Bill Maher's Recent Rants About Canada Were Disingenuous & Manipulative

 

Recently, Bill Maher blasted Canada, and those Americans who wish that the United States was a bit more similar to Canada.

I watched it, and as this guy in this video mentions, it felt a bit...well, disingenuous.

That is not to say that Canada is perfect, or some kind of utopia. Far from it. Like everywhere else - most certainly including the United States - it has it's share of problems.

However, Maher missed the mark on a lot of points. Particularly obnoxious on his end was how deceptive he was in terms of healthcare. Maybe Canada does rate dead last among advanced countries with some form of universal healthcare, but Maher all too conveniently left out the United States, the only advanced country which fails to provide it's citizens some form of universal healthcare. That is such an obvious miss, that it feels intentional and akin to propaganda, frankly.

Generally, I am not one of those Bill Maher haters. However, I certainly do not agree with all of his opinions, or the arrogance that he sometimes displays in articulating those opinions. 

That said, this blasting Canada thing, however, felt downright disgraceful on his end. You know some advantages that Canada has over the United States? Generally, you just won't see people going bankrupt there because they cannot pay their medical expenses. By contrast, the stories and statistics of people not being able to afford medical care here in the United States, which still is the wealthiest nation in the world, is nothing short of horrifying. Not to mention this was tantamount to pretending that it does not exist, or to make it seem like the American system has no glaringly obvious problems. Maybe Maher does not really care, since as this host points out, he is privileged enough to rank among the wealthiest Americans, but most people are not that lucky. After all, I think it's safe to say that Canada's healthcare system, for all it's possible flaws, still has some definite - and major - advantages over the American healthcare system, including affordability. Also, Canada is generally far safer than the United States is, particularly it's cities. And as the host of this video points out, those most polluted cities in North America thing happened specifically because of wildfires, and not because regulations here in the United States generally work better than those in Canada. In other words, Maher cherrypicked a lot of the data that he used to make the case that Canada seems to have it far worse than the United States.

While for the moment, I still do not outright dislike Bill Maher yet, this made me lose some serious respect for him. If he keeps mouthing off and manipulating facts to favor his position like this, something which he might have picked up from Trump, I might lose all interest in what he has to say. What a narrow, Americentric way of viewing things.

Disappointing, to say the least. 

DEBUNKED: Bill Maher On Canada