What I think of Bill Maher is beside the point, so I won't go into that. But it's interesting that he, a leftist, sees the writing on the wall. We have been moving steadily toward the edge of the cliff, and once we go over there will be no going back. I agree with him that we need to learn to live with people we disagree with, and settle our differences as the Founders designed, peacefully at the ballot box.

He doesn't say how this should happen, and I have no real idea either. But I guess a first step would be for people to realise that we need to learn to live together-- "with assholes you can't stand"-- or there will be bloodshed on a shocking scale.

Unfortunately, what I see happening is the opposite. There is growing bravado from left and right-- "Let's get it on!" And both sides imagine that they will quickly destroy the other.

This was exactly the sentiment in 1860: the civil war would last a few months, at most. It lasted four years and took the lives of about three quarters of a million Americans.

So, I guess that is the main point of this thread: Do not wish for civil war, do not imagine that it would be short and sweet. It would be far more protracted and far more horrible than you imagine. Think about what we can do to avoid it, and act accordingly.

Here's one thing. Maher says he will stop attacking "red state rubes." Well, we'll see. But I think each of us needs to de-escalate our rhetoric, just tone things down. That might sound Pollyanna, but the alternative is civil war.


Maher: We Need to Learn to Live With People Who Disagree With Us, A Second Civil War Could Happen


Bill Maher ended his final show of 2019 saying that Americans need to do better at learning to live with people they disagree with — especially, he emphasized, Trump supporters.

“Never forget the single shining truth about democracy,” Maher said. “It means sharing the country with assholes you can’t stand.”

He said he’s tired of people trying to “own” other people in political arguments. Maher did admit at one point that he’s been guilty of mocking red states “rubes” for years, but said he wants to “try to stop, because I’ve learned that the anti-intellectualism on the right doesn’t primarily come from stupidity, it comes from hate.”

Maher said at one point he’s so worried about how divisive America has become that a second civil war could potentially happen:

“Lately we’ve been hearing more and more about a second civil war, which sounds impossible in this modern affluent country. It is not. We all talk about Trump as an existential threat, but his side sees Democratic control of government the exact same way. And when both sides believe the other guy taking over means the end of the world, yes, you can have a civil war.”

“We are going to have to learn to live with each other or there will be blood,” Maher said, before defending George W. Bush and Ellen DeGeneres sitting together at an NFL game.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/ma...il-war-could-happen/

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I agree with him that we need to learn to live with people we disagree with, and settle our differences as the Founders designed, peacefully at the ballot box.

I don't know how one learns to live with those they disagree with when those they disagree with have zero interest in learning to live with them in peace.

One side believes in allowing others to live how they wish, but the other believes in controlling every aspect of the other's lives.

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Maher: We Need to Learn to Live With People Who Disagree With Us, A Second Civil War Could Happen

How do you learn to live with people who want to impose their will, take your property, and live as parasites?
It seems to me that one side is tolerant and one side it not...

If a Republican doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a Democrat doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Republican is a vegetarian, she doesn't eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned or regulated for everyone.

If a Republican is homosexual, he leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
If a Democrat is down and out, she wonders who is going to take care of her.

If a Republican doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
if a Democrat doesn't like a talk show host, he demands that he/she be taken off the air.

If a Republican has no religious belief, he doesn't go to church.
If a Democrat has no religious belief, he wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Republican needs health care, he shops for it, or finds a job that provides it.
If a Democrat needs health care, she demands that the rest of us provide it.

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Maher did admit at one point that he’s been guilty of mocking red states “rubes” for years, but said he wants to “try to stop, because I’ve learned that the anti-intellectualism on the right doesn’t primarily come from stupidity, it comes from hate.”

Still not as enlightened as he would want you to believe he is.

The U.S. Civil War is not analogous to what may be coming. The Revolutionary War is a better fit. 1/3 of the population rebelling against a tyrannical government with the backing of 1/2 of the population, with slim odds of success. France won’t be there to help with the next one.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:

quote:

Maher did admit at one point that he’s been guilty of mocking red states “rubes” for years, but said he wants to “try to stop, because I’ve learned that the anti-intellectualism on the right doesn’t primarily come from stupidity, it comes from hate.”

Ummmmm..."Hey Kettle! This is Pot. Guess what?? YOU'RE BLACK!!!!"

Maher can espouse all he wants about the "red state rubes" speaking from hate. Take a look in the phukkin' mirror, pal. The absolute HATE being spewed forth from the mouths of Libtards is beyond what I've EVER seen in my lifetime. Even through the Onumbnutz years from Conservatives and "red state rubes"!! Believe me...ANYTHING Maher has to say is said with a Leftarded ulterior motive. Screw him and the horse he rode in on. I feel sorry for the horse...

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
1/3 of the population rebelling against a tyrannical government with the backing of 1/2 of the population, with slim odds of success.

Fortunately for the 1/3, which I take to mean "us", 50% of that 1/2 couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Take away their cell phone and they'll crawl into their safe space crying like a puzzy, asking for their box of Crayolas. You know...the one with the built-in sharpener...

Maher is not stupid; he might be a leftist, and the enemy, but he at least isn't blindly blathering the party line. Do I trust him? absolutely not. He is just savvy enough to understand who the next president is going to be...or not going to be, to be more to the point.

Mockery and derision is so unifying......

Sounds like he knows who would win in a civil war.

Tony.

"I have returned from Germany with peace for our time".

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:

quote:

Maher did admit at one point that he’s been guilty of mocking red states “rubes” for years, but said he wants to “try to stop, because I’ve learned that the anti-intellectualism on the right doesn’t primarily come from stupidity, it comes from hate.”

Still not as enlightened as he would want you to believe he is.

No shit. States that we should learn to live together, then thumbs me in the eye and accuses ME of being the hateful one. There’s no excuse for being that ignorant in this day and age.

I don’t like the idea of civil war, but Maher can kiss my ass.

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Maher: We Need to Learn to Live With People Who Disagree With Us, A Second Civil War Could Happen

I think the whole point of electing a guy like Trump is that we can no longer live with people who not only disagree with us but want to destroy the country, as founded. We have been 'civil' for 100 years as this country has been pushed further and further left. It's been a one-way ratchet since 1913. So then, Donald Trump comes along and says "This is NOT a socialist country!" and all hell breaks loose.

We are finally figuring out that we will continue to lose if we don't fight back.

I'm not at all suggesting that Bill Maher is modelling anything that we should copy. What I want to bring out in this thread is that it is not yet too late-- I hope that is true-- to keep from outright civil war. So the question is: what can we do to work against civil war?

Maybe I should have built this thread around Jordan Peterson, because most of us here respect him immensely. And in a recent podcast with Joe Rogan, Peterson expresses the same concern: how to engage in the arguments, which is totally necessary, but not add to the growing division, anger and hatred that are propelling us toward civil war? Peterson says that this is something he is struggling with, and has not figured out.

You can hear him here, and it is well worth the long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G59zsjM2UI

quote:

Peterson expresses the same concern: how to engage in the arguments, which is totally necessary, but not add to the growing division, anger and hatred that are propelling us toward civil war? Peterson says that this is something he is struggling with, and has not figured out.

I haven't figured it out either.
Bill Buckley was pretty good at it. Ronald Reagan was pretty good at it. But... 50 + years after the founding of NR and the 'conservative movement', culminating in the Reagan Presidency, we are even farther to the left and closer to socialism than we have ever been.

I think Obama did great damage to the idea of 'civil discourse':

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia ...

https://www.politico.com/blogs...a-knife-fight-009692

I've heard talk from both conservatives and liberals in North MS for years (decades maybe?) about a coming civil war.

I think the issue with a war of political values (vs one of entire states desiring the right to self govern, even at the expense of an entire race of people) is that geography made the American Civil War one to more easily see who your enemy was, whereas if it came to blows over politics, that would get hazy. Do we call time out and send all the libs to the Northeast and California before we say "go"?

Only being a little facetious here, things would truly devolve quickly should it come to a shooting conflict. Where do you know that has a true homogenous population of conservatives only? I keep my trap shut when in the company of most large groups of fire breathing liberals, and assume the same is true of liberals who live in my general area. But we must remember that the numbers of voters tend to be closer to 50/50 than we want to admit.

I fear the way the country has shifted, where the "conservative" is what my grandparents would have thought of as a John Stennis type, while "liberal" is bat poop crazy left.

What a two faced son of a bitch, yeah we have to learn to live with people we disagree with, while he has been spewing his bullshit raising the level of disagreement. So now he claims let’s all get a long. Yeah, right.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse.

When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration.

A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

- John Stuart Mill, 1848


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JSM pretty much says it all for me in the above quote.

Bill Maher can go fuck himself.

I don't give a fuck what the ballot box says, I care what the US Constitution says.

I'm a live and let live kinda guy.

Fuck Bill Maher. Did you actually read what he said? If you disagree with him or his argument, his intellectual-ism as he put it, you are either stupid or hate filled. Did you read any part where he acknowledged you may disagree because you have a valid argument? Nope, you didn’t miss it, he just refuses to admit his opinion isn’t always correct.

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Originally posted by Ozarkwoods:
What a two faced son of a bitch, yeah we have to learn to live with people we disagree with, while he has been spewing his bullshit raising the level of disagreement. So now he claims let’s all get a long. Yeah, right.

Exactly. He is your typical militant liberal who hates anyone that disagrees with him. Screw him.