Why I Don't Like Bill Maher.

It goes way back.

I’m kind of busy today, so I’m posting a piece I wrote well before there was Substack. Surprisingly, it’s still relevant today.

Janet Reno and Dehumanization

April 27, 2000

There are a lot of issues raised by the Elian Gonzales story.  They tend to get mixed up and confused, especially by the authorities and by the media.  But sorting through them is a useful and enlightening exercise, because it shows us the real reasons why the actions of the federal government are so wrong.

First of all, no one disputes that the boy should be with his father.  That is a false issue raised by the feds and trumpeted by the media.  The legal presumption is that the father should have custody.  However, that is a rebuttable presumption.  The father’s family in Miami believed that they had good reason to petition the court for custody of Elian, and they did so.  The conflict between the father, Juan Gonzalez, and his family in Miami was a direct result of the existence of the Castro Regime in Cuba.  The family did not want to keep Elian from his father; they wanted to keep him out of Cuba.  If it had not been for Castro, there would have been no conflict.  As Senator Bob Smith witnessed, Elian, when asked if he wanted to go back to his father in Cuba, said that he wanted his father to come to Miami.  He did not want to go back to Cuba.  His mother had died to get him to the United States, and he recognized that.

So the family went to court, and Juan Gonzalez came to Washington to get his son through the legal process in the United States.

The family was negotiating with Janet Reno to hand Elian over to Juan.  They had not done anything illegal.  They had followed the legal process and the orders of the court.  On Friday night they faxed over a proposal which Reno indicated would probably be acceptable.  Eleven hours later, at four o’clock in the morning, the family is awakened by its lawyers who had just received an ultimatum from Janet Reno:  Accept the government’s counterproposal.  You have five minutes to decide.

One hour later, while the family’s lawyers were on the telephone with Janet Reno herself, armed agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service burst into the home, threatening to shoot if Elian was not turned over.  One agent grabbed him and ran with the other agents to a waiting van.  The whole operation took only three minutes.  Completely unconstitutional according to Laurence Tribe and Alan Dershowitz.

It is truly ironic and tragic that this small boy lost his mother attempting to escape the brutality and terror of the Castro Regime, only to have the United States federal government visit upon him that same brutality and terror.

Why does this happen?  Because we have an attorney general, or someone behind the attorney general, who has a Rambo Complex.  Whenever there is a crisis, the reaction from this Administration is violence and brutality, both against the American people and against people abroad.  But the real reason that these things happen is because the American people let them happen.

Many, many people say that they’re tired of the story, as though it were some kind of soap opera with flagging ratings.  “Just send the kid back to Cuba so we can get on with the next media circus.”  This is the same reaction to the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.  If it doesn’t fit within a sound bite, if it can’t be resolved in twenty-two minutes (plus eight minutes for commercials), then it runs too long for the new American attention span.  The people involved are just television characters after all, aren’t they?  What better way to end the story than with an armed raid into a house?

Some people focus on the efficiency and speed of the operation.  If that is how we decide if something is right or wrong, then the camps at Treblinka and Auschwitz should have won awards as paragons of efficiency and should have been declared the ultimate moral high ground.

Many people support the action of the Attorney General.  “She gets the job done.”  (Someone actually said that to me.  Heinrich Himmler got the job done, too.)  There is a kind of blood-lust reaction to this kind of violence, similar to what you will see at a professional wrestling show or soccer match.  The only thing is that this kind of reaction to what happened in Miami is wholly inappropriate.

I actually had someone close to me say: “Those people [the Cubans] should shut up.”  They have no right to speak.  They have no right to complain.  Why?  Simply because they are Cuban.  No other reason.  Not because they did anything bad.  Not because they hurt anyone.  They are Cuban.  They are different. They are second class citizens.  They are sub-human.  They are not one of us.  They deserve what happened.  They brought it upon themselves.  (This is, in fact, the government’s stated position.)

There is an undercurrent of racism and contempt underlying the complacent American reaction to this atrocity.  Let’s look at that contempt more closely.  In 1992, an FBI sniper at Ruby Ridge, Idaho shot Vickie Weaver through the head while she was standing in her doorway holding her infant child in her arms.  The public reaction was acceptance, not outrage.  Why?  Vickie was the wife of a white separatist, a racist.  He lived in a cabin in the woods.  He had guns.  He was different from us.  He brought it upon himself.  He deserved it.

At Waco, Texas, the Branch Davidians were surrounded in 1993 (by the FBI again).  This time, the FBI drove tanks into the home of the Davidians, inserted poisonous, flammable gas into the building (upon the approval of Janet Reno), and set the place on fire, killing everyone there.  Why did Americans support this action?  The Davidians were a bunch of nutty people with crazy religious ideas following a crackpot leader.  They were different from us.  They brought it upon themselves.  (Some people still believe the government lie that the Branch Davidians committed suicide.)  They deserved it.

Most Americans supported the action because the Branch Davidians were weird, different.  In the eyes of many Americans, they were less than human.

Fast forward to Miami in the year 2000.  Janet Rambo Reno is in charge again, and again she is too impatient to wait.  She goes in with loaded automatic weapons drawn and ready for action.  Bystanders are knocked down and brutalized.  The occupants are threatened with being shot.  The boy is taken.  Was it necessary?  Of course not.  But Americans support it because the victims are Cubans.  They’re immigrants.  They’re not from here.  They’re different from us.  They brought it upon themselves.  They deserved it.

Rewind to Nazi Germany.  Jewish synagogues and shops are vandalized, even destroyed.  Jews are dragged out into the streets and beaten.  Some are killed.  Some are put on trains and shipped to Poland.  The Nazis even work with Zionists to get all the Jews of Germany to go to Palestine.  (Of course, that didn’t work.)  Then Hitler attacks and conquers Poland.  The war is on, and following closely behind the troops is the SS, rounding up Jews and putting them in ghettos and work camps.  And eventually, the Nazis begin a campaign of extermination.  Was it necessary?  No.  But the Germans supported it because the Jews were different.  They were Jews, not of the Master Race.  They brought it upon themselves.  They deserved it.

Some people might think that the parallels between Miami and Nazi Germany are outrageous and ridiculous.  They are neither.  The single common thread is that just like the Nazis, the INS, Janet Reno, and Bill Clinton have no one to answer to.  They do as they please with impunity because, just like Hitler, they have the support of the people. 

The executive branch of the United States federal government is the single most powerful entity in the world today.  It controls all branches of the military and the national guard.  It has at its disposal a whole assortment of federal agencies armed to the teeth and with itchy trigger fingers.  It has the support of the American people.  We now have an executive branch that is out of control.  It routinely ignores and violates the law and gets away with it. 

The reason that the actions in Miami are wrong is not that they were unconstitutional and illegal.  It is not that it echoes the actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco.  It is not that we may be headed to a neo-Nazi regime in the United States.  It is not even that the same thing might happen to you or me.  The reason that the actions in Miami are wrong is simply that the end does not justify the means.  You do not use force and violence to get what you want.  People were hurt in Miami in this raid because Janet Reno lost patience and because she could get away with it.  People were hurt for no good reason.  The damage is serious and can never be undone.  That is why it is wrong.  Even if it never happens again.  Even if it can never happen to you.  It is still wrong.

But the truly horrific aspect to this event is the spontaneous campaign of dehumanization that has sprung up in its wake.  This dehumanization is necessary in order to make it much more palatable to hurt or even kill other human beings.

Of course, you would expect the people responsible for the violence to smear the victims in order to displace blame.  But what is more disturbing is the way the general public joins in, and even gets out in front in order to make fun of the victims, dismiss their suffering, and defend the government.

Bill Maher has taken to calling the family “the crazy cousin and the drunken uncle”.  Now he has no knowledge of whether or not this is true, but he says it because it gets a laugh, and maybe another rating point for his late night television show.  But let’s assume that he is right, that the cousin is crazy and the uncle is a drunk.  In his mind, and in the minds of his guests and viewers, this justifies the use of any method or tactic against them by the government.  They have been declared less than human.  They are no longer entitled to the protections of law and the Constitution of the United States.  Janet Reno can now violate the law and the Constitution and do whatever harm to the family she wants without facing any consequences.  All because the family is less than human.  This is what Bill Maher is saying.  Despite the Americans with Disabilities Act, there is widespread contempt for people who are psychotic, alcoholic, mentally or physically handicapped.  Contempt to the point where on national television it is advocated that they be stripped of their constitutional rights.  Make no mistake; this is precisely what is happening.

In Germany before the war, before the campaign against the Jews was in full swing, a German citizen wrote to Hitler to ask permission to euthanize his son.  His son was mentally retarded.  Hitler gave his consent, and his lieutenants carried out his orders.  And this began a widespread campaign of killing children who were less than perfect, carried out by licensed physicians.  Not Jewish children, German children.  (The Jews would be attacked later.)  All this proceeded without express orders from Hitler, and with the support of the German people.

Does Bill Maher, a Jew, recognize that he is participating in the very same process of dehumanization that made the holocaust possible?  Does anyone who attacks Elian’s family in Miami?