Real Time With Bill Maher returned to HBO after it’s mid season break, and Maher had a special message for the Tea Party. He said, “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 have hated your guts.”
Here is the video:
Maher said, “Now that they’ve finished reading the Constitution out loud, the Teabaggers must call out that group of elitist liberals whose values are so antithetical to theirs. I’m talking of course about the Founding Fathers, who the Teabaggers believe are just like them, but aren’t. One is a group of exclusively white men who live in a bygone century, have bad teeth, and think of blacks as 3/5 of a person, and the other are the Founding Fathers.”
The Real Time host explained why the Founders and the Tea Party would have hated each other, “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 have hated your guts, and what’s more you would have hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bullshit, and yet here is a popular paining in wing nut America. Yes, that’s Jesus with the Founding Fathers behind him presenting the Constitution to America. Either that, or it’s a settlement offer for that boy after he sued the rectory.”
Maher continued, “Super religious guy Glenn Beck likes to play dress up as Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine, an atheist who said churches were human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind. John Adams said this would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it, which is not to say the Founders didn’t have a moral code, of course they did. They just didn’t get it from the Bible, well except for the part about it’s cool to own slaves. It’s in there folks. I didn’t make it up.”
He also took on the right’s idea of anti-intellectual leadership, “The Founders disagreed amongst themselves about that and most issues, but the one thing they never argued about was that political power should stay in the hands of the smartest people and out of the hands of the dumbest loudmouth slowing down the checkout line at Home Depot, and yet Sarah Palin once said of Obama we need a commander in chief not a professor of law standing at a lectern. How gay is that? Well I hate to break it to you, but Thomas Jefferson lawyer, Alexander Hamilton constitutional lawyer, James Madison lawyer, John Adams constitutional lawyer. They were not the common man of their day.”
Maher concluded, “Ben Franklin studied scientific phenomenon 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 Freed 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.”
Bill Maher really knocked this one out of the park. The main difference between the Founding Fathers and today’s far right, which the Tea Party ignores, is that the Founders were intellectuals, while the far right has spent decades on American anti-intellectualism jihad. They doubt and distrust science because it conflicts with their religion. They have developed and ability to reject formerly agreed upon facts for new ones that support their political and/or religious ideology.
These people are the exact opposite of the Founding Fathers, yet they have managed to coopt their image and warp their words and legacies to further their corporatist agenda by covering it in a disguise of Revolutionary War era patriotism. Someday we will find out that some expensive Republican consultants and PR firms after doing exhaustive research determined that the figures most likely to sell their latest incarnation to the far right Republican base were the Founding Fathers.
Glenn Beck is the revisionist historian in chief who sells this revised, edited, and falsely molded image of the Founding Fathers. The loyal disciples of Beck have already branded Bill Maher a liar and a socialist. It doesn’t matter to them that Maher is speaking the truth, and that they are being sold a group of Founders that bear little resemblance to the real men themselves. No, the right likes to feel patriotic all of the time, so they choose to live in a history that never existed, which seems perfectly fitting for a movement whose grassroots themselves are strictly an illusion.
Related posts:
- Bill Maher Explains Why the Tea Party is Not You
- Tea Party Tories: How the Right Hijacked the Founding Fathers
- Bill Maher Goes on Fox News and Demolishes Bill O’Reilly
- Bill Maher Tosses Christine O’Donnell Off the Christianity Cliff
- Bill Maher Hits Christine O’Donnell with a Montage of Her Most Obnoxious Moments
OMG I love Maher / he is awesome – and capable of taking a rather unpleasant subject (the TBaggers) and turning them into objects of humor and derision (well deserved).
I love Bill Maher. Telling it like it is. None of it anything the Tea Baggers want to hear. Maher’s characterization of the respective groups was spot on. It’s a pity so many Republicans insist on remaining the antithesis of the Founding Fathers they insist they emulate.
Jason, terrific. Maher and Stewart along with Colbert, can do some seriously funny damage to the Teabagging Fewls and often hit just the right note to do it. Really, Snowbilly Grifter, DUELS?
Geeze, as someone who grew up when Leave It To Beaver was a weekly nighttime teevee show, as kids of the late 50s, early 60s we KNEW there was no Leave It To Beaver then much less 2011. Guess that is why so many of our generation took up that “dirty hippie” peace and love mantra.
excellent article Jason.
Here in Tennessee they are trying to change the textbooks so that nothing bad is said about the founding founders. I have an idea that they will put a lot of ridiculous stuff in an attribute it to the founding founders that never happened.
Bill Maher nailed to the wall. The tea party has no idea what the Constitution is and who made it. Sarah Palin has no idea what the Constitution is. They are repeating stuff but they are told to repeat behind the scenes by the huge money that owns them. Sarah Palin hates dictionaries because they are elitist and I tell people what to do. Can you imagine a human being being that dumb?
worse we have a Supreme Court that is so far away from what the founding fathers were probably thinking that they would hate them too. and I’m 99.9% positive they would hate the money that it takes to get someone elected and to get enough congressmen bribed to vote certain ways. I’m just as positive that they would be totally against what the conservative party is trying to do to the people of the United States. And I don’t even have to say anything about Glenn Beck. He knows exactly what he’s doing and he doesn’t care
I support the Tea Party because I support limited government, going back to the Constitution, balancing the federal budget, and liberty for all Americans. My heros of the Tea party include Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and Rick Santali. I believe Thomas Jefferson would have supported me, and I believe this based on his statement:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
Thomas Jefferson, (Attributed)
3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)
Did Jefferson say that before or after he used Hamilton’s National Bank to pay for his Louisiana Purchase?
you may support the idealisim of the tea party but that is not what they ae theya re an illusion and a bunch of idiots…ky’s were sold on religion 800,000 people in ky on ss,medicare,disability and medicaid rand paul wants it gone and they voted on him for religin base only…he is a fucking idiot and religion has no place in our goverment as our founding fathers repeatedly quoted of which you all tend to ignore…noone it seems wants the truth they want to take history and slight it till they soun d right when you are totally incompetent
Does anyone ever ask what going back to the constitution means? Have we left the constitution? No. Our laws are balanced by the Supreme court against the constitution. That is a straw man argument. SMaller government? Does anyone think the government would be smaller with the tea party in charge? All the tea party would do is abandon every poor person, people in need of medical treatment and anyone else who cant fend for themselves. You say no? The tea party is funded by some pretty vast money. With the tea party you will get exactly what you will get with the republicans. Money in charge
That quote you posted completly contradicts the Tea Party ideals. What Thomas Jefferson is saying is that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (i.e. the people) should control the banks i.e. Bigger Government. This is the problem with the tea party. People are taking things way out of contexting and talking about things they don’t understand. The federal reserve is clearly not limited government, and is needed. I thought Ron Paul was a liberatarian, oh what he just changes with whatever movement features one of his talking points.
the fact that palin is considered a viable anything is mind boggling.
“political power should stay in the hands of the smartest people and out of the hands of the dumbest loudmouth”
Sounds like an Aristocracy, not Democracy.
It does. But the problem is that the general population is not competent enough to know what is best for the country. The problem is that the least intelligent in the country think that what they want is what is best for everyone. The government is intended to act in the best interest of the entire population. Instead of giving the poorest among us the option of getting cancer treatment to save their lives, we are debating gay marriage legality, something which has nothing to do with people who don’t “believe” in gay marriage, i.e. they live their lives devoid of homosexuality. Competent people realize that homosexuals have the Constitutional right to pursue happiness, and giving gays that right does not infringe on any of the rights of others. Period. However, incompetent people would have us spend our time debating legislation pertaining to an issue which is made crystal clear in the Constitution. The same goes for tax breaks for the wealthy. Reagan economics does not create jobs. Not in this economy. We tried it. It failed. Yet we keep hearing about it and wasting time on it.
Putting more competent people in charge makes life better for everyone. Period.
I’m talking of course about the Founding Fathers, who the Teabaggers believe are just like them, but aren’t. One is a group of exclusively white men who live in a bygone century, have bad teeth, and think of blacks as 3/5 of a person, and the other are the Founding Fathers.”
Bullseye!!!!!!!
Bill doesn’t seem to know his history very well, or is not constrained by conservative ethic to tell the truth of it: either way . .
Modern science was birthed within the halls of Christian universities; an uncomfortable truth for Bill to have to choke down, but what do I care?
Most state governments in the U.S. were formed by the churches of those states. Another jagged little pill for Bill to choke down; boo hoo.
The Bible has been used for centuries to successfully find more archaeological sites than any other information source known to man. This fact probably presents like an ice water enema to the likes of Maher.
But more than anything, the Teaparty Movement is a secular one, like the first Teaparty Movement. Both are an organized resistance to taxation without representation, unfair and overbearing government. That persons of faith in many cases have the good sense to resist these threats is incidental and not material to the political portion of the discussion from which Maher makes his two grimy cents.
I’m not really sure where you get your information from that I think is far more opinion than it is fact.
If you have been reading up lately, you will find the Koch Brothers own the tea party and its very probably not what you think it it.
Much like George Carlin the wellspring of Bill Mahers art is truth.I’d have to say he was spot on in his observations on this one.I hope I never have to see another dingbat with Liptons stapled to their hats.That is just beyond ridiculous especially when you study their political agenda.All those teabaggers in the house want smaller government why are they hellbent on joining it?