Still more of Maher. In a section titled 'Knowledge Wins', here's what he has to say about involvement in politics....

"But Freedom 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."

He also talks about how Dan Rather said, after 9/11, that it's very difficult for anyone in western civilization to understand the type of hate that led to that attack. He hit the nail on the head. We don't understand it, because nobody knows anything about them, people in the middle east. This is a theme Bill uses throughout the book, kids aren't, and haven't been for a while, required to know about the world around us. It's evident all too well to me, I don't know squat about it. I still find it difficult to place Turkey in relation to the rest of the area without a map. India is easy, it's closest to all those countries about which I know even less in Asia. I'm learning though, or trying to. I think all the time about how much fucking time I wasted going through high school, and I was one of the ones paying attention!! There's a lot to know though. One of the hardest concepts for me to grasp was the sheer scale of human history, just written history, not to mention the eras we can only attempt to fathom from unearthed relics. Written history began 5000BC, or thereabouts. We've not even gone half that in the AD era! There's a lot to know, and if the answers to Jay Leno's questions to people at that theme park about this country is any indication, most people don't know jack shit.

In another section he talks about why....

"There's rarely a young adult, even the bright ones, who I talk to and at some point don't think, 'I can't believe they let you out of school not knowing that!' And how shameful that my generation, spoiled though we may have been by our supermoms, let out kids grow up decadent and stupid, and all because boomers were spared pain and so can't take pain, including the pain of having your kid momentarily hate you because you're doing the right thing. Because you're teaching, you're disciplining, you're keeping it real, instead of being your kids' 'friend' and negotiating with them and bribing them with empty blandishments and rewards. We give kids trophies for losing and compliments for just existing and tell them 'I love you' every five seconds, which is so insecure and annoying."