106 Quotes & Sayings By Bill Maher

Bill Maher is an American comedian, author, television host, and commentator. He is the host of the HBO political series Real Time with Bill Maher, which airs nightly at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time on HBO. His stand-up comedy special, Religulous, premiered in October 2008 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) Read more

In 2007, Maher published his first book, Liberalism is a Cancer.

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There's an old, frequently-used definition of insanity, which is "performing the same action over and over, expecting different results.".. Now, I'm no doctor, but I am on TV. And in my professional opinion, George Bush is a paranoid schizophrenic....Other symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia are: Do you see things that aren't there? Such as a link between 9/11 and Iraq? Do you - do you feel things that you shouldn't be feeling, like a sense of accomplishment? Do you have trouble organizing words into a coherent sentence? Do you hear voices that aren't really there? Like, oh, I don't know, your imaginary friend, Jesus? Telling you to start a war in the Middle East.Well, guess what? There are a large number of people out there also suffering from the same delusions, because there are Republicans, there are conservatives, and then there are the Bushies. This is the 29 percent of Americans who still think he's doing "a heck of a job, Whitey." And I don't believe that it's coincidence that almost the same number of Americans - 25 percent - told a recent pollster that they believe that this year - this year, 2007 - would bring the Second Coming of Christ! I have a hunch these are the same people. Because, if you think that you're going to meet Jesus before they cancel "Ugly Betty, " then you're used to doing things by faith. And if you have so much blind faith that you think this war is winnable, you're nuts and you shouldn't be allowed near a voting booth. Bill Maher
I have a problem with people who take the Constitution...
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I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally. Bill Maher
I think religion is a neurological disorder.
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I think religion is a neurological disorder. Bill Maher
The Bible looks like it started out as a game...
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The Bible looks like it started out as a game of mad libs. Bill Maher
Saying someone is religious is heard in most of America...
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Saying someone is religious is heard in most of America as a compliment, a reassuring affirmation that someone will be moral, ethical, and after a few glasses of wine, a freak in the bedroom. Bill Maher
I don't ridicule religion, it ridicules itself.
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I don't ridicule religion, it ridicules itself. Bill Maher
Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting...
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Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them. Bill Maher
Can we go back to using Facebook for what it...
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Can we go back to using Facebook for what it was originally for - looking up exes to see how fat they got? Bill Maher
To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license....
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To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click 'I agree'. Bill Maher
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[F]reedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that "Oh, I don't get involved in politics, " as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable. Bill Maher
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The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of Bill Maher
You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea?...
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You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea? A splash. Bill Maher
Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.
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Don't get so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance. Bill Maher
We need more people speaking out. This country is not...
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We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels & free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep & conformists. Bill Maher
The true axis of evil in America is the brilliance...
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The true axis of evil in America is the brilliance of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Stop asking Miss USA contestants if they believe in evolution. It’s not their field. It’s like asking Stephen Hawking if he believes in hair scrunchies. Here’s what they know about: spray tans, fake boobs and baton twirling. Here’s what they don’t know about: everything else. If I cared about the uninformed opinions of some ditsy beauty queen, I’d join the Tea Party. Bill Maher
Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream....
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Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream. I enjoy it, who wants to be in the mainstream? Bill Maher
I find that the world is changing much, much faster...
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I find that the world is changing much, much faster than I can even bitch about it. Bill Maher
Last week, I suggested the candidates take up mushrooms. I’ll...
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Last week, I suggested the candidates take up mushrooms. I’ll be damned if Rick Perry didn’t take me up on that. Bill Maher
Kadafi is a zombie in a pillbox hat, that's what...
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Kadafi is a zombie in a pillbox hat, that's what he is! Bill Maher
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New Rule: Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything. We've all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the "birthers"--the far-right goofballs who claim Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii, and therefore the job of the president goes to the runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean. And there's nothing you can do to convince these people--you could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate, with the placenta, and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background..and they still wouldn't believe it. Hey, birthers, wanna hear my theory? My theory is Obama was born in America, and your were born with the umbilical cord around your neck. I don't know what his mother was doing when she was pregnant, but I'm pretty sure yours was drinking. Oh, I kid the birthers, and actually, there is one thing that makes me think they could be right: We're Americans; of course we're gonna hire an illegal alien to clean up. I'm joking, of course, and laughing it off has also been the reaction from Democratic leaders so far, proving that Democrats never learn: In America, if you don't immediately kill arrant bullshit, no matter how ridiculous, it can grow and thrive and eventually take over, like crabgrass or Cirque du Soleil. This might be a deluded, time-wasting right-wing obsession, but so was Whitewater, and look where that ended up. Liberals said, "Oh, what're they gonna do, keep expanding the case until they impeach the president over a blow job?" I'm telling you, in America, there is no idea so patently absurd that it can't catch on. For example, have you ever met a Mormon? More recently, we had the Swift Boat allegations against John Kerry, making him, a genuine war hero, into a coward in a race against a guy who never left Texas--this was so stupid that Kerry refused to even discuss it. And we all know how well that worked out. You may ask, how does something as inane as Whitewater or Swift Board or the "birther" phenomenon gain traction? I'll tell you how: the same way the story about Elton John almost dying from ingesting too much of Rod Stewart's sperm gained traction in my high school: dummies talking to other dummies. It's just easier now because of the Internet and because our mainstream media does such a lousy job of speaking the truth to stupid. Lou Dobbs said recently, "People are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate." Yes, the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night, and where to put the stamp on their e-mail. And, Lou, you're their new king. That's why it's so important that we the few, the proud, the "reality-based, " attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. It's not a case of Democrats vs. Republicans. It's sentient beings vs. the Lizard People, and it is to them I offer this deal: I'll show you President Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma. Bill Maher
Americans today confuse freedom with not being asked to sacrifice....
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Americans today confuse freedom with not being asked to sacrifice. The fact that you can't have everything you want exactly when you want it has somehow become un- American. Bill Maher
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Women are also property in our bible; adultery is a property crime in the Old Testament, not a sex crime. Bill Maher
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New Rule: If you're one of the one-in-three married women who say your pet is a better listener than your husband, you talk too much. And I have some bad news for you: Your dog's not listening, either; he's waiting for food to fall out of your mouth. Bill Maher
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First of all understand that I get it. That there are millions and millions of women who are steely eyed realists. And millions and millions of men who are anything but. However. For lack of a better term I would say that the feminine values are the values of america :Sensitivity is more important than Truth. Feelings are more important than Facts. Commitment is more important than Individuality. Children are more important than People. Safety is more important than Fun.I always hear women say 'Y'know married men live longer'. Yes. And an indoor cat also, lives longer. Bill Maher
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First of all understand that I get it. That there are millions and millions of women who are steely eyed realists. And millions and millions of men who are anything but. However. For lack of a better term I would say that the feminine values are the values of america :Sensitivity is more important than Truth. Feeling are more important than Facts. Commitment is more important than Individuality. Children are more important than People. Safety is more important than Fun.I always hear women say 'Y'know married men live longer'. Yes. And an indoor cat also, lives longer. Bill Maher
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To a coward, courage always looks like stupidity. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Don't name your kid after a ballpark. Cubs fans Paul and Teri Fields have named their newborn son Wrigley. Wrigley Fields. A child is supposed to be an independent individual, not a means of touting your own personal hobbies. At least that's what I've always taught my kids, Panama Red and Jacuzzi. Bill Maher
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If a fourteen year-old can deliver your message, it's not because he's gifted. It's because intellectually, you're a child. Bill Maher
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But females in even the most advanced Muslim countries are simply, by law, not the equal of men. Bill Maher
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Just like in the workplace, women who are good workers are the best workers. Bill Maher
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The real axis of evil in America is the genius of our marketing and the gullibility of our people. Bill Maher
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Jesus is great -- is there a better role model? No. It's religion, it's the people who get in between -- the bureaucracy, you know.... It's the way people abuse Jesus. Was there ever a greater victim of name dropping? Bill Maher
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They" hate us because they feel--and "they" are not wrong--that it is within our power to do so much more, and that we practice a kind of passive-aggressive violence on the Third World. We do this by, for example, demonizing tobacco as poison here while promoting cigarettes in Asia; inflating produce prices by paying farmers not to grow food as millions go hungry worldwide; skimping on quality and then imposing tariffs on foreign products made better or cheaper than our own; padding corporate profits through Third World sweatshops; letting drug companies stand by as millions die of AIDS in Africa to keep prices up on lifesaving drugs; and on and on. We do, upon reaching a very high comfort level, mostly choose to go from ten to eleven instead of helping another guy far away go from zero to . Bill Maher
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We are oblivious to suffering. We are cheap with charity if it's not close to our home. Bill Maher
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Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit! Bill Maher
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I don't want to say Monsanto is evil right off the bat, but why is Monsanto so evil? Bill Maher
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Isn't it time we asked ourselves, are we willing to accept any behavior codified within religious or cultural practice? Is there no line to be drawn? If honor killings are okay, then why not virgin sacrifices or cannibalism or sex with children outside the church? We have perversely taken our notion of tolerance to such extremes that we've become tolerant of intolerance. Bill Maher
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New Rule: The White House doesn't have to release the dead Bin Laden photos, but don't pretend we can't take it. We've seen pictures of Britney Spears's vagina getting out of a car. Television has desensitizes us to violence, and porn has desensitized us to people getting shot in the eye. Bill Maher
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But what is it that drives haters crazy with rage? Many times, it's being ignored. To a person with pride, being ignored is often worse than out-and-out hate; it's that much more of an insult, that you're not even worth noticing. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Death isn’t always sad. This week, the Reverend Jerry Falwell died, and millions of Americans asked, “Why? Why, God? Why…didn’t you take Pat Robertson with him?” I don’t want to say Jerry was disliked by the gay community, but tonight in New York City, at exactly eight o’clock, Broadway theaters along the Great White Way turned their lights up for two minutes. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I think we can make an exception, because speaking ill of the dead was kind of Jerry Falwell’s hobby. He’s the guy who said AIDS was God’s punishment for homosexuality and that 9/11 was brought on by pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, and the ACLU–or, as I like to call them, my studio audience. It was surreal watching people on the news praise Falwell, followed by a clip package of what he actually said–things like:" Homosexuals are part of a vile and satanic system that will be utterly annihilated." "If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being." "Feminists just need a man in the house." "There is no separation of church and state." And, of course, everyone’s favorite: "The purple Teletubby is gay." Jerry Falwell found out you could launder your hate through the cover of “God’s will”–he didn’t hate gays, God does. All Falwell’s power came from name-dropping God, and gay people should steal that trick. Don’t say you want something because it’s your right as a human being–say you want it because it’s your religion. Gay men have been going at things backward. Forget civil right, and just make gayness a religion. I mean, you’re kneeling anyway. And it’s easy to start a religion. Watch, I’ll do it for you. I had a vision last night. The Blessed Virgin Mary came to me– I don’t know how she got past the guards–and she told me it’s time to take the high ground from the Seventh-day Adventists and give it to the twenty-four-hour party people. And that what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional. Gay men, don’t say you’re life partners. Say you’re a nunnery of two. “We weren’t having sex, officer. I was performing a very private mass. Here in my car. I was letting my rod and my staff comfort him.” One can only hope that as Jerry Falwell now approaches the pearly gates, he is met there by God Himself, wearing a Fire Island muscle shirt and nut-hugger shorts, saying to Jerry in a mighty lisp, “I’m not talking to you. Bill Maher
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I hate stupidity, but what I hate even more is when people actually brag about it. Bill Maher
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I don't respect thinking that is dangerous, prejudicial, childish, and could get me killed. Bill Maher
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If I can't suck your milkshake through a straw, it's not a milkshake--it's a glass of ice cream. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Americans have to come up with a better cheese to represent the nation than American cheese. I'm not even sure American cheese is cheese. I think it's aged Jell-O. And it doesn't need to be individually wrapped in plastic, either. You're thinking of condoms. Bill Maher
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I'm not a Christian, but I have read his book. Bill Maher
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Fascism is when corporations become the government. Bill Maher
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New Rule: You don't have to teach both sides of a debate if one side is a load of crap. President Bush recently suggested that public schools should teach "intelligent design" alongside the theory of evolution, because after all, evolution is "just a theory." Then the president renewed his vow to "drive the terrorists straight over the edge of the e Bill Maher
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It's a funny thing about Americans, we love to bitch about paying too much for the things we really need and are really a bargain, like gas and postage stamps, but we willingly shell out outrageous amounts for unnecessary crap like gourmet coffee and soap to make your crotch smell good. Two dollars a gallon to go ten miles is too much, but five to the parking valet to go ten feet is okay. Bill Maher
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We're a complacent society, hard to get riled up in the first place, and then when we do, it's misdirected. Bill Maher
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Brave Americans in past wars didn't die for the actual flag--they died for the freedom it represents, including the freedom to burn it. Bill Maher
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America is bad at discriminating between danger likely to strike again, and red herrings, the freaking helpings of disaster that no man or plan can prevent. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Food companies must face the facts: One container equals one serving. Look, we’re Americans, and that means once we open the bag, there’s no stopping us until we’re licking stray bits of powdered cheese off the carpet. So stop trying to give us nutritional information based on a fraction of the package. It assumes a talent for two things that we’re really not capable of: restraint and math. . Bill Maher
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Every day in America is a day with a shooting. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word "France." Like just calling something French is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully conceived and brilliantly executed war in Iraq?" And yet an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement: "France has a better health-care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him--he looked French. Yeah, as a opposed to the other guy, who just looked stupid. Last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent turned out. You couldn't get eighty-five percent of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between tits and bigger tits and they were giving out free samples. Maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research, or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with. Nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Madame Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal, " he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill some . Bill Maher
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Do not fuck with gun nuts because they are nuts about their guns. Bill Maher
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New Rule: America has every right ot bitch about gas prices suddenly shooting up. How could we have known? Oh, wait, there was that teensy, tiny thing about being warned constantly over the last forty years but still creating more urban sprawl, failing to build public transport, buying gas-guzzlers, and voting for oil company shills. So, New Rule: Shut the fuck up about gas prices. Bill Maher
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It's not that we don't care--it's just that that we'd prefer not to get involved. Bill Maher
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After September 11th, I never much liked the trend of everyone and his brother wearing the hats and jackets of the NYPD and FDNY. Only the people who do the job should get to wear the hat. Would you wear someone else's Medal of Honor? Yes, it's a tribute, and sincere tribute is always appropriate for these brave people. But wearing their symbols is also rubbing off a piece of heroism that isn't yours. . Bill Maher
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This is the opposite of the free market. Bill Maher
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We were asked to do very little, and we responded. That's the bargain we tacitly make with our presidents: we won't ask too much of you, if you don't ask too much of us. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Apple's next device must be a computer that you control with your tongue. Thanks for eliminating the keyboard and the mouse, but pointing and pushing at things already seems too complicated and tiring. We're Americans--and until you free our hands from the computer entirely, we can never attain our ultimate goal: Web surfing while eating and masturbating. Bill Maher
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Claiming "the budget can't allow it" reminds me of when you walk into a restaurant at a civilized hour like ten o'clock and they say "the kitchen is closed." For years I would hear this, and think, "damn, just a little too late, oh well, thank you, I guess it's Denny's ag Bill Maher
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Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan? At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves. Our soldiers have been in Germany so long they now wear shorts with black socks. You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave on Iwo Jima who doesn’t know the war is over? That’s us. Bush and Cheney used to love to keep Americans all sphinctered-up on the notion that terrorists might follow us home. But actually, we’re the people who go to your home and then never leave. Here’s the facts: The Republic of America has more than five hundred thousand military personnel deployed on more than seven hundred bases, with troops in one hundred fifty countries–we’re like McDonald’s with tanks–including thirty-seven European countries–because you never know when Portugal might invade Euro Disney. And this doesn’t even count our secret torture prisons, which are all over the place, but you never really see them until someone brings you there–kinda like IHOP.Of course, Americans would never stand for this in reverse–we can barely stand letting Mexicans in to do the landscaping. Can you imagine if there were twenty thousand armed Guatemalans on a base in San Ber-nardino right now? Lou Dobbs would become a suicide bomber. And why? How did this country get stuck with an empire? I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But we are an empire, and the reason is because once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes, and Irish relatives: We are not going anywhere. We love you long time! . Bill Maher
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New Rule: You can't force the ATM to do something it doesn't want to do. Excuse me, lady in front of me at the Citibank ATM, but you've been standing there punching buttons for ten minutes--what are you trying to do, write a novel on it? You hear those beeping noises? That's the ATM saying, "Stop it, you're hurting me." A chicken would have gotten forty bucks out of that thing by now just by pecking the buttons randomly. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Stop putting psychedelic screensavers on computers. I sit down to check my e-mail, and the next thing I know it's three days later, I'm in the desert, I'm banging on a drum, I'm naked, and somebody's pierced my dick. Bill Maher
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New Rule: You're never going to pick up women at a coffee shop pretending to be working on your laptop. You don't look like you're sensitive, you look like you're homeless. The last guy to pick up a chick with an Apple was Adam. And when you sit across from another dateless loser with a laptop, it still doesn't look like you're working--it looks like you're playing Battleship. Bill Maher
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We preach about capitalism and the beauty of unfettered market forces determining price--but not when it comes to gas. When it comes to gas, we need it cheap, and the president had better get it for us, or else, we don't care how. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Stop leaving couches on the sidewalk. Besides being lazy and ugly, it's animal cruelty. You teach your dog not to pee on the couch, and then when you take him to the place he's supposed to pee, there's a couch. Bill Maher
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Did you know that the United States is ranked fiftieth in the world in life expectancy? And the forty-nine loser countries where they live longer than us...they live shackled to the tyranny of nonprofit health care. Here in America, you're not coughing up blood, little Bobby, you're coughing up freedom! Bill Maher
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It is not a surprise that a person would want to be a prophet. What's ridiculous is that other people let him. Bill Maher
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Faced with our addiction to oil, what does our leadership say? Get more o Bill Maher
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New Rule: Stop pretending your drugs are morally superior to my drugs because you get yours at a store. This week, they released the autopsy report on Anna Nicole Smith, and the cause of death was what I always thought it was: mad cow. No, it turns out she had nine different prescription drugs in her–which, in the medical field, is known as the “full Limbaugh.” They opened her up, and a Walgreens jumped out. Antidepressants, anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills, sedatives, Valium, methadone–this woman was killed by her doctor, who is a glorified bartender. I’m not going to say his name, but only because (a) I don’t want to get sued, and (b) my back is killing me. This month marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of a famous government report. I was sixteen in 1972, and I remember how excited we were when Nixon’s much ballyhooed National Commission on Drug Abuse came out and said pot should be legalized. It was a moment of great hope for common sense–and then, just like Bush did with the Iraq Study Group, Nixon took the report and threw it in the garbage, and from there the ’70s went right into disco and colored underpants. This week in American Scientist, a magazine George Bush wouldn’t read if he got food poisoning in Mexico and it was the only thing he could reach from the toilet, described a study done in England that measured the lethality of various drugs, and found tobacco and alcohol far worse than pot, LSD, or Ecstasy–which pretty much mirrors my own experiments in this same area. The Beatles took LSD and wrote Sgt. Pepper–Anna Nicole Smith took legal drugs and couldn’t remember the number for nine-one-one. I wish I had more time to go into the fact that the drug war has always been about keeping black men from voting by finding out what they’re addicted to and making it illegal–it’s a miracle our government hasn’t outlawed fat white women yet–but I leave with one request: Would someone please just make a bumper sticker that says, “I’m a stoner, and I vote. Bill Maher
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New Rule: If we want to find a place to cut government waste, we must start with the DEA rubber duck. Yes, on the DEA's website you can buy a rubber ducky with a DEA badge and a cop's hat. Which I recommend doing, because they're a great place to hide your weed. Bill Maher
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New Rule: If an Evangelical tries to use Halloween to pimp Jesus to kids, they get to egg his house. On Halloween, the president of the American Family Association urged his flock to hand out a Christian-based comic book instead of candy. Excuse me, Halloween isn't a time to push your beliefs. You don't see me handing out pot to kids... Okay, well not the little kids. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Oil companies must stop with the advertisements implying they're friends of the environment. "At Exxon Mobil, we care about a thriving wildlife." Please--the only thing an oil executive has in common with a seagull is they'd both steal french fries from a baby. Bill Maher
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New Rule: You can't put a windmill in your campaign ad if you voted against every single bill that might lead to someone building one. As long as you're sending a camera crew to a farm, why not just take a picture of actual bullshit? Bill Maher
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If it weren't for acid, you might not have an IPod, and you definitely would not have some of the best music in your IPod. Bill Maher
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Let's make a law that gay people can have birthdays, but straight people get more cake--you know, to send the right message to kids. Bill Maher
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We're all gonna be gay if we get health care! Bill Maher
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That's not water. That's socialism juice. We should bomb Lake Erie. Bill Maher
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And, corny as it may sound, I do cherish the bond between me and the audience, the minority that follows my stuff and always makes me glad it's us against the world. Bill Maher
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You know, if you're an American and you're born at this time in history especially, you're lucky. We all are. We won the world history Powerball lottery. Bill Maher
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True patriotism is doing something for your country. Bill Maher
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For months in the fall of 2001, our highways looked like a county fair on wheels. "Look out, Al-Qaeda---patriot on board! " I once saw a guy with five flags tell a guy with four flags to go back to Afghanistan. Bill Maher
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New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with? America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag. And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail. Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too! " Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they're ahead? In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution--and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning. Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We're not a bridge to the twenty-first century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we're still number one in everything. We're not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you're number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam "number one" finger. As long as we believe being "the greatest country in the world" is a birthright, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we'll keep losing the moral high ground. Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorist "hate us for our freedom, "" and he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem. Bill Maher
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New Rule: Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That's right, the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poorer one..just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of one hundred thousand. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets--who next year need to just shut the hell up and play. Now, me personally, I haven't watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson's nipple popped out during halftime. and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned by eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it--who doesn't love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving one another brain damage on a giant flatscreen TV with a picture so real it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your s. Bill Maher
89
New Rule: The Napa Valley is Disneyland for alcoholics. Be honest, you're not visiting wineries in four days because you're an oenophile, you're doing it because you're a drunk. It's the only place in America where you can pass out in a stranger's house and it's okay, because it's a B&B and you paid for it. Bill Maher
90
If we stopped calling it profiling and started calling it "proactive intelligence screening" or "high alert detecting", people would be saying "Well, it's about time". Bill Maher
91
NEW RULE: 'Kidiots' Leave the children behind. At least until they learn something. A new study has shown that half of American high schools agree that newspapers should only be able to publish government-approved material. Almost one out of five said people should not be allowed to voice unpopular opinions. This is the first generation after September 11th, who discovered news during a 'watch what you say' administration.. George W. Bush once asked, 'is our children learning.' No, they isn't. A better question would be, 'is our teacher's teaching? . Bill Maher
92
Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit.' Bill Maher
93
The Clinton White House today said they would start to give national security and intelligence briefings to George Bush. I don't know how well this is working out. Today after the first one Bush said, 'I've got one question: What color is the red phone?' Bill Maher
94
We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies. Bill Maher
95
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Bill Maher
96
I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. Bill Maher
97
Religion, to me, is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need. Bill Maher
98
If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. Bill Maher
99
Freedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that 'Oh, I don't get involved in politics, ' as if that makes someone cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable. Bill Maher
100
What Democratic congressmen do to their women staffers, Republican congressmen do to the country. Bill Maher