Idiocracy

Have too many Americans become gullible, ill-informed idiots who have elevated feelings over facts and replaced critical thinking with a blind sense of trust for authority? I'm not trying to be insulting here; I'm just trying to figure out Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers.

Four years ago Tucker Carlson asked Britney Spears on CNN, "A lot of entertainers have come out against the war in Iraq. Have you?" And Britney, who was chewing gum throughout the entire interview, answered, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."

It's this kind of head-in-the-sand, free rein granted to those believed to be in a position of moral authority that has led to warrantless wiretapping, torture, and a $6.1 million judgment for a Kentucky McDonald's employee named Louise Ogborn. In 2004, Louise was 18 and working at McDonald's when her assistant manager Donna called her into the back office, said a police officer on the phone had identified her as a thief, and then forced Louise, under the "cop's" orders, to strip naked, do nude jumping jacks, submit to a spanking and finally perform oral sex on Donna's 43-year-old exterminator fiancé. The whole ordeal, ordered by a prankster over the phone, lasted three hours. But you know what they say about fast-food work -- the time flies when you're busy.

A Kentucky jury listened to testimony, watched a videotape of the entire incident and awarded Louise $6.1 million dollars from the obviously culpable party in this matter -- the McDonald's Corporation. That's right, two adults pressure a third adult into stripping, a spanking and a blowjob based on the word of a stranger on the phone and the fault lies not with the gullible idiots who blindly obeyed some perceived voice of authority, but with the company that happens to have its name on the sign out front. McDonald's has a written policy in their training manual against any type of strip searches and even sent out a voicemail warning franchises about such phone hoaxes but the jury found that the company was liable because, after all, the perv on the phone did say he was a cop and what choice did Donna the assistant manager have but to, as Britney says, "just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens"?

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.

Comments

[MichaelBernard1]

Back when Bill Maher ran his weeknight celebrity conversation gigs on American network television, I realized that his topical schtick was always just looking for an excuse for a jokey punchline. Bill is a clever, smart, glib man, with a million bucks in the bank, an HBO contract, and a beautiful woman on his arm. But I do not take political instruction from either Bill Maher, or Britney Spears, although I like them both. Plenty of Americans, Baby Boomers like me, are smart, well-read, and politically aware. Younger Americans need time to mature. I am sure they will help us understand and fix America in the near future. Cynicism is a form of cowardice. Bullies occupy our White House right now, that is all. Myself, I look forward to the political resolution, sure to come. America will remember itself.

[alwaysthere]

for heavens sake
when was the last time that a doubter ever burned another human being at the stake

let's face it

the more religious they are
the more dangerous they are.

love ya Bill

[wadenelson1]

Umm, when was the last heathen burned at the stake by religious zealots?

Last immolation I can recall was the Quaker outside the Pentagon, and a Buddhist monk in South Vietnam. Both were self-immolations, and both were more than 40 years ago.

Why are you bringing up religion when we're talking about McDonalds corporation.

[NBachers]

How many non-Christian (doubting the Christian faith) men, women, and children have died screaming in agony while being immolated by US bombs in Iraq? When's the last time that happened?

[mckinley]

Blame Christianity.

Europeans are amazed at American's simplistic religiosity, and just shake their heads... And they are better educated, more economically successful, and are safer walking down the street at night

[cireno]

The truth keeps bubling up and the paxil is not helping.

[Keith Richard Radford Jr]

The 1,2,3's of sex offenders
1. The recidivism rate of sex offenders is under 5%
2. 90% of all sex crimes are committed within the family
3. 92% of all sex crimes are perpetrated by people not not the sex offender registry.
If the bulls eye is 5% of the target and the bulls eye scores no points, what justifies the billions of tax payer dollars for the projects?

[Danny]

A distraction. Many distractions being foisted on the Britneys of this nation.

[jeersforfears]

Of course we shouldn't just trust the president (no matter whom he/she is) no matter what.

Figuring out the truth of it all - that's the trick.

Mr. Maher, you have not figured out the truth of it all.

For purposes of discussion, let's say there are two types of citizens: those who have their minds made up on both sides, and those who are uninformed.

A third citizen emerges: one who STUDIES both sides of the issue - that means tirelessly searching for the truth, not just what feels good to believe - and then makes up his or her own mind.

THAT person makes people like Bill Maher and his loaded questions irrelevant.

Too many people on both sides play politics with information, and thereby disinform the public.

[AnnaCaroline]

I find it interesting that you've created your own set of parameters in your own controlled environment to back up your own made up hypothetical.

FYI, you haven't figured out the truth either. What situation you're really looking at is that there are two kinds of people, those who question and those who do not. No more, no less. How is what you've suggested any closer to your version of the truth? Why can't your hypothetical third group be a subset of one of the first two? Have you ever studied logic? Methinks no. And what that does is make your loaded hypotheticals irrelevant.

[OldKnute]

YES,, YES,, YES!

Jeersforfears!!!!!

The TRUE meaning of Jihad!!!!

To daily, come open before God and search the deepest recesses of the heart. To know this is all an illusion. To know the failings of us all. To hold our brother BLAMELESS when blackness and greed is found in ourselves.

DO WE LISTEN?

NO!

Fear consumes us!
Fear guides us.
And fear will destroy us.

It is a coward`s Jihad, if it is not TRUE, BRAVE and ETERNAL.

And who suffers?

WE DO,,,,, and for eternity.

One heart, one truth, one man,,,, before GOD!

Private and relentless!

And we LIE to ourselves and KILL.

Politics and intrigue is our NEW GOD!

Islam is NOT my faith, but the wisdoms found there are universal.

READ people READ!

All the best

Knute (Neo-LIB)

[morris1030]

jeers,

Fine....vo­te for Ralph Nader. You will never find a way. Too negative.

[Pamiam]

Wait.. the woman stripped, got spanked, gave a BJ to her boyfriend because of a phone call? And then got 6.1m? I am surprised my husband hasn't come home with a McDonalds applicatio­n...

What ever happened to common sense? Didn't any of the "adults" question that this may be wrong?

We are only as strong as our weekest link.. Lets give more focus on education so our children will question authority.­.will have the common sense they were born with..will know right from wrong... with out having to sew McDonnalds for our hot coffees, fat kids, and crank calls.

[LindaJay]

Hmmm. Could it possibly be the fault of the mainstream media which spends weeks on Anna Nicole Smith, but spent absolutely zero time on the stolen 2004 elections - or any other controversial story in the past 7 years? Perhaps as a member of that press you should look in the mirror when using such broad strokes to paint all Americans.

[Rexxx]

Great blog and great show last night, Bill!

I think we should start a list of guests we'd love to see on Real Time. I know a lot of them are tough to get and just don't have the cajones for your show, but here's the list of dream guests I'd love to see on Real Time:

Matt Taibbi
Kieth Olbermann
George Clooney
Eddie Vedder
Bruce Springstein
Ted Nugent (we can dream, right?)

[bierce]

One of the major problems ,to me,is the ability to pass the responsibility to the " faceless personage". That way, you aren't responsible for your actions. " They said, they advised, I was just following orders". We left the era of personal responsibility a long time ago. Too bad.

[hartdet]

Love ya, Bill.

There's a difference between the education one receieves from school and what one gets from parents. Parental education should have kicked in when the girl was asked to strip. Parents teach kids about authority and self-preservation, not the schools; the schools are about creating Good Citizens, not smart ones, and Good Citizens follow numbly.

If we want something different out of education, we have to scrap the two-hundre­d-year-old funding system and create a new rubric. Too much trouble, too much money.

[cloudy]

The point which Bill Maher evades is the obvious one that the Assistant Manager in particular is to blame, and she was working for McDonald's so McDonald's (who could be said to be at fault for hiring her) is therefore liable.

I agree with the implicit notion that $6.1 million for a mere strip tease and blow job is a bit excessive.

[HermioneGranger]

In this case, McDonald's should ask the Assistant Manager to pay the money back (or, at least, part of it).

Anyway, its the second most expensive BJ of all times.

[Danny]

When do we get to straighten out the balance at the FCC, the one that doesn't give a sh*t about the public interest. When, Bill?

[LiberalMathProfessor]

John Dean has written, in Conservatives Without Conscience, about the authoritarian personality manifest in leaders and followers who take the bait and toe the line. Our nation appears not only god-soaked and sinking fast thereby, it is full of oath-taking, hand-raising obedients who make, in my mind, the worst threat to the security of our so-called homeland. Dumbing-down becomes an important tool to keep the populace silly and stupid, and obedient.

[HereticalPolemicisit]

The curtain which veiled the myth of The Great OZ is as the myths of Reagan's "Morning in America". They are fracturing, showing the fault-lines in the homilies used to delude the previously unquestioning flock.

The neo-cons chicken-hawks use the rhetoric that "9-11 changed everything". Hurricane Katrina was the B-slap to those of Main Street who saw themselves when they saw the survivors of New Orleans.

Government ineptitude combined with the growing realization of the futility in the Iraq policy showed that it was not just Government, it was the PEOPLE they elected who were the problem as much as the issues of the problems.

The ruling elite in charge of the powwer levers sold THE PEOPLE out for their own aggrandizement. The media's cheerled us Into Iraq and then becme the tribunes of criticism of the policies which they enabled. The spineless, scaredy-cat Demvester Party Senators and Representatives who postured as "patriots" for the upcoming 2002 mid-term election, rather than being Patriots, challenging the assertions for the Iraq Invasion; the specialists and authoritative voices of technical issues from health and intelligence to the economy: all abused the trust as the guardians of " THE GENERAL WELFARE".

We don't have media outlets to vent our seething rage and REVOLUTIONARY impulses. We HAVE the same resolve that those rebels of 1775 and 1861 saw of the ruling authority that would impose its prescient Orwellian-OZ-like dissemblings on the masses. We know the TRUE use of the Second aAmendment's right to bear arms-militarized Proud Fighting Civilians.

We were on the sidelines, too trusting of those who said "Trust, but verify" to our adversaries, but disparaged those who ASKED for the same standard for those seeking the same privilege of trust.

No LONGER.

From the Presidential candidates to policy issues we're the voting block that GAVE the Demvesters their chance to get it right, and who'd vote otherwise before choosing the no-choice of a counterfeit coin of oligarchy that has us as their road-kill on the superhighway to their self-serivicing ends.