New Rules: Bill Maher to the Teabaggers - The Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Your Guts

[kpete]

MAHER: Now I want you teabaggers out there to understand one thing. While you idolize the Founding Fathers and dress up like them and smell like them, I think it's pretty clear that the Founding Fathers would've hated your guts. And what's more, you would've hated them! They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bullshit.

....

They were not the common man of their day. Ben Franklin studied scientific phenomena like lightning and the aurora borealis, and were he alive today, he could probably explain to Bill O'Reilly why the tides go in and out.

James Madison was fluent in Greek and Latin, and could translate Virgil and Cicero. John Boehner can't translate Fareed Zakaria. And Thomas Jefferson was an astronomer and a physicist who founded the University of Virginia, played the violin, and spoke six languages. Or as Palin would say, "all of them".

FULL TRANSCRIPT AND VIDEO:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/new-rules-bill-maher-teabaggers-founding-f
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/15/936526/-Bill-Mahers-New-Rule-rips-Tea-Party-for-Founding-Fathers-comparison

[FreakinDJ]

1. Yes that was excellent

saw it last night - Love Bill Maher

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. And I think Bill Maher is right.

The founding fathers were idealistic, well-read men of the enlightenment. Also important to remember that they argued with each a lot and were not in lockstep agreement. Hammering out the Constitution was a long, arduous, argumentative process filled with compromise, negotiation, and working together toward a greater goal than one's selfish wants.

[MrMickeysMom]

3. That's one for the archives...

Thanks for the full transcript, as it will come in handy, I'm sure.

[Pisces]

4. One of his best. Mike Murphy could only look down in shame.

[Poboy]

5. Excellent. recommend.

[justiceischeap]

6. Was that a new show? Is he back on? (eom)

[Deuce]

7. Yes!

[dynasaw]

8. So Where Does the Anti-Intellectualism Come From?

In the '50's Adlai Stevenson could not win the presidency because he was considered "an egg head." In the last 40-50 years I have had encountered more scorn of education and the educated people than I want to think about.

It seems unimaginable that people as well educated and accomplished as the Obamas should be scorned while the likes of Palin, O'Donnell, and Bachmann are celebrated.

[Ikonoklast]

10. People that are intellectually challenged are always suspect of those that aren't.

They have a sneaking suspicion that someone is getting something over on them, just because they don't understand most of the world, how it works, and are happier believing in fairy tales to explain life to them.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

11. Most people aren't intellectually challenged.

It's mostly ignorance, willful or otherwise.

[calimary]

17. It's a bedrock kind of resentment. Fueling hatred for what they don't understand.

You hate and fear that which (or those whom) you don't understand. The effort to portray liberals and Dems and intellectuals as "The Other" and "they're not like us," or in Obama's case "he's not one of us" (which is code for other things as well), is deliberate and feeds directly into this.

[grilled onions]

12. It Came When They Realized

they were running out of people with a brain to get elected. They had to dumb down their criteria in order to have an ample group to run for various offices. Just take a look at what they have and had running down the pike say in the past twenty years. Few of them could be used as endorsers of higher education(or lower education for the most part). I doubt many even know how to use spell checker(for few seem to use it).

[Skip_In_Boulder]

13. A great book to read on the subject is

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

Although it was written in the 60's I believe it is still the definitive work on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0394703170/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295111370&sr=1-1&condition=new

[astroBspacedog]

16. Critical reasoning and intellectualism has nothing to do with running a country.

We need to pick the leaders whom we'd rather have a beer with !!! (wink)


Sorry guys, ---- I guess (once again) I'd better get out of the house and take my dog for a hike.

[jwirr]

19. My guess is that when science started to conflict with religion they

needed to stop listening in order to maintain their literalistic faith. Thus they started dumbing down education and now are bent on destroying public schools where it is taught.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. From the same place

It is a deep strain in American thought, going to well before Independence. The people did not trust experts or in our parlance eggheads.

Jacoby has a very good book on this...

http://www.amazon.com/Age-American-Unreason-Susan-Jacoby/dp/0375423745

Also recommended would be Richard Hoffstader's book on this

http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellectualism-American-Life-Richard-Hofstadter/dp/0394703170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295127033&sr=1-1-spell

[WinkyDink]

39. Because most Americans aren't very smart, let alone curious.

[eridani]

51. Nothing wrong with most people's brains--it's just laziness

That's worse. Stupidity is an unfortunate accident of birth; ignorance is a choice.

[Cleita]

40. I have a theory.

Back in the days of Dickens only the aristocracy, the well off bourgeoisie and the clergy got an education. The ordinary illiterate peasant and factory workers were at their mercy because of it. I think the resentment started because of class division and it seems to have been passed along in our culture, in spite of the efforts of American leaders in the past to educate all children in our public school system and to stop child labor so that those children could go to school. Somewhere our public school system is failing and we have to go back to the drawing board to make it work. We also need to educate our children according to their ability, not their trust account. I believe what happened to the California university system, where you could get free tuition if you had the grades and native intellect to attend, into making all students pay tuition started the dumbing down of our society.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

48. It's akin to what I encountered as a college professor: intellectual laziness

There was a certain subset of students who would respond to any unfamiliar idea, experience, book, movie, or art with "That's boring."

What it really meant was, "I can't understand it, and I'm not willing to try."

[Lost-in-FL]

70. !

:thumbsup:

[Initech]

49. Fox News

[BuelahWitch]

52. I think in the '50s anti-intellectualism was fueled by the Communist witch hunt

and the John Birchers. Anyone who participated in any type of critical thinking (ie. against what their church taught) might be a Communist. A good American went to church and didn't do a whole lot of thinking. It let up for a bit during the '60s (in certain places), but came back into favor again after Reagan took office. Since then it's just been all downhill.

[MountainLaurel]

72. I think you've got it.

In a thread about the Scopes trial, someone pointed out that it was mainly illegal in the U.S. to teach evolution, until Sputnik demonstrated how far we'd fallen behind in science.

[NashVegas]

60. It Was Programmed In

The following quote comes from Rockefeller's General Education Board, a philanthropical effort of the early 20th century to guide the direction of public schools, especially in the South:

"In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.

We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply.

The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way."

http://www.sntp.net/education/leipzig_connection_6.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2i.htm

Then, you have this:

"In a speech he gave before businessmen prior to the First World War, Woodrow Wilson made this unabashed disclosure:

We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2b.htm


Now it's all biting everyone in the ass.

[Odin2005]

62. The Christian Revivals of the early 1800s.

It turned us into a nation of religious lunatics.

[texastoast]

69. The early church of Rome

The creation myth tells you to stay away from the Tree of Knowledge. Knowledge is associated with the devil. Some matriarchal religions used the snake as a symbol for knowledge. It is amazing that the myth runs so deep to still be in evidence by such sayings as, "Curiosity killed the cat."

[Soylent Brice]

9. K&R

[texshelters]

14. Maher of course generalizes about the founding fathers but

in generally he is right on. They were intellectuals as a whole and not terrible religious, as a whole. However, some were.

Well done Bill.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[calimary]

15. Needs to be said.

Again and again and again and again and again and again and ...

[Initech]

18. That was one of his best in a while.

[AzDar]

20. K & R

:kick:

[mdmc]

21. ..

[dana_b]

22. omg that's classic..

of course they won't hear it because they would never listen to him.

[EC]

23. I also liked when he said that the producers of the

Kennedy movie shouldn't be upset when the History Chan. cancelled showing their movie, when their movie was made up history.

[Whisp]

24. geeze that was funny.

one day i'm shaking my fists at Bill and the next I think he is just perfection. lol. what a guy.

[Whisp]

25. geeze that was funny.

one day i'm shaking my fists at Bill and the next I think he is just perfection. lol. what a guy.

[UTUSN]

26. K&R #57 for, Bwah-ha-HAH !1 n/t

[jobycom]

27. George Washington led an army against a group of teabaggers in the Whiskey Rebellion.

So that's pretty certain.

[Faryn Balyncd]

28. K&R - - - Theocracy was the OPPOSITE of what Jefferson, Madison, & other founders wanted.

In fact, the 3 things Jefferson wanted on his tomb were the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia, and the Virginia stute for religious freedom of 1786, which disestablished the Anglican Church as the state church in Virginia.

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/lynch/religious-freedom.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. These are the times I consider upgrading from

Basic Cable

[me b zola]

30. Recommended

:thumbsup:

[tigereye]

31. they were mostly wonderfully educated people and it shows

[malaise]

33. One of his best ever

Rec

[deacon]

34. K + R

[Tx4obama]

35. Video of more of the show

Opening segment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spyfcb6TSOc
Elizabeth Warren: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_hVXhlDKUU
Round table - James Carville, Chrystia Freeland and Mike Murphy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWsKcSoM0ic

[williesgirl]

36. He's great and certainly right on! rec'd

[queerart]

37. Yup!

Most of the founding Father's were in fact Diest's.....



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

[JDPriestly]

38. Best Bill Maher yet.

[Enthusiast]

59. I thought the same thing.

Bill has done well in the past but this is his best effort yet.

[upi402]

41. Jesus would hate their asses too

Jesus, the ultimate socialist.

[AmandaMae]

42. a big k&r!

[LawnKorn]

43. K&R

[crim son]

44. Daily Kos suggested the wonderful quotes he used

were taken out of context. If it's true, I wish he hadn't done that.

[justiceischeap]

53. The John Adams quote was taken out of context, I believe

Basically Adams said that religion is bad but the world still needs religion because without it, it would be Hell.

He also got it wrong about Paine being an Atheist, he was actually a Deist as were several other Founding Fathers.

Deism (pronounced /ˈdiːɪzəm/ ( listen), US dict: dē′·ĭzm) in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that a supreme being created the universe. Further the term often implies that this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe that is not to be altered by intervention in the affairs of human life. Deists believe in the existence of God without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books.

Deism became more prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in what is now the United Kingdom, France, United States and Ireland, mostly among those raised as Christians who found they could not believe in supernatural miracles or the inerrancy of scriptures, but who did believe in one God. Several of the Founding Fathers of the United States were deists and were heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

[boppers]

54. Deists don't believe in prayer, religion, or worship.

By teabagger standards, that's an Atheist.

[justiceischeap]

55. Still doesn't make Paine an Atheist. (eom)

[LAGC]

65. He would have been if he were alive today.

Keep in mind, before Darwin it was hard to be an atheist.

[boppers]

73. Hey, let's recap a 300 year old argument!

In short, Deists, and others from the enlightenment, believe that something amazing, and (at the time) unexplained, created the universe, and it was outside of our understanding of the natural realm.

We've gained a grip on it since then, and I would say they were Atheists (then) in the same sense as Sagan (was quite recently). They still revere the cosmos as being created by something so profound, and so complex, that we barely understand it, but Paine didn't know about the Big Bang.

[ProudDad]

45. Our local tea bag "leader"

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/435825/tucson_tea_party_founder_blames_giffords_for_getting_shot%3A_%E2%80%98the_real_case_is_that_she_had_no_security%E2%80%99?page=entire

And one shooting victim's response to this asshole trent humphries...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4698207#4698336

[muntrv]

46. The Founding Fathers were (GASP) the educated elite.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. I've made this point in online comments in our local paper

The Founding Fathers would have considered the Tea Party types to be "the rabble."

They were highly educated, knowledgeable about culture and science, and had an international outlook. They embraced the new ideas of their day. They "boldly went where no one had gone before" by declaring independence.

The Tea Party types would have been Tories, and backwoods Tories at that.

[Roci]

50. It is also worthy

to note that Thomas Jefferson also edited his own version of the Bible, and reading it (It is online) is a great window into both the beliefs and heart of a truly great man, whose world was populated (luckily for us) by other great men. While I cannot hold with saying that Madison and Jefferson would have hated anyone for whatever they believed (That was one thing all of them were trying to escape) I do believe that men of the intellectual caliber of Jefferson, Madison, and even Washington (who was more soldier than intellectual) would have found it surprisingly easy to find the many "holes" in what the people of today would have the rest of us believe.

Those who so freely shout their names today to ratify a mal-formed set of half-baked political and populist notions do so at the cost of a deep intellectual dishonesty to the men and women (for who can discount the role that Abigail Adams played in bringing her husband support and insights while the two could see one another only thru their letters?)who founded the rights of everyone (including these push button populists) to protest so loudly without facing the threats of "Treason" and the wrath of the bayonet?

[LiberalFighter]

56. Teabaggers would had been the first to retreat during the Revolution.

Teabaggers would had quit before serving their military duty in the Revolutionary War.
Teabaggers would had taken over the homes of others as the British did while in the militia.
Teabaggers would had stolen food from the citizenry.
Teabaggers would had worked against the Revolution because there wasn't a Constitution that allowed it.
Teabaggers would had squealed against the Americans for the British. So they could have families removed from their homes and then they could move in.
Teabaggers would had demanded that blacks could not be considered a person. Not even 3/5ths.
Teabaggers would had demanded that their religion could be the only one recognized and any other worship would result in execution.

[True_Blue]

57. Recommended!

Bill Maher nailed it!

[Enthusiast]

58. K and R! nt

[Bolo Boffin]

61. Wait'll they find out what Jesus thinks of them. n/t

[IdaBriggs]

66. If I could recommend this answer I would - well said! nt

[Tripod]

63. k&r :)

[Pooka Fey]

64. K&R

[lonestarnot]

67. "John Boehner can't translate Fareed Zakaria."

:spray: :rofl:

[texastoast]

68. No truer words have been spoken

Wish I could recommend this a thousand times.

[WillyT]

71. K & R !!!

:kick:

[Raine]

74. TOTALLY on point! nt

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

75. BWAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

:rofl: