Comedian Bill Maher might not be exactly conservative, but as the American left has become increasingly more radical, his old-school liberalism makes him an occasional, if unusual, ally.
In particular, Maher’s recent stance against the tyranny of the woke hegemony has made him more aligned with the right than ever.
And, when interviewing Ray Romano on his podcast, “Club Random with Bill Maher,” he doubled down on that stance when revealing the one group of Americans for whom he would not perform.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Maher expressed his frustration with the close-mindedness of many modern college students.
As seen in the video of the podcast posted on YouTube, Maher began speaking on this topic when Romano remarked, “I didn’t do the college circuit a lot.”
To which Maher replied, “No, me neither, and now it’s unthinkable.”
Unthinkable?
That seemed like a rather harsh judgement at first glance, but Maher was then sure to explain why he believed that.
Should you be free to joke about any topic?
Romano responded, “You would have half this way, half that way” — meaning, half left-leaning and half right-leaning — but Maher contended that “first of all, they would protest before I even got on the campus.”
As Mediaite pointed out, Maher knew what he was talking about because, back in 2014, he was almost disinvited to be the commencement speaker at the Berkeley graduation because of a student group at Berkeley.
“But today,” he continued. “You kidding? These kids? That would be the first thing they would do, is try to get me thrown [off]. They don’t want to hear anything they don’t already agree with, they don’t want their minds pried open, and you know what? Let somebody else do it.”
Grim as this diagnosis might seem, Maher was, unfortunately, spot-on in his assessment.
Maher is no right-winger, but college campuses have become increasingly radical over the years, to the extent that Maher, a lifelong Democrat, is far too right-wing for college students.
And college students, when faced with the prospect of hearing opinions and viewpoints they disagree with, fly off the handle — protesting, shouting down the speaker and even trying to assault them.
Imagine what they would do if Matt Walsh or Jordan Peterson were brought onto one of these left-wing campuses as a commencement speaker.
Maher, however, had more to say.
He clarified that he doesn’t “have anything against people in their 20s,” but “I’m not going to hold my tongue when they embrace stupid ideas.”
“Of course,” he continued, “then they’ll just say … the tritest, easiest, most erroneous thing lobbed at people like us is, you’re old, [and] now it’s just about ‘get off my lawn,’” referring to the grumpy old curmudgeon stereotype.
“So,” he concluded, “you put zero amount of thinking into the actual point I’m making — you didn’t engage with the actual idea — if you did that, I would respect you … but what about the idea? Am I right? Should we bring communism back? ’Cause I think it’s a bad idea. Maybe because I remember what happened the first time, and you don’t, and you don’t care to learn.”
From there, the conversation returned to Maher and Romano’s respective standup careers, but Maher, at least, had made his grievance with radical college students abundantly clear.
As Maher said, too many college students don’t want their viewpoints challenged, nor do they want a discussion.
Instead, they want their radical ideas championed and reaffirmed, and any opposing viewpoints silenced.
College campuses used to be a place for free expression and a place to learn about and wrestle with complex ideas.
Now, however, they have become indoctrination factories, producing good leftists that will become cogs in the machine and vote the “correct” way — usually, in a way that espouses the neo-communist beliefs trendy on college campuses.
Maher and conservatives are rarely on the same page with many contentious issues, but conservatives can find much to agree with regarding his statements on colleges and college students.
Without freedom of expression, people are prevented from hearing different viewpoints.
But if people are paranoid about offending others, then humor itself becomes impossible.
