Bill Maher makes startling admission to JD Vance about the future of his Democratic support

[Bristlecone]

44. "not every crime is a result of a cyclical societal root cause"

Social and societal are related, but are not the same thing. They both relate to society, but social is interpersonal, while societal is broader, institutional, cultural based structures.

In other words, not every crime is committed because of your upbringing or environment. People do commit crimes for other reasons: impulse, accidents, etc.

And you may not agree with me here, but her answers were not great in my opinion. The question about murder was perhaps designed to throw her off guard, aka a gotcha, but if you take this position, which many clearly will find as out of the norm, you best be prepared for a question or two about it. And capital offenses are #1.

What she could have said is “I don’t think anyone in society questions that’s what SHOULD happen”

That makes the original question bogus.

Instead her statement is passive, noncommittal and more about societal norms than HER belief on the matter. She dodged it.