I was a huge supporter of the Rally to Restore Sanity. It was uplifting (especially considering the results of the latest election) to see so many people show up and rally in the name of common sense.
It's not surprising that someone like Bill Maher would come along to rain on the parade. What's surprising is...I actually found myself agreeing with him.
He criticized the rally on his HBO show Real Timer with Bill Maher, and although he's still as blustery as ever, he's also making a lot of good points.
When I first heard about the Rally, I was glad that they were taking a bipartisan approach. After all, aren't there frustrated people on both sides? Not all Republicans are Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, right?
Maher, however, points out that you can't equivocate Glenn Beck with someone like Rachel Maddow. One is well-informed and has the credentials to host a show about politics, and the other just yells really, really loud.
The insanity is not equally distributed.
The point that really hit home with me was this: "You see, Republicans keep staking out a position that is further and further right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle, which is now not the middle anymore."
As Maher points out, there aren't as many gray areas here. Global warming is a reality. Gay people should be allowed to get married. President Bush started an unnecessary war.
For years, people who believe what I believe have been told we can't say these things definitively because there's "another side." Yes, there is. It's called the wrong side. The uninformed side. The uneducated side.
Otherwise known as--the insane side.
Meanwhile, while Democrats have been concerned with being "sensitive" and "bipartisan," Republican nutjobs have been throwing rallies of their own calling for an all-out war on the rest of us.
So it is understandable to see why people would hope that a Rally for Sanity would have a little more fire behind it, rather than be just a giant parody.
I still support what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were attempting to do, and I admire them for trying to be inclusive. The problem is that if we're talking about "sanity," then we should be talking about how one of the issues we face now as a country is that the sane people keep trying to reason with the insane people.
It's not surprising that someone like Bill Maher would come along to rain on the parade. What's surprising is...I actually found myself agreeing with him.
He criticized the rally on his HBO show Real Timer with Bill Maher, and although he's still as blustery as ever, he's also making a lot of good points.
When I first heard about the Rally, I was glad that they were taking a bipartisan approach. After all, aren't there frustrated people on both sides? Not all Republicans are Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, right?
Maher, however, points out that you can't equivocate Glenn Beck with someone like Rachel Maddow. One is well-informed and has the credentials to host a show about politics, and the other just yells really, really loud.
The insanity is not equally distributed.
The point that really hit home with me was this: "You see, Republicans keep staking out a position that is further and further right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle, which is now not the middle anymore."
As Maher points out, there aren't as many gray areas here. Global warming is a reality. Gay people should be allowed to get married. President Bush started an unnecessary war.
For years, people who believe what I believe have been told we can't say these things definitively because there's "another side." Yes, there is. It's called the wrong side. The uninformed side. The uneducated side.
Otherwise known as--the insane side.
Meanwhile, while Democrats have been concerned with being "sensitive" and "bipartisan," Republican nutjobs have been throwing rallies of their own calling for an all-out war on the rest of us.
So it is understandable to see why people would hope that a Rally for Sanity would have a little more fire behind it, rather than be just a giant parody.
I still support what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were attempting to do, and I admire them for trying to be inclusive. The problem is that if we're talking about "sanity," then we should be talking about how one of the issues we face now as a country is that the sane people keep trying to reason with the insane people.
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