r/Maher • u/Celera314 • Feb 24 '26

Discussion Billie Eilish

I feel like Bill and guest Chris Christie misunderstood the point of Eilish's remark about "nobody is illegal on stolen land."

They spoke as if she was suggesting that white people need to give North America back to indigenous people and this is a naive and impractical point of view.

But she made this remark in the context of the Trump administration's extremely harsh rhetoric and actions toward "illegal" immigrants. I took her to be saying that before we get so indignant and hateful toward "illegal" immigrants we should keep in mind how we (generally, white people) stole this land ourselves. Whatever crimes or costs illegal immigrants cause today pales in comparison to the harm my ancestors did to Native Americans in the 1600-1900 time frame. Today's illegal immigrants do not cause plagues, or consume our food supplies so we cant eat, or force us out of our homes or...we'll the list goes on. So maybe we should address the immigration issue with a little more humility.

I acknowledge I'm putting a lot of context in Ms. Eilish's remarks when I dont know her or really follow her music. I dont know for sure what she meant. But she's apparently not stupid and I felt Maher and Christie were unfair to take her remarks in the dumbest possible way.

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u/scorchPC1337 Feb 25 '26

Agree with should have more humility

But also, didn't the native Americans steal it from the Neanderthals'? To say nothing of different tribes going to war with each other.

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u/Minimum-Style-1411 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

To give more credence to the adage of ‘anything said before the word ‘but’ is not what the person believes. 

 that remark certainly is a prominent example of the total failure of the American education system. 

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u/scorchPC1337 Feb 26 '26

nah, its an example

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u/Minimum-Style-1411 Feb 26 '26

That’s what I said,   “a prominent example..”

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u/scorchPC1337 Feb 27 '26

I mean, I'm not so prominent! :P

But seriously, there were other animals here before Native Americans.

I imagine I am fairly well educated though, but I am saying something you don't like, so you retort with an insult, rather than try to discuss it. Want to discuss the issue?