Is Bill Maher Right for a Change?

On HBO the other day, Bill Maher said conservative authors had a racket going whereby they publish the same book over and over again and yet continue to prosper. “Maybe [conservatives] can only vote once every two years, but they can buy the same book, every three weeks. The exact same book. Over. And over. And over again. I don’t know why being a Republican means needing to have your faith recharged five times a day like Dick Cheney’s heart.”

Over at the Media Research Center, Tim Graham counters that Maher charges a lot for people to come to his comedy shows.

This is really not the point. Maher is actually on to something for a change. How any conservative is not horrified by the intellectual level of the forgettable tomes issuing from the movement’s official voices is beyond me. We have watched it degenerate from Richard Weaver to Bill O’Reilly. This doesn’t alarm the Media Research Center?

And yes, how many times does one need to read a book by Dick Morris, which will focus on trivial examples of “waste and abuse” but never ask a single fundamental question? How many books about “the Democrats” can a person possibly read? Are Sean Hannity’s books really all that different from each other?

John Campbell

It is madness – Bill Maher is on to something. It is the entire conservative – faux libertarian movement that is an echo chamber of nonsense and self-satisfied bromides trying to convince itself that their members know the true path to peace and prosperity. The smugness and stupidity is awe inspiring. Back in my neo-con days, I partook of the swill at times, but it gradually wore on me and likely helped me to find real liberty here and elsewhere.

I used to follow Instapundit back in the day and still return there now and then for amusement or diversion. Astoundingly, Glenn Reynolds considers himself and his ilk to be libertarian, while he peddles those same books and ideas as Bill Maher identified. The horror of self delusion is endemic to the modern conservative movement. It is a tragedy that they poison so many minds with their misleading take on freedom.
http://www.facebook.com/james.ruhland.7 James Ruhland

While tu quoque is generally a sign of a bad argument, the problem is Maher is doing what Progressives always do: he is projecting.
It is true that mainstream conservatism does do that; but in that, they’re just aping their betters. Progressives have been in the business of selling old wine in new bottles for over a century. Progressives write the same book over and over and their supporters buy them. Maher himself is part of this memeplex – what has he been doing for the last two decades if not selling the same worthless memes to the progressive left’s servile base week after week?
Modern mainstream conservatism was formed on the idea of creating counter-institutions. But their basic idea is to adopt the methods that progressives successfully used to gain ascendency in an effort to overturn them. Now, there is a superficial plausibility to that theory. But of course it did mean selling the same memes in repackaged form over and over again to their audience, because that is exactly what the progressive left has done. Repetition works, both in legtitimate pedigogy and in propaganda. So, duh, the progressives did it successfully and the mainstream consertative movement hoped to do the same.
It’s just that guys like Maher have a much more secure and broad institutional base from which to pursue this path and indoctrinate people with progressive memes repeated continually throught their lifetime, in education and on HBO “entertainment” programming. So the mainstream conservative effort to overturn this is probably doomed.
Note also that I watch a lot of Mises programming, I read a lot of Austro-Libertarian books, I have read most of Tom’s books; they are not all entirely original in the sense of being completely distinct from each other. For example, the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle is repeated in many of these videos, books, and the like. Why? Because each year is a new year and each publication or presentation is a new oportunity to reach a wider audience or further broaden the arguments of the current audience (c.f. Tom’s own postings on “preaching to the choir” and why that is necessary).
So Maher is really just sneering at the other side but once again displaying the total lack of self-awareness of both himself ans his fellow progressives and their sheep-like servile base, which mindlessly laps up the same regurgitated pablum week after week, month after month, year after year, and all the time considers themselves “independent open-minded free-thinkers” but without ever leaving the fashionable half of the 3×5 card of approved positions, much less venturing outside that 3×5 card.
He can take his “observation,” turn it sideways, and shove it right up his candy…
John Campbell

I still believe there is a difference and it is this: the conservatives are painting them as opponents of the status quo. They are the status quo – just as you say Bill Maher and his fellow travelers are. Conservatives of the kind Maher is criticizing are greater opponents of liberty than those on the left, because their message misleads people away from the real voices of liberty. I can ignore Maher, but Beck and his tribe? No!
Jim

Bill Maher is a heartless man. When poor orphaned handicapped kids have a lemonade stand to earn a little extra cash, you buy lemonade whether you’re thirsty or not. It’s the same thing with Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. They try so hard and it’s just cute that they make big books.
Franklin

So what do you want to give him, the broken clock award?
Obama thanks him for the million-buck campaign donation. Helps fund the inferno of central Asian bodies burning like a July 4th bonfire, applauded and surrounded by the children of all ages, giggling at the beach and passing the bong. Ha, ha, funny stuff, Bill! Wow, like, cool, you’re so perceptive, man… educatin’ us on that evil war criminal, Bush.
John

“From Richard Weaver to Bill O’Reilly”
There is a book idea for you Tom.
schrist

In all likelihood they are all ghost-written by the same person.
devo

Bill Maher is a lunatic, with no moral compass. i dont know if its cause he’s mis-educated, or because he’s just ignorant, but he’s a total flip flopper. makes me think that he doesn’t even know whats going on in his own head.
Franklin

His profession is clown. That’s all fine and dandy, but there’s only one problem — he’s not funny. Who can watch this guy? Pulling a pop-culture reference I’ll quote Obi-Wan Kenobi: “Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows it?”
tmike

Yep! …The single largest threat to freedom is the faux conservative radio cartel. Controlling minds and subduing freedom one million listeners at a time.

In the words of Mike Church, I give you the “Radio Mafia” —> Hannity, Levine, Limbaugh, Savage, Medved and more….
tmike

Oops…how could I forget Beck?