I was driving yesterday thinking about being interviewed by Bill Maher. This was not some sort Walter Mitty fantasy. For some reason I was thinking about the time I was sitting next to Bill Maher at a restaurant in Miami a dozen years ago. He was at the table next to me and that had us sitting within a foot of one another. He smelled like feet and looked like he had not slept in a week. I think his companion was a hooker, but maybe he just has a thing for skanks.
That led me to think about how a loathsome creature like Maher has managed to get rich in entertainment. Why would anyone agree to go on his show? Ann Coulter used to be a regular and I recall hearing her say she counts Maher as a friend. Maybe my experience is not indicative of the real Bill Maher, but people I know who do know him say I’m being too kind. Maher is worse than I think.
That’s what led to my imagining what it would be like to sit on his show and interact with. I have, from time to time, watched his HBO show. It is mostly for anthropological reasons, like watching a show on Pygmies or the Papuan. Instead of primitives, it is Progressives performing for other Progressives, not thinking much about who else is watching. It’s like being a fly on the wall of a cult meeting.
The thing with Maher is that he is a good example to use when explaining how members of a religious cult understand and respond to the world outside the cult. From my small sample size of viewings, the typical show is Maher and other members of The Hive leading the audience in the current hymns. Once is a while he has a normal person on in the same way tent preachers bring the town drunk up to be healed. The point is to use the hapless sinner as an example.
On a few occasions I have seen a normal shine the focus on some defect of the Left and this is where you see Maher show himself to be a full spectrum moonbat. He has a physical reaction to hearing contrary information, squirming in his seat and rolling his eyes. It’s not intended to to be dismissive either. It’s a genuine physical reaction to unclean thought invading the safe space.
I’ve tested this on my moonbat office manager. I’ll engage her in some normal chit-chat knowing that she will eventually figure out how to conform the topic to one of the three solas of the One True Faith. This is where I pounce and point out some defect in the faith or some corruption of the party. She will recoil in horror and look furtively around the room, the fight or flight mechanism kicking in like a shot of adrenaline.
The other thing you can observe with Bill Maher is the tactic of shifting the focus. His heretical guest will point out that Obama lied about something or other and immediately Maher will respond with something about Bush or Palin or some other monster in the moonbat pantheon. The purpose is to change the topic of discussion away from that which vexes the faithful to something more pleasing.
In comment threads of new stories critical of Ben Carson, you will see moonbats jumping in when someone points out the double standard applied to black Republicans versus black Democrats. This is very bad think so they chime in with made up stories about how the racist white press in the olden thymes tormented the heroic Obama. That shifts the focus from present reality to something imaginary.
I used to think this was a defense mechanism, a herd instinct in the human personality toolkit that is tapped into by the hive minded or maybe dominant in these people. Every herd animal has some way for members to warn the herd of danger. Progressives hooting about stranger-danger is just an adaptation of this. The trouble with this theory is that Progressives are forever trying to pick fights with normal people. Instead of being a defense mechanism, this is an attack mechanism.
That’s been my observation of shows like Maher’s and others where three-on-one is moonbat fun. They bring the bad thinker in who valiantly tries to make his points. The tactic of shifting the focus inevitably puts the victim on defense. The segment was supposed to be about Obama, for example, but instead devolves into another critique of his critics, hinting that maybe the bad thinker is a racist.
The lesson here is that when dealing with a moonbat, the key is to always keep the focus on them. They are highly skilled at shifting the focus as it appears to be a biological instinct, but if you have some discipline, you can have some fun watching them squirm in agony. This old video of British airhead Piers Morgan being tormented by Ben Shapiro is a great example.
If you watch carefully, you see Morgan desperately trying to shift the focus from himself in order to put the guest on the defense. First he tries the “how dare you stuff” hoping this will put Shapiro off his game. When that fails he desperately tries to change the subject and have the guess address arguments made by some third person.
I’ve always through that this video should be mandatory viewing for the training of normal people going on these shows. This does not happen because the Left signs the checks and the surest way to get fired is to challenge the One True Faith effectively. Even so, for normal people dealing with the moonbat relative or lunatic at the office, knowing how to keep the focus on the moonbat is a valuable skill. If I ever find myself interviewed by Bill Maher, I hope to remember it.
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I loathe Maher and his Leftist mindset, but at the end of the day I will give him a pass because he is thinking correctly when it comes to Islam. Watch his clips where he goes off on Islam and debates fellow Leftists on why it’s not racism or islamophobic to be against the importation of Islam and its political doctrine into our societies. If we as a people cannot see the writing on the wall in regards to the threat Islam poses to our culture/society/country, then nothing else matters. Islam is an existential threat, and the fights between Left and Right in this country will mean exactly nothing if we cannot come together on this issue. We can resume political and doctrinal fisticuffs when we are all on the same page in regards to Islam. Although, yes. It’s possible to wage more than one battle at a time.
I just wish that Maher could stop and think for a minute and realize that the same mental processes he uses to understand the truths about Islam, can also be used to dismantle much of the mental flotsam the Left engages in and tries to pass off as real thought. But I guess when you belong to the Leftist Hive, you just cannot see this.
I’m shocked that he was smelly. Who stinks these days other than handicapped people who live alone? His love for skanks though is well-known.
My impression of Maher is that he opportunist who knows there is money to be made being a “liberal” media personality like John Stewart, Maher comes from a Catholic-jewish family and my impression is that he is a gatekeeper for the Liberals like FOX news is to conservatives.
I politely disagree. He genuinely believes this stuff and will never be reasoned with. All cult leaders believe their own schtick and can’t imagine being wrong. David Koresh, Tom Cruise, Michael Moore, Jim Jones are all true believers whose lack of moral compass allows them to manipulate others. The charlatan who doesn’t really believe what they preach has a hard time rationalising the sacrifice of the followers or just can’t keep up the flimflam for long enough. Maher has been doing this for a long while and has moved through different generations of followers.
That smelly rat had Bernie Sanders recently on, and they talked about how socialism is good and merely misunderstood, Maher: “This is my big thing tonight, to un-demonize the word socialism.”
And it’s working: “Democrats now favor socialism over capitalism.”
The funny part is how Maher doesn’t consider himself partisan, from his wiki:
“Maher eschews political labels, referring to himself as practical. In the past, he has described himself as a libertarian, and has also referred to himself as a progressive, as a sane person.”
Sane and practical, that’s beyond satire…
Yet those very same “objective” liberals have a literal comic book villain view of everyone on the right, it’s hilarious. Of course all we do is swirl our mustaches, hate women, drink beer and rape, everyone knows that!
It’s worse than religion, liberals really do believe they are above it all, that they shed partisanship, ideology or mere subjectivity like the Homo sapiens shed it’s tail. As far they are concerned, modern science affirms all progressive premises.
The apocalypse? That’s crazy bible thumper talk, but climate doom, pure cold logic (no pun intended), so why not strong-arm people into it?
Doomsday cultists used to wait for the mothership hidden away, now they are running the show, and one of them is even the president!
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Dan’s right about the lack of knowledge of firearms, but it really doesn’t matter, moonbats always argue the rhetoric. Vox Day’s book SJW’s Always Lie is a pretty good primer on talking to moonbats. Doesn’t cover the why they are like they, just strategy for screwing with their little heads.
I’ve also had a similar experience to Z regarding “Faux News”. I had a discussion with a doctor I thought was pretty reasonable about global warming. As soon as I brought up the pause, he went from articulate to sputtering about how I got all my information from Fox news and must be a Bush lover. It was a bizarre turn in conversation that had absolutely no relation to the previous discussion. I think progs treat “Faux news” like some sort of crucifix against bad think vampires.
My personal riff on this has long been that moonbats just cannot get their minds around trade-offs, especially when it comes to human lives or quality of human lives. Whether this is a matter of mental discipline or of genetics, I don’t know. Addiction is the ultimate misunderstanding of trade-offs: “I am going to let this one chemical or behavior dominate my life at the expense of all other things even unto ruin or death.” The ranks of addicts have long been filled by poets and dreamers. Not too many engineers, accountants, or professional soldiers in that bunch.
Watched the Morgan-Shapiro video. Both are not gun knowledgable talking about AR-15s and assault weapons.
I wish Assault Weapons such as an AR-15 were available to buy at a gun store but they are banned by Federal Law. Only semi automatic versions are available for sale. The only exception is for those who can pass a background check and pay through the nose the “tax” to own a machine gun which an Assault Weapon is such as an AR-15. What the two individuals are calling Assault Weapons are just semi-automatic AR-Pattern guns, lookalikes.
Dan Kurt
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It is unfortunate that you offered a clip with the awful Piers Morgan in it. When he decamped from the UK to the US many of us here felt a sense of relief that one more unpleasant (and I think the nature of his work as the editor of a newspaper with a very poor reputation rather supports this) person had left our shores. Hopefully for good.
Sadly, he appears, despite his ‘charm and smarm’ to have made a brief if not lasting impact on the US. It was obvious to me that his stance on guns borders on the British view about personal weapons, and as much as I am English I accept that his view id not that of America. Once the US went the way it chose in 1776 the new nation had every right to make whatever laws that suited its time and place. For Morgan to argue as if he knows or has a superior position about these matters is somewhat ridiculous.
Piers Morgan is a d*ckless piece of sh*t. It’s no wonder Clarkson punched him in the face.
So…WHAT, exactly, were all the enabling mechanics behind “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?
I wonder if that story was based on some existing societal observation of the time?
How is it different from…say….Shakespeare’s day, …or yesterday?
Whether Bee-Em ever invites you into a cult meeting or not, I hope you continue these wonderful blog posts indefinitely.
Great work, Zee! Keep it up, pour it on. America needs you, and more like you.
I’d strongly suggest checking out The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics, by Anonymous Conservative (Michael Trust). He’s got a biomechanical explanation for liberals’ physical tics like the ones you describe, and it’s pretty convincing. Briefly, he says “liberals” have underdeveloped amygdalae — their threat sensors are all off, which produces the frantic “outgrouping” behavior you see from Maher, Piers Morgan, and the rest of the cult.
The implications of any “my political opponents are mental defectives” argument are pretty frightening, but still — worth a look.
Thanks. I was unaware of that book and site. I’ll check it out.
My first instinct, however, is to assume it falls into the same trap as others by accepting the binary worldview imposed on us by the Cult of Modern Liberalism. This worldview starts with the premise that everyone is either inside the walls or outside the walls. Those inside the walls are the good thinkers of The One True Faith. Those outside the walls are the bad thinkers. You’ll note that Progressives have a long list of names they use interchangeably to label the bad thinkers. Conservative, Republicans, right-winger, extremist, racist, etc. They all mean the same thing, “other”.
On more than a few occasions, moonbats have accused me of getting all y information from Fox News. Since there have been long stretches where I have not owned a television, pointing that out is fun. Even so, they will insist I am an extreme right-wing extremist who watches Fox News all day. There’s simply no room in their worldview for something other than a white hat or a black hat.
The world is not thus. There’s loads of diversity outside the hive walls.
True, and as I said, I’m very leery of a theory which says I’m scientifically right, while my opponents are literally crazy. Like everyone propounding a theory, he discounts a lot of things outside the theory. Can those with “defective” (his word) amygdalae change, for instance? Free will says yes; he implies no.
So, yeah, it’s far from perfect. But “differently-abled amygdalae,” to be PC about it, does explain a lot of observed facts. There’s definitely something to it, though not everything.
“Can those with “defective” (his word) amygdalae change,… Free will says yes;”
It isn’t obvious to me that free will says yes. I don’t know, in any detail, how the amygdalea is programmed. It could like fusing links on a FGPA; or like writing in the FW; or something that is read into RAM at each initialization. Only the latter allows learning
Fair enough. I don’t know how the amygdala is programmed, either. I just would really prefer to leave open the possibility that moonbats can be de-moonbatted, because if they can’t, well…. we’ve seen what happens when we allow those mental defectives to have the same rights as normals. The logic gets pretty dark, pretty fast, and I’d prefer not to go there one one guy’s say-so, however convincing his theory is to a layman.