Don't miss Lileks today
He riffs hilariously on the ruminations of the fever swamp crowd. Here's an excerpt of his smackdown of the insufferably smug Bill Maher in a recent interview with the CBC:
Maher: "To me, to me it's a real dividing line between people of intelligence and – not that there haven't been some intelligent people who are religious. I mean, T.S. Elliott was a great poet and he became a very devout Catholic… But I always call religion a neurological disorder. I really do believe that. I mean it's not criticizing. I'm just saying if you took religion out of it and somebody went to a psychiatrist and said you know I believe in you know this crazy, illogical thing, the shrink would say, well you have a neurological disorder. And you need to really get therapy or take a pill."
I love that – T. S. Elliott was intelligent because he was a great poet, you see. (Dr. Pound; calling Dr. Pound) The old hoary fallacy: achievement in art necessarily confers some sort of moral wisdom. Here you have Maher in all his fatuous glory – religion is a mental illness, but “I mean it’s not criticizing.” He’s just saying, is all. National Health Service passing out pills that suppressed your transcendental desires: Utopia!
Americans are dumb because Americans believe in God. Canadians are smart because Canadians believe in Canada. Bill Maher believes in Bill Maher. Print this out and put in your wallet for future reference.
Again, to repeat the point I’ve made in the last 3 years again and again: it’s not the dissent. It’s the thin, meretricious, self-satisfied quality of the dissent. This is like Tom Selleck giving an interview and saying, “Well, Americans are too stupid to see Clinton for what he is, and they can’t find Bosnia on a map, and the ones who can are all gay atheists, you know.” He'd be held up as a parochial idiot, but Maher's drivel resonates, because he is vibrating on the moonbat frequency. He's one step removed from the people who would see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan and blame it on Abu Ghraib. Ah well. These people will either have to prosper and live unmolested in a world they hate, or get the world they keenly seek. A rational sensible kindly peaceable world where evil can be regulated by pieces of paper and General Assembly votes. A world where “hope is on the way!” means that Kofi Annan has entered his private elevator.
Maher: "To me, to me it's a real dividing line between people of intelligence and – not that there haven't been some intelligent people who are religious. I mean, T.S. Elliott was a great poet and he became a very devout Catholic… But I always call religion a neurological disorder. I really do believe that. I mean it's not criticizing. I'm just saying if you took religion out of it and somebody went to a psychiatrist and said you know I believe in you know this crazy, illogical thing, the shrink would say, well you have a neurological disorder. And you need to really get therapy or take a pill."
I love that – T. S. Elliott was intelligent because he was a great poet, you see. (Dr. Pound; calling Dr. Pound) The old hoary fallacy: achievement in art necessarily confers some sort of moral wisdom. Here you have Maher in all his fatuous glory – religion is a mental illness, but “I mean it’s not criticizing.” He’s just saying, is all. National Health Service passing out pills that suppressed your transcendental desires: Utopia!
Americans are dumb because Americans believe in God. Canadians are smart because Canadians believe in Canada. Bill Maher believes in Bill Maher. Print this out and put in your wallet for future reference.
Again, to repeat the point I’ve made in the last 3 years again and again: it’s not the dissent. It’s the thin, meretricious, self-satisfied quality of the dissent. This is like Tom Selleck giving an interview and saying, “Well, Americans are too stupid to see Clinton for what he is, and they can’t find Bosnia on a map, and the ones who can are all gay atheists, you know.” He'd be held up as a parochial idiot, but Maher's drivel resonates, because he is vibrating on the moonbat frequency. He's one step removed from the people who would see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan and blame it on Abu Ghraib. Ah well. These people will either have to prosper and live unmolested in a world they hate, or get the world they keenly seek. A rational sensible kindly peaceable world where evil can be regulated by pieces of paper and General Assembly votes. A world where “hope is on the way!” means that Kofi Annan has entered his private elevator.
posted by Kate Marie | 2:05 AM | Permalink
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