To quote Brad Pitt, “ideals are peaceful. History is violent.” If you’ve seen “Fury,” you know what scene I’m referencing. It’s illogical, almost criminal, to apply 21-century social standards retroactively when we enslaved people, engaged in atrocities, and slaughtered each other much more frequently. I’m not just referring to American history—this is humanity writ large. Human history contains pervasive violence, misery, death, and the destruction of societies. We have progressed, and liberal America’s failure to see that is one of their more annoying characteristics. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees—and this is a hallmark trait for the woke wealthy, college-educated, and overwhelmingly white progressive voter bloc within the Democratic Party.
Maher correctly said that history is not fan fiction. He added that he’s not perfect and made mistakes, noting his smoking habits and participation in numerology. He was fair in criticizing both sides, noting that, at times, conservatives might have tried to whitewash history, but this concerted effort to abuse history to control the future is a liberal invention (via Fox News):
Liberal comedian Bill Maher roasted the woke concept of “presentism,” where historical figures and events are judged in the prism of the present – further arguing against the oft-claimed leftist position that White people are usually to blame for history’s lesser moments.
[…]
Maher said it is “stupid” to think that people from centuries or millennia ago “really should have known better,” remarking that most kids regret a lot of what they did in their youth as humanity regrets much of what it has done in its earlier years.
[…]
Maher pushed back on assertions that slavery was basically unique to America, pointing out the root of the term is Slav – adding that Slavic people are not Black.
“Slavery throughout history has been the rule, not the exception,” he went on, adding that human capacity for cruelty is just that – human – and not explicitly White.
[…]
Maher riffed that presentists like to think they are better than George Washington because of the diversity of their friends versus his, arguing if the Founding Father was alive today, he would likely have just as diverse a circle.
“[That] is not to say that there is some truth to the old rubric that ‘history is written by the winners’ and it is subjective,” he added later in his monologue. “It’s also true that much of history is indisputably factual because we have artifacts and coins and birth records and archaeology.”
“[S]omebody in Mesopotamia kept a record of how much grain they ate: It’s not all up in the air to change or delete or make up based on what makes you feel better today,” Maher concluded.
I'm a gay man in my 30's, covid vaccinated 4 times, believe in gender and racial equality. I also strongly believe in bodily autonomy and individual liberty. According to Trudeau, I'm a misogynistic racist and an extremist who needs to be dealt with.https://t.co/qQYyK6qoo2
— Libertarian not woke (@AllStopThinking) September 17, 2022
Bill Maher, on Real Time last night: “They don’t know what America is supposed to be because we stopped teaching history and stopped teaching civics. We teach bullshit.”
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) September 17, 2022
