Sam Harris defends Bill Maher

Yeah, not surprising.  The thing about the emergent secularists is their willingness to trumpet their own superiority and contempt to all those lower forms of life who fail to conform to their intellectual supremacy.  So if you're wanting otherwise hyper-liberal Maher, or radical secularist Harris, to sweep in and condemn the recent congressional hearings on radical Islam, you might be waiting awhile.  It used to be such notions of violence, warfare, government hearings would have been anathema to anyone not on the right.  But the new atheists are a new breed, strutting like peacocks under a self proclaimed superiority that would shame a Nuremberg rally, they have no problem saying religion has got to go.  Period.  It needs to go.  And the ways in which this is achieved has become the domain of polite discussion and debate within secularist circles. 

So Democrat and Muslim representative Keith Ellison may have thought he had a friend in otherwise liberal Maher, or potential support from otherwise secular leftist Harris.  But no.  The Secular Left is a new animal, advancing that which is appealing - we're all just animals so hie to the orgies!, while embracing some of the traditional tactics for dealing with those who simply refuse to conform to their superior enlightenment.  As Mark Shea points out, there is a reason that every time a nation dedicated itself to eliminating religion, it turned into one of the most murderous and barbaric cultures in a history of barbarism and murder.  Every. Single. Time.

Bonus note: Notice Harris's assumption:

"it's hard to know whether Ellison was actually lying or is merely unaware of the contents of the Qur'an."

As with most Secular Leftists, if you fail to conform to their dogmas and obey their pronouncements, you are either stupid, or evil, or both.  In this case, looks like Harris is willing to cut him some slack.  That Ellison could actually believe his dogmatic world view as passionately as Harris believes his own fiscal dogmatic world view is beyond Harris's grasp. In thousands of years of history, I have seen few cases more demonstrative of radical, fanatical, zealous fundamentalism than Harris.  But Maher comes awfully close.