Just so everyone knows, I was the original OP.
I have tremendous respect for older people and I'm actually not that much younger than he is. I'm pushing 50. It's just that I age-shamed him to make a point.
Bullies and their supporters like to defend their behavior by arguing that they're superior to their victims in terms of how they respond to attacks. But the truth is that it's not that they have a thicker skin or don't get offended. It's just that they're never in a position where they have to develop both, because they usually attack from a protective bubble where they are generally invulnerable to the type of hatred and bigotry they dole out to others.
In Maher's case, his bubble is that he was--until recently-- a fairly young, privileged white male. It was very easy for him to attack women, Muslims, Christians, fat people, etc. and play this "they need to get a thicker skin; I'm so superior because I have one" card when there was never really any risk of receiving the same level of abuse he gave them. The worst he was ever going to get was an accusatory "white privilege" comment or "that's racist" complaint. He was never going to get attacked as "being a threat to Western civilization (and therefore needing to be bombed to kingdom come)", have his beliefs insulted as "fairy tales" or condone that he, as a white male, get publicly shamed.
I posted my age-shaming post to make a point that Bill Maher was reaching a point in his life where he no longer had the luxury of being the "untouchable" young white buck who gets to **** talk about disenfranchised groups with the smug satisfaction of knowing that there was very little they could do to hit him back. Well, guess what? He CAN be hit back. He can be age-shamed, and with the same level of vitriol and condescending dismissal of needing to get over it because "it's all jokes" or "he needs to develop a thicker skin." He can have politically incorrect "jokes" leveled at him now about how senior citizens are useless, gross, a threat to our way of life, incompetent, etc. It's no longer a one way street, so he'd better tread carefully. He no longer has his privileged status to protect him.
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