Civil Liberties

Bill Maher Assails Speech Police Who 'Lay in Wait' on the Internet

It certainly feels like that sometimes.

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Bill Maher
Angela George / Flickr

On his most recent show, HBO host Bill Maher lamented that the internet has empowered defenders of political correctness to blow every offending statement out of proportion. Here's what he said:

I was railing against political correctness, and I feel like the internet has made that so much worse. Because people just sit there and lay in wait for somebody to say something politically incorrect, and then pat themselves on the back that 'I'm the good person and I'm going to go after this person whose the bad person because he said this thing that's wrong and this thing that's wrong,' like it's Galileo against the church."

It certainly feels like that sometimes. Thankfully, the internet also gives a platform to opponents of PC culture and permits—in theory at least—a vigorous debate over what words and ideas are unsayable.

Hat tip: Evan McMurry / Mediaite