Bill Maher, you know you’re not a libertarian any more, right?
Just as the leftists have given liberalism a bad name, people like Maher do the same for libertarianism.
25 thoughts on “He Never Was”
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Bill Maher, you know you’re not a libertarian any more, right?
Just as the leftists have given liberalism a bad name, people like Maher do the same for libertarianism.
Comments are closed.
This is astonishing to me. I watched “Politically ‘In’correct” a few times, years ago, and stopped because it was perfectly clear Maher was virtually the definition of left-wing political correctness. The hypocrisy of the show’s title itself was just too much for me to stand.
The astonishment is in learning that he or anybody else ever considered him a libertarian in the first place. I truly never knew that.
Maybe Maher thinks that just because he wants marijuana legalized that makes him libertarian.
Yes, that is what Maher thinks. The only people who ever thought he was a libertarian (including himself) were people who were clueless about what a libertarian is.
Libertine-arianism.
Cecil beat me to it.
I want commercial companies to provide transportation to low earth orbit. Does that make me an Obama supporter? [answer: NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
On the other hand, I fully support outlawing on Constitutional grounds the bans on all drugs of all kinds, and abolishing the FDA with prejudice. That doesn’t make me a supporter of Bill Maher. That DEFINITELY doesn’t make me a liberal or socialist.
I am not for legalizing all drugs. I can see no legitimate reason a toxic drug like Meth should be legal. Anything that would not pass FDA approval for safety should not be legal simply because it is more poison than drug.
Weed? Have at is as far as I am concerned. Smoke yourself silly.
Anything that would not pass FDA approval for safety should not be legal simply because it is more poison than drug.
I doubt any recreational drug would pass FDA approval, except perhaps caffeine and some of the herbs. Certainly not alcohol or nicotine as they’re currently packaged, for example.
Bill Maher is a fathead clown that thinks he has something serious to contribute. I think it’s revealing that Bill O’Reilly used a softer version of Maher’s extortion attempt to get Christine O’Donnell to appear on the Factor.
It’s exactly right that Maher was and is a useful idiot, so stupid that he thought he was a libertarian because he wants pot and free from any responsibility sex.
As a useful idiot, he’s a true believer (rather than the outright liar that others are.) He knows the party line and can spew it accurately. The party line is always an excuse for why things aren’t working now but will in the future. “We just aren’t communist enough.” He’s never been a libertarian.
“I can see no legitimate reason a toxic drug like Meth should be legal. ”
The legitimate reason is that the Constitution does not give the government the power to say what risks people may take with their own lives, what medical treatments they may or may not take, or what they may or may not eat. When they get those things wrong, people die. And they get it wrong more than right.
I don’t advocate drug use of any kind, but I don’t have the right to stop it except for my own children (when they were minors). But the evidence of history shows that outlawing stuff like this has two effects: it raises the incidence of use and abuse, and creates crime that otherwise wouldn’t exist, much of it against the uninvolved public.
People who want to poison themselves will do so whether it’s legal or not. They continue to get drugs in prison, so it isn’t as if outlawing them has any effect on supply. But piling on all the additional cost to society of outlawing them, just to satisfy some nanny urge is not rational.
I’ve met quite a few ultra-statists who call(ed) themselves “libertarian” because “liberal” has become a pejorative and they too want to legalize pot. Of course, I also spent many years living in D.C. and met most of them there, which is perhaps not a coincidence.
Keep in mind that “liberal” itself used to mean libertarian until the statists in the U.S. stole the term because more accurate terms like “soc**list”, “left-wing”, and “welfare statist” had become pejorative here. Now that they’ve ruined the perfectly good term “liberal”, “libertarian” is the next obvious target for their euphemization.
Kind of like calling government contracting “privatization” and “commercial”, actually.
Anything that would not pass FDA approval for safety should not be legal simply because it is more poison than drug.
If that happened, say goodbye to Aspirin.
I agree with MfK. There is nothing in the Constitution about government deciding what risks people may be allowed to take with their own bodies. (cf. Roe v. Wade)
It would be handy if there was some sort of hoop the drug companies could jump through where they could be protected from indemnification if the drug was later found to have unforeseen side effects. Then companies could choose to go this route or release it directly. The FDA doesn’t quite serve this function, but getting FDA approval seems like it should be pretty strong evidence of the company doing due diligence.
Anybody with one or more illegal drug using family member knows it’s about more than what they do to themselves. I seriously believe they should be kept away from civilized society. Find a big enough island far enough away, strip them of their citizenship and deport them to it. Give them a survival starter kit and let them live their lives away from the rest of us.
I don’t think people realize how destructive they are to the rest of us.
This gives them a chance to figure out how life works without destroying the people that care about them. My brother and especially one of my sisters has destroyed their lives and I’m brought to tears just thinking about it now.
Ken, I’ve been through the same thing with relatives abusing legal drugs, and sympathize with you. The legal status of the drugs doesn’t have anything to do with how destructive the behavior is, though.
What I object to is multiplying the destructive effect by one or two orders of magnitude by bringing the criminal element into the mix. That happens when drugs are outlawed.
Yup. In addition to lives ruined by the drug behaviour itself, when it all comes crashing down and the cops get involved, these people get felony records and jail time. How exactly does giving someone a criminal record, so they become marginally employable and thus far more likely to fall back into drugs and worse once they get out of jail, turn to a life of crime, perhaps as a dealer since they can’t get a job anymore, make their lives (or the rest of ours) better?
Sure, if you commit crimes on drugs, go to jail for those crimes, but if your only “offense” is getting high, just as millions of others legally get drunk every Saturday without destroying society, (heck look at societies where even alcohol is illegal, not exactly models of safety and stability, eh?) what’s the point of putting them in jail?
Oh, I forgot. It’s “for the children”, isn’t it?
Mfk, by definition, making something illegal makes outlaws.
We do have the example of prohibition. So how do I feel about alcoholics?
I don’t drink much. Sometimes it will be years in which I will go without touching a drop. I prefer wine to beer, but if offered a beer I’ll usually accept. However, there are times when my depression and sadness will cause me to over indulge. It happened once about thirty years or so ago. The next day I went to the elders of my church with the result that I was, over a short period of time, excommunicated. I never recovered. It took me about ten years to be able to talk again with my best friend, the woman I loved who during that time married another. She is still my very best friend but I don’t contact her because her husband is a good guy and I don’t want any chance that something I say or do might hurt either of them. I’m 51 and it’s been decades, but that pain is raw within me. I married someone else almost ten years ago, divorced now, which changed nothing although I’m not sure what I expected. I do know what I hoped. Oh well.
So how do I feel about the abuse of legal drugs? What matters is how drug users affect the people around them (legality is not the issue.) I feel the same way, civilization should not have to put up with the abuse. It’s not the drug use per se that is the issue. I’d still shop for that island.
I make a huge distinction between self abuse and abuse of others. My sister was a beautiful woman, wife and mother. Now her brain is fried. I want her cared for… in some other universe. Today it is my mother that takes that responsibility. My brother must have his daily beer and will steal to get it. His meth use depends mostly on his financial situation which is, whatever money he has today is gone tomorrow, regardless of amount.
Suicide is a sin. That is one of three, perhaps four, things that keeps me alive. My physical pain, constant for decades, is nothing in comparison. Life sucks, but trying to make it better is all a decent person can do.
what’s the point of putting them in jail?
My youngest sister went to jail for over a year. She hasn’t touched drugs since, married a great guy and has a decent life although she did lose a daughter to drugs.
Jail worked for her. It doesn’t for many I know.
The reason why they should be legal is that it’s none of your damn business what other people put in their bodies. Sure it is heartbreaking when people, esp relatives, esp relatives that you actually like and care for destroy their lives with drugs, but they could just as easily do it with alcohol, and many more people do it with alcohol than do it with drugs. Either way, the point of free will is that we each have the choice whether or not to live virtuous and clean lives or not. Legislating personal behavior steals free will and makes it impossible to live virtuously when your behavior is chosen for you. People who wreck themselves with drugs or alcohol do so for a reason, and banning those substances isn’t going to eliminate the real reason they do it.
Those of you unfamiliar with the effects of Meth need to do some research. It is permenantly addictive for 94% of people who try is and it cause grotesque phisical problems and permenant brain damage. It makes the non-function, dangerously paranoid members of society that will shortly become incapable of supporting themselves without resorting to social welfare and crime.
It makes Crack Cocaine look like a Dr. Pepper addiction so tell me again how Libertarian you are allowing them to use it. Is is Libertarian that I must also suffer to support their selfish addiciton?
permanent, physical. Sorry for the typos.
The reason why they should be legal is that it’s none of your damn business what other people put in their bodies.
While I agree in principle, here’s the problem. Again I’m going to use an example. When my brother was a teenager he had a girlfriend. She was a good girl in my opinion and they had a daughter. My brother was a pot smoker from very young. He influenced her. She’s dead now. She got in heavy debt to drug dealers. Her daughter was raised by my brother. She survived that and seems to be doing ok, married with children of her own, but it was iffy for most of her youth. My brother was a grandfather at 30.
Yes it is none of the governments business what we do to ourselves. The problem is, it never remains an issue for just the user.
dangerously paranoid members of society
Unbelievably irrational paranoid and very dangerous. They absolutely know what isn’t actually there and couldn’t possibly exist… like people hiding in gloveboxes and invisible trees. The glovebox is too small and the trees didn’t exist, but no matter. My brother wanted to buy a gun to defend himself from the invisible people. Only his financial instability protected society from that action. He stole my car on three different occasions to run away from them only they infested my car so he had to break all the mirrors. “But they only hurt themselves.”
…and the people that choose to associate with them.
Legallizing meth would be horrible, because then people like the aforementioned would be able to get it and do crazy things that damage those around them…
…which obviously they are already doing. How about instead we just keep those intent on doing damage to others, away from polite society? In a secure place where they have to work to pay for their continued survival (just like I do out here), and the extra security it takes to keep them from us. Once they’ve shown they can be productive enough to more than cover the costs associated with their shelter, food, security, are working toward paying off their damages, and have learned a new respect for the rights of others maybe we can let them rejoin productive society.
Or if they’ve attempted to kill or have killed innocent people, we can just cull them. There is no reason innocent people should be forced to pay for a monster’s continued existence. Monsters don’t get to claim rights for themselves when they’ve chosen not to respect the rights of others. They certainly don’t get to demand the fruits of others’ labor.
I’d never heard him self-identify, but I’ve never thought of Bill Maher as anything other than a socialist hedonist, but he can call himself whatever he wants. It is my (our individual) judgement(s) that matters.
M Pucket, a point of clarification: drug use and addictions aren’t selfish.
The entire point of drug use is the obliteration of one’s reasoning mind, one’s self. It is a furtive attempt to escape the reality they have created for themselves. A suicidal attempt to escape the nagging judgements of their value by their own mind, in the only manner possible – destroy their mind.
I can’t think of anything less ‘selfish’ than such suicide.
And we don’t “allow” them to use anything. “Allow” implies we have a legitimate authority over their actions that we do not have.