas with computer gaming called GamerGate, they’ve also been modifying laws for decades in distinctly illiberal ways, attacking due process and free speech.

      Facts only interest them when they support their dogma, or can be dishonestly presented as doing so (e.g. presenting an overall wage gap across all jobs as demonstrating unequal pay for the same work).

      Anyone who points out real facts that don’t jive with the dogma is labelled a sexist, misogynist, bigot, neo-con, or some other term of endearment utterly at odds with the person’s actual character.

      It’s often pointed out by those in the atheist community that moderate religious believers support extremism when they fail to denounce the excesses of their radical co-believers. I agree with that, and think the same principle should apply to actual liberals with regards to the radicals with whom we share proximity the political left.

      Just as moderate believers (most especially in Islam) remain silent in fear of the backlash that public criticism of the extremists would certainly engender, many genuine liberals who are aghast at the excesses of the dogmatic left say nothing, for entirely justified fears of being metaphorically tarred and feathered by the mob. Consider how Dawkins was treated for his entirely sensible Muslima comment. And Jerry has already admitted to staying mostly silent on such issues because of these fears, present post excepted.

      The only recourse I can reconcile with my conscience is to call bullshit wherever I see it, and always examine my conclusions when someone reasonable calls bullshit on me. Probably the trickiest part is to make sure “reasonable” never becomes conflated with “agrees with me”.

      1. Well put. Any group of thinkers is susceptible to groupthink, and groupthink has a nasty way of turning to tyranny of one form or another. Worse, even legitimate and minor disagreements get amplified to the point that natural allies become deadly foes. We’re seeing some very disturbing examples of that not only from the political left but within the ranks of the godless even….

        b&

      2. Thanny, I’ll call bullshit on you. You write:

        “For example, the “communism” and “socialism” of Stalin and Hitler were manifestly left-wing ideologies.”

        One can interpret that sentence charitably and hope that you did not really mean that Hitler’s NSDAP was Socialist, given a rose-tinted context. But I cannot see how it can be done. The only accurate letter in the Nazi party’s name is the ‘P’: it was a party.

        National? No. The Nazis never won over working-class Hamburg, And many other regions. Socialist? No. The Socialists (and Communists) were among the first imprisoned in concentration camps. Deutsche? No. Its leader was Austrian and the Jews, Romas, gays and disabled as much, if not more, German as Adolf. Arbeiter? No. Independent Trades Unions were banned.

        In 1914 the German SDP was the largest working-class political party in the world. By 1934 it no longer existed.

        It is hard to know where to begin to refute your claim. It is wrong everywhere. And, if you meant it as it reads, an absolute disgrace. x

        1. Could you please moderate your language. “Calling bullshit” on someone isn’t exactly what I’d call civil, nor is your last sentence. Just offer criticism without the editorializing like that, please.

          2. Clever. Here I was thinking 8675309 would be amusing as every time *someone saw my car, they’d get an ear but & mutter, “Damn you Tommy Tutone!”

            * in generation x mostly

          7. Ben… I think Rush Limbaugh would be an example of a mouth butt. His listeners would be ear butts.

          8. Ben… I think Rush Limbaugh would be an example of a mouth butt. His listeners would be ear butts.

            Could be…but with all the rectocranial inversions, it can be hard to tell….

            b&

          15. Jerry, normally I use very moderate and considered language, and I do apologize to you when you consider that I have lowered the tone. However, my comment re: “I’ll call bullshit on you…” is in response to Thanny’s comment at the end of his/her piece, “The only recourse I can reconcile with my conscience is to call bullshit wherever I see it, and always examine my conclusions when someone reasonable calls bullshit on me.” Hence my uncharacteristic use of an expletive, picking up on his/her vocabulary.

            I do not agree with you regarding your ‘editorializing point’. I honestly do think, and the vast majority of historians would agree with me, that it is a complete calumny to associate Hitler and all he stood for with Socialism. It really should be viewed as disgraceful, and academically untenable to even posit the idea.

            Btw. I normally post as Dermot C. However, having recently set up a wordpress website, I cannot find a way to post as Dermot C, rather than strummingstrings: technological ineptitude, I’m afraid. x

          16. I took no offense whatsoever at that particular turn of phrase (“calling bullshit”). It’s what I explicitly invited. Nor do I consider offense to me any grounds for any kind of imposition of silence on my behalf. To the contrary, I’m rather offended that anyone would be silenced to spare my feelings. It’s your non-blog website, though, and it’s not my intention to second-guess your standards.

            I do reject the assertion that anything I said was an absolute disgrace.

            The whole notion of left wing versus right wing is fairly nebulous (based, as it is, on a historical accident of seating arrangements in one particular government body), and I’m perfectly willing to adjust my interpretation given evidence.

            I do freely admit that the Nazis had a lot of views that are more consistent with traditionally right-wing ideals. But it was a socialist movement in many respects (deny that at your peril), and socialism is something that grew out of the left.

            That’s part of the reason why I consider it preferable to focus on authoritarianism and totalitarianism (I’m a pretty fast and accurate typist, but the world will be that much fuller of joy if I never have to type that word again), rather than some inevitably arbitrary two-dimensional scale.

            Given that the minutiae of how to describe the travesty of the Nazi party is the only criticism I received from this particular individual, I can only assume that that was the most important point of contention. Or, to be charitable, the only readily defensible point.

          17. What authoritarian example can you give for Atheist+?

            Sure, they argue about what speakers ought to be invited or not invited at privately-funded meetings. That is their right. That sort of internal discussion is every group’s right. I don’t see anything particularly authoritarian in it. They are not trying to get the government or UC Berkeley or any other similar institution to fire some unpopular-with-A+ speaker, are they?

          18. Hitler used the word “Socialist” in the name of his party because it was the most popular political movement in Germany at the time and he wanted to capitalize on that.

            Anyone who has been on the sharp end of Atheism+ on Twitter knows how awful they can be. People are attacked for using certain words and followers told to unfollow them, for example. They keep lists of atheists other atheists shouldn’t follow and even have a ranking system within that list. There are many on those lists for the stupidest (imo, of course) reasons, and many people on those lists whose comments I enjoy. They are frequently nasty and bullying towards other users despite insisting that is behaviour they are opposed to. I personally have no time for them.

          25. Who you callin’ a grouch!?

            …though, come to think of it…the minus could be a cigar…which might or might not be just a cigar….

            b&

          1. To the point that anti-communist groups in Europe and the US celebrated the rise of Hitler because they thought that he’d be able to help curb the spread of communism in Eastern Europe.

            Which is pretty darned ironic if you think about it.

          2. A lot of conservatives insist that the Nazis were left-wing. “Hitler favored a strong central government and so do liberals. That makes Hitler a liberal.”

          4. That makes Hitler socialist, not liberal.

            Which is not to say that socialism itself is in any way bad. Which is pretty much my entire point. My own views are to a great degree socialist. I’m of the opinion that no one born to this world should ever be subjected to starvation or dying of exposure. I support any system of taxation that prevents that from happening, along with any incentives (that don’t threaten the removal of said basic security) to encourage people to move beyond mere subsistence to make a life worth living for themselves.

            I don’t accuse you specifically of calling me a conservative, but the absolute worst assumption one might take from your response should be amply rebutted by my statement above.
            The same worst-case-interpretation (which, again, I don’t attribute to you – assuming the least charitable interpretation of someone’s statement is another one of those things I abhor) serves as a good example of the kind of othering that Jerry’s post is fundamentally about. Maher says this, so he’s a worthless piece of scum.

            For the record, I find Maher to be exceptional when talking about religion, adept when talking about politics, and a complete tool when talking about food or medicine. I refuse to eject him from my roster of people worth hearing simply because of my strong disagreement with him on the latter issues.

          5. I don’t really care about the divide between liberals and conservatives, nor do I see either as tainted if they somehow included a nefarious person among their ranks, such as Hitler (btw I don’t think today’s liberals or conservatives can say he belonged to either current ideology).

            What I do care about is the accurate understanding of history, the understanding of what fascism and socialism are and that socialism isn’t all bad. I live in what could be called a largely socialist country and I probably owe my current well being to that. To Thanny’s point, yes totalitarianism is what people really are seeing when they see Hitler or Stalin, not the underlying ideologies of fascism or communism.

            I just had a thought that if I were Sam Harris right now, I’d be called a socialist Nazi imperialist or something.

          6. They also like to claim that Hitler was a liberal because he favored gun control.

            Curiously, I don’t see too many of them trying to point out his like of d*gs or vegetarianism, though.

  11. “You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

    Sometimes I think my generation (high school ’65; college, ’69, graduate school, 1970s) failed to leave a legacy to the youth of today, and this is where it all winds up.

    Free speech has never been free, its something that has to fought for, and if the college kids of today don’t fight for it, I suspect no one will. What a downer!

    1. You are someone of my exact generation. Student activism in the late 60s-early 70s was completely different to the modern generation.

  12. An acquaintance at the LSE tells me this about what I think was the Jesus ‘n’ Mo tee-shirt débâcle ooh…18 months or so back, was it? The only political group to support the group who wore pictures of Mohammed were the Tories. All the left groupuscules backed the offended Muslims. That’s the measure of how the left has degenerated on this issue, as Jerry points out.

    And it really saddens me: the most charitable interpretation you can put on it is that people don’t want to offend others. But this mulish surrendering of your own critical faculties is becoming a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who criticizes anything beyond the usual – imperialism, capitalism etc. In Britain, you are often assumed to be a Daily Mail supporter if you criticize Islam. Many on the left assume that you are a charlatan if you do: and it takes a lot of argument to establish your good faith (pardon me).

    On an absurd related note, the same LSE source told me that the Palestine Solidarity Organization and the Socialist Workers’ Party organized a stunt: to protest the Palestine situation, they built an apartheid-type wall across the Students’ Union Bar. The Israeli Society came in and smashed it to pieces. Irony really is lost on some people. x

  14. Tim Minchin would be a great speaker to have.

    However, I think the real issue in having a guest speaker for a commencement address is that they should be inspirational and focus on the positives of science, rationalism and skepticism. The current focus on Bill Maher is with his condemnation of Islam, I don’t think that any speech that dwelt on the negatives of religion would be that helpful. But there would be no reason to ban him if he was to address a meeting of secular students where the specific topic of the downsides of (a) religion were being discussed.

      1. This is my favourite part because he has the same opinion as I do and that makes me glad:

        By the way, while I have science and arts grads in front of me: please don’t make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don’t have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write beautiful things.

        If you need proof: Twain, Adams, Vonnegut, McEwen, Sagan, Shakespeare, Dickens. For a start.

        You don’t need to be superstitious to be a poet. You don’t need to hate GM technology to care about the beauty of the planet. You don’t have to claim a soul to promote compassion.

        Science is not a body of knowledge nor a system of belief; it is just a term which describes humankind’s incremental acquisition of understanding through observation. Science is awesome.

        The arts and sciences need to work together to improve how knowledge is communicated. The idea that many Australians – including our new PM and my distant cousin Nick – believe that the science of anthropogenic global warming is controversial, is a powerful indicator of the extent of our failure to communicate. The fact that 30% of this room just bristled is further evidence still. The fact that that bristling is more to do with politics than science is even more despairing.

        Incidentally, I saw Steven Pinker Friday night at the Toronto Reference Library and he said that solos in universities were created for the convenience of deans. 🙂

      1. My thought exactly. In interviews, Maher touches on a number of topics; he isn’t just a one-trick pony. And some of the things he discusses show more than a little forethought.

  15. How are commencement speakers selected to begin with? If students are having to sign petitions in protest to whoever is selected, why not just have the students vote for who they want to begin with?

  16. “Bill Maher has, on several occasions, said to rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action”

    To my recollection, and I follow Bill Maher’s work pretty closely, he has never made anything that a reasonable person would construe as a call to action. And if she thinks the non-religious refusing to be timid is “rising-up” then maybe it’s Ms. Navid who is being intolerant.
    I’ve been a liberal my entire life and more and more I feel like a man without a country. The Greenwald’s and Uygur’s of the world aren’t defending liberalism, they’re burning it to the ground and they’re pissing on the ashes.

    1. “I’ve been a liberal my entire life and more and more I feel like a man without a country. The Greenwald’s and Uygur’s of the world aren’t defending liberalism, they’re burning it to the ground and they’re pissing on the ashes.”

      +1

  17. This is depressing. It looks like the situation will continue to get worse, but occasionally I see signs of hope.

    I believe the alliance between the far left and Islam is mostly a marriage of convenience. On most issues, they have nothing in common. If it weren’t for theological differences and xenophobia, the Christian right and Islamic right(a very underused phrase) would be best friends. In fact, that kind of alliance seems even scarier.

    This isn’t a relationship that can last forever.

    1. I believe the alliance between the far left and Islam is mostly a marriage of convenience.

      An alliance suggests the left get something out of this arrangement.

      1. They get the Muslim vote, though it hardly matters in most parts of the U.S. This makes more sense in some European countries. But more importantly, the far left just gets to feel better about themselves by putting down those evil racist Islamophobes.

  19. Speaking of people being called racist, I found a short interview with one of our favourite faux racists, Sam Harris, from 4 years ago. Sam says nothing fundamentally different from what he said on Bill Maher’s show and he clearly differentiates between Muslims who choose to ignore the more pernicious parts of their doctrine and the doctrine of Islam itself. I sent it to a friend of mine who was interested in some of these ideas. I just found it amusing that Sam only recently started taking the kind of heat he is taking and has his opinions warped beyond recognition.

    1. Ewww – the interview is all racist and gross! (just kidding)

      Succinct interview. Yes, indeed, it’s interesting that it’s happening now. The fashionable targets are known and, partly because of their nuanced positions, easily misrepresented.

      People like Reza Aslan have bills to pay after all, and what easier way than to take un-nuanced and dishonest positions on important topics. I mean, really, what’s to be had from honest conversation?!

    2. Sam is breaking in to the big time; he twittered that he is going to talk with Zakaria soon, who wrote this piece on CNN:

      http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/26/opinion/zakaria-islam-problem/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

      Hopefully this will give him a chance to counter Reza Aslan, who posted this CNN piece:

      http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/26/opinion/aslan-islam-doesnt-cause-terrorism/index.html?iref=allsearch

      Also in TV drama, The Good Wife on CBS is a candidate for state attorney general and she is an atheist. The show is raising the role of religion in politics and I don’t doubt that the dust-up on the Bill Maher show and websites such as this one are being seen by the show’s writers. So I think we are in the midst of a revolution…

      1. In reporting on these two Canadians who killed the soldiers (with one attempting to shoot people in parliament), a new term seemed to be introduced in the media, “self radicalization”. It seems almost an attempt to distance the so-called radicalization from any group. I’ve been fancying it up a bit & calling it “auto-radicalization”.

        1. There’s nothing new about the term, I’ve heard it (mostly right-wing commentators) back as far as 2002-2003 to describe that American who tried joining the Taliban after 9/11.

          2. Well, in my case it was because at the time I had a delivery job working with a guy who refused to turn the radio to anything other than Rush Limburger.

  20. Awwww- c’mon! They just wanna hear something that they can “resonate” with!

    Like cockroaches, the true tenets of Islam run from a light: the very fact that its supporters try so vehemently to smother any attempt at rational examination or criticism ought to be a giant “red flag” to anyone curious about its validity as a belief system. The fact that it doesn’t is direct evidence of just how bone-headed seemingly intelligent people can be! What’s that old saying? “If you open your mind too far, your brains fall out!”

  21. I don’t understand why people who cant understand that “Muslim” is not a racial characteristic are defined as being “far-Left” or of any political wing.

    They’re just complete and utter idiots, aren’t they?

    1. Just a random thought:

      How do dead people do grave rolling after they’ve been cremated?

  24. The problem comes when the University invites truly objectionable people to speak. I certainly wouldn’t try to prevent people from speaking, but I find it objectionable that my institution should pay Christopher Monckton and similar a significant sum of money to speak about FEMA concentration camps that are going to sterilise and kill us all and I can see why some people would react like that even if it is misplaced.

  26. Once more I must confess myself confused.

    Why do American universities have commencement speeches by famous, expensive people in the first place? Why does anybody have to say anything political in that context at all? Abolish the entire pratice, problem solved.

    Also, if they are, as I appear to understand, given when students are graduating, why are they called “commencement speeches”? Isn’t commencement a synonym of beginning as opposed to leaving?

    2. Does “graduation commencement speech” sound better? I understand it to be a speech that starts off (commences) the graduation ceremony. Although I certainly could be wrong, since I never went to college and graduated high school in July…(summer school) lol. Unlike another poster here, I was the polar opposite of valedictorian.

  27. It’s sad but a lot of the moral outrage I see from both sides of the left/right divide is what others here have said – not about truth or empathy, but about self-righteousness. “I’m more religious – I’m more tolerant, but I’m more moral, but I’m more enlightened”, over and over again. Less about being more enlightened and more about being perceived as such. To be perceived as more open minded, the common approach is to be offended on behalf of others, who no doubt are perfectly able to be offended by the things they actually care about without the help.

  28. Well, this will obviously give more fodder to Maher’s platform. I hope to hear his take on it; I’m sure he’ll have a sound rebuttal. It plays right into what his critiques about the intolerance of religion are all about. Thanks for proving his own point MEMSA.

    Last week’s show he and Cornel West went ’round and ’round again about the same issue like Harris and him two weeks before. Like Affleck, Mr. West was unable to break from the liberal pc stance. He wasn’t as petulant as Affleck, but he still used the same tired arguments of you have to “love and respect other people and their religion.” And it’s not the religion’s fault that murdering fanatics exist. blah, blah, blah. The inability to use logic and common sense while looking at the facts to establish that Islam creates destructive and violent people is beyond me. Then adding that “moderate” or “liberal” Muslims don’t condone the fanatics’ actions is denial, plain and simple. Even educated and intelligent people like Mr. West are blinded by their own religious bias.

    I hope Bill Maher continues speaking up about the Islam problem and the religious problem in general.

    Give ’em hell Mr. Maher!

    2. Basically, Maher has to calmly explain that while he is willing to extend courtesy to religious people (insofar as a comic who makes fun of people for a living can) and respect their right to have an opinion, he really doesn’t respect their opinion, i.e., he doesn’t respect religion. On the other hand, how can anyone sit on Maher’s show and not know that already?

  29. If Mark Twain or Voltaire were alive today, I’m guessing they’d be protested as well. Whatever happened to “I do not agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”? On the other hand, why would anyone want a famous satirist to deliver a commencement address that is entertaining and without banalities? It might wake up the audience.

    1. Whatever happened to “I do not agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?

      It’s been replaced with “shut-up or I’m telling”.

    2. Just saw two lawyers on Charlie Rose debating the Met Opera’s decision not to simulcast The Death of Klinghofer by John Adams.

      1. What’s to debate? Minimalist operas are well known to induce psychotic breaks even in qualified musicolologists. Broadcasting something like that where just anybody could stumble on it without warning, let alone preparation…I shudder at the thought!

        b&

  30. (Notice as well, that although I was valedictorian of that class, they didn’t let me give a valedictory address—the College had none in 1971 and 1972—because I was a known “radical.”)

    I would imagine that, among your many achievements, that must count, if not among those of which you are most proud, among those with which you are most pleased.

    1. And wouldn’t we like to hear more about that incident? 😉

      Congrats on being the Valedictorian, Jerry!

  31. You got nothin’ on me. Spiro Agnew was the speaker at my graduation.

    As for Maher, anyone who’s taking flak from the Puritans on both the right and left of the political spectrum must be doing something right.

    1. OMG, that’s funny!

      Well, at least you remember who it was. I have no idea who spoke at mine.

  32. I believe Jerry’s comments pretty well covered it. Having the kiddies determine who it is they want to listen to and who they do not is just garbage. If they think Bill Maher is too much controversy that is too bad.

    I am offended every 4 minutes another political add is on the TV. Let’s do something about that. I’m pretty sure those little kids would find George Carlin just too much for their ears as well.

  33. I am a “Christopher Hitchens” atheist: it is totalitarianism I dislike. I also hate those that whitewash totalitarianism.
    If some left winger wants to stiffle free speech I have a problem with that even if I agree with his other beliefs.

  34. I’m disgusted with this group of Berkeley students and others who may, more or less, agree with them. I was there in 1958 doing graduate work just before the rise of the free speech movement. This is not the intellectual student body I remember.

    My ex-wife was there the following year as an undergrad during the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in San Francisco and the student protests against those hearings. She came away with a documentary recording of the hearings and student protests made by radio station KPFA (a station that aired no commercials and existed solely on listener donations). The recording documented the police beatings of protestors (at least one person was thrown down a flight of stairs). It also carried extensive excerpts of testimony taken from inside the hearings by witnesses, eloquently denouncing the hearings and Congressmen involved. Very dramatic.

    Years later, I used to play excerpts from this recording to my mass media classes, incidentally, during the Vietnam War protests. My students were quite impressed. Unfortunately, I no longer have the recording but I can say these present day Berkeley students can’t hold a candle to the students I remember.

    1. It is rather troubling, isn’t it? At a time where America has tightened government controls because of fear of terrorism, police are exercising extraordinary powers and the media is going to crap, the last thing everyone needs is for the people, especially the young people, the start censoring ideas.

  35. Insult a religion and now its racism…..
    Imagine what we would have heard if he’d mocked Christianity….wait, yup CRICKETS…NOTHING AT ALL

  36. Whatever happened to the liberal ideal of disagreement by argument? Shame, really, that we are so willing to give in to outrage that we are left impotent when that comes full circle.

    I remember seeing another article on this issue where one of the offending quotes supposedly damning Bill Maher was him saying at least half of the 10 commandments were silly. Ignoring for a moment how a statement about the quality of a set of commandments could be considered bigoted, is Maher even wrong? Commandments 6 through 9 are the only really sensible ones, with a loose interpretation of 5 (honouring father and mother) having some utility. The rest are beyond stupid.

  37. I have to disagree with you here. This has nothing to do with kids growing up.
    This is pure and unadulterated Islamism. For these people it is one of their highest priority to control what can be said and what can’t be said in public. Because anything negative said about Islam could hinder its spread.

    And the left falls for it every single time and even those who disagree with this curbing of speech don’t realize the agenda bhind it.

    1. I agree with you 100%. No criticism of Islam can be contemplated because it would curb the spread of the Islam disease, and get people to actually think about what is in the Quran and hadiths, and not just blindly accept what the imam tells them at mosque.

  38. As Christopher Hitchens said in a Canadian debate, it is not about the right of an individual to have a forum in which to voice his controversial stands but rather it is about the right of the public to hear his controversial stands. I have a right to have my preconceptions challenged.

  39. All students who signed this petition should be immediately summoned to after school detention to write on the chalkboard:

    “It is not my right to not be offended by speech.”

    “It is not my right to not be offended by speech.”

    “It is not my right…”

    I’d prescribe a number of times but it’s probably best to just repeat until it sinks in.

  40. I see one of the trending petitions on change.org is to save a “Pakistani mother from death sentence for blasphemy.” A little ironic, no?

      1. And Heather, I’d say that’s entirely consistent. I did the same thing, feel the same way. And I really do feel that way, very strongly.

        And then there’s the thing: I go over to the Panda’s Thumb website, and there’s an entry on a creationist group at, I think, the University of Michigan that is using school space to present a day-long conference on creationism, blaming evolution for the Holocaust. Now in my mind there is still a huge difference between this travesty and having Maher speak at a commencement. But how exactly could I articulate what I hold the difference to be, apart from loving Maher (mostly) and hating creationism? That’s not an entirely rhetorical question. If someone has an idea how to express the real difference, I’d love to learn how to do that better.

        1. The difference is that Maher’s viewpoint has not been adequately tested in the marketplace of ideas. Maher’s opponents really demonstrated that he’s a racist? Have they debated the proposition and supported their views with evidence the falsity of his claims and the truth of theirs? Have Harris and Maher evidence to support their contention that, at least a significant fraction of the time. religion is at the root execrable behavior of Muslims?

          Creationism is dead – as a scientific proposition, there is no “there” there. And it was as dead as phlogiston even by the 1930’s – with the intellectual credibility of Dr. Suess. The idea that evolution is responsible for the Holocaust is similarly ludicrous. Look at the virulently antisemitic views of people like Martin Luther, for example, and no reasonable person could conclude that Darwin had more influence on the actions of Nazis and willingness of German people to at least look the other way than Luther.

          The difference, then, is that schools and universities should pass on having creationists as speakers because there comes a point where some ideas should be buried once for all. We don’t keep revisiting Ptolemy’s model of the solar system – it’s just too inefficient too keep utterly discredited ideas alive or the human race will become intellectually paralyzed.

  41. The “Right” (or “conservative”) has had the tradition of criticizing minority groups. So in order to show which team you support (the “Left” or “liberal”), you have to support the groups that the “Right” criticizes. It doesn’t matter what the substance of the criticism is. It’s just basic ingroup/outgroup bias.

    If someone on the “Left” criticizes the same groups that the “Right” criticizes, this banishes them in the outgroup. This is why the “Left” will never get up in arms about the things that radical Muslims say about women (because that job is taken care of by the “Right”) but when #GamerGate-ers say many of the same things, since GamerGaters are part of a “privileged” class, then to show which group you support (i.e. the “Not Right”) you have to criticize the GamerGaters in many of the same ways that the “Right” criticizes Muslims. Muslims, of course, are more than happy to co-opt the “Left’s” ingroup bias blind spot to, yet again, support their Muslim ingroup.

    All of your pet causes are belong to ingroup bias.

    We eat, sleep, and breathe ingroup bias. It’s baked into our cognition. And if you identify strongly with a particular group (i.e., “gamer”, “feminist”, “conservative”, “liberal”, “American”, “black”, “white”, “male”, “female”, etc.) that magnifies the effect immensely; you will pretty much have no choice but act in a biased, irrational (or totalitarian!) manner supporting your ingroup. Ingroup bias is like a fish discovering that water exists… but only pointing out water-breathing in other fish.

    2. It’s gotta be a lot simpler to operate on the basis of ingroup bias. I’d love to see more issues as black & white, rather than the insoluble gray areas they always seem to be.

  43. No, it’s pretty much just the left that bans speakers it doesn’t agree with.

    I’m not even sure you can find.

    I’m not even sure anyone of the right has ever gotten enough of a following to actually ban anyone.

    Assuming you scour every corner of the internet to find at least one example where someone who supports the right wing has actually tried to get a speaker they disagreed with banned from making a public speech

  44. 10/29: Citing free speech, the U of C Berkeley chancellor has confirmed Bill Maher’s invitation.

  45. If we do not know what we’re capable of, we cannot appreciate measures taken to protect us from ourselves. It is an aperture to human self-knowledge. If we focus on what was considered acceptable evidence and a fair trial by the religious and secular authorities in the fifteenth- to seventeenth-century witch hunts, many of the novel and peculiar features of the eighteenth century US Constitution and Bill of Rights become clear: including trial by jury, prohibitions against self-incrimination and against cruel and unusual punishment, freedom of speech and the press, due process, the balance of powers and the separation of Church and State.

    Whatever the problem, the quick fix is to shave a little freedom off the Bill of Rights. Yes, in 1942, Japanese-Americans were protected by the Bill of Rights, but we locked them up anyway – after all, there was a war on. Yes, there are Constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure, but we have a war on drugs and violent crime is racing out of control. Yes, there’s freedom of speech, but we don’t want foreign authors here, spouting alien ideologies, do we? The pretexts change from year to year, but the result remains the same: concentrating more power in fewer hands and suppressing diversity of opinion – even though experience plainly shows the danger of such a course of action.

  46. One reason the Constitution is a daring and courageous document is that it allows for continuing change, even of the form of government itself, if the people so wish. Because no one is wise enough to foresee which ideas may answer urgent societal needs -even if they’re counter-intuitive and have been troubling in the past – this document tries to guarantee the fullest and freest expression of views. There is, of course, a price. Most of us are for freedom of expression when there’s a danger that our own views will be suppressed. We’re not all that upset, though, when views we despise encounter a little censorship here and there. But within certain narrowly circumscribed limits. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous example was causing panic by falsely crying ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre – great liberties are permitted in America:
    • Gun collectors are free to use portraits of the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the House, or the Director of the FBI for target practice; outraged civic-minded citizens are free to burn in effigy the President of the United States.
    • Even if they mock Judaeo-Christian-Islamic values, even if they ridicule everything most of us hold dear, devil-worshipers (if there are any) are entitled to practice their religion, so long as they break no constitutionally valid law.
    • A purported scientific article or popular book asserting the ‘superiority’ of one race over another may not be censored by the government, no matter how pernicious it is; the cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
    • Individuals may, if they wish, praise the lives and politics of such undisputed mass murderers as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. Even detestable opinions have a right to be heard.
    • Individuals or groups are free to argue that a Jewish or Masonic conspiracy is taking over the world, or that the Federal government is in league with the Devil.

    The expression of such views is protected, and properly so, under the Bill of Rights, even if those protected would abolish the Bill of Rights if they got the chance. The protection for the rest of us is to use that same Bill of Rights to get across to every citizen the indispensability of the Bill of Rights. What means to protect themselves against human fallibility, what error-protection machinery do these alternative doctrines and institutions offer? An infallible leader? Race? Nationalism? Wholesale disengagement from civilization, except for explosives and automatic weapons?

  47. I can only reference Bill Maher’s comments as an entertainer. I am glad for his vocal liberal views. He is not impressed by any religious dogma.I find that refreshing in a world where it is okay to have faith as long as your faith agrees with mine. I’m not a fan of any ideology that attempts to legalize murder or the taking of life. I’m so very grateful for the separation of church and state in this country! Bill Maher has spoken up on unpopular subjects and I admire his courage. Let him speak at UC Berkley, a bastion of freedom of speech and ideas. He’ll give those youmg adults exactly that and some food for thought they chew on and later use for thinking outside the conservative box.

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