Loads of pre-publicity about this, surprised it hasn’t yet gauged a post here, but I sort of can guess why, the spirit for vicious trollfests being o so last year for the current AWer. I have just watched the 4 episodes back to back. I thought it in turn stunning and terrifying, believable and unbelievable, best TV of the year, despite the supposed sensitivities. I can thus fully expect it will not have necessarily appealed to some of our media guardians, small g. So I looked:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4807862/CHRISTOPHER-STEVENS-reviews-Channel-4-s-State.html
Am i alone in finding way more offence in the “review” than the programme could possibly offer? Or was that the point?
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DougieJ says
Dunno, but just as a bit of a counterweight to what I fear may turn into the usual two minutes of Mail-hate, The Guardian also has reservations. As someone often put off by the latter’s editorial stance on many issues, to their credit they (Stuart Jeffries specifically) call Isis a death cult in the subtitle to their review.
Mike_H says
Trying to take a balance between the Mail’s pandering to Disgusted Send-Em-Back of Tonbridge and the Guardian’s pandering to Troubled Liberal of Islington, it looks to me like a job barely half done by the writer, director etc.
DougieJ says
Have to say I can’t help but compare and contrast the Left’s reaction to Charlottesville (100% condemnation, no quarter given) and… oh jeez where to start…
Paris? Brussels? Nice? London? Barcelona? Turku? Würzburg? Ansbach? Berlin? St. Petersburg? Stockholm? Manchester? Hamburg? By no means an exhaustive list.
The reaction to the above has been somewhat more….nuanced. Muted. Sensitive. Decidedly non-sensational.
Sitheref2409 says
What were their reactions to Harry’s Game, he asked?
I haven’t – probably can’t – see it over. But why not just judge it on its artistic merits FFS?
DougieJ says
Well we live in febrile times Si, brought about in no small part I would suggest by a fanatical focus on identity politics* by (sorry but there’s no way of sugar-coating or neutralising this) the liberal left in recent years. Some pushback to such a relentless agenda is only to be expected, as is a poring-over of the programme-maker’s perceived motives by all sides.
*and away from universalism. Listen to Thomas Sowell, a public intellectual who happens to be black on his experiences growing up in Harlem in the 1960s. Contrary to popular belief, he and his cohort were taught exactly the same curriculum with the same rigour as that practised in majority white schools and – who knew – he and many of his contemporaries went on to play a full, not token, part in American public life.
bricameron says
And he’s off!!
😂😂😂
DougieJ says
Sometimes my inner Milo comes out. Oo’er missus etc.
As I’ve said before, I’m not trying to be the resident AW troll, but I do reserve the right to respond to what I see as somewhat contentious posts without fear or favour.
I myself have never used the phrase ‘Afterword circle-jerk’ but I do feel there is a tendency towards such a phenomenon, just as surely as such a tendency exists among the massive of Newt-Fancying Quarterly.
There used to be others who broadly shared my worldview on this site, two of whom have contacted me privately after recent ‘controversial’ threads of mine to explain why they no longer posted here.
I’ve persevered as, for now, the pros of the site outweigh the cons, so it looks like I’m the resident (out) neo-lib for the foreseeable future…
mikethep says
Who are you calling pros?
bricameron says
I love ya, Dougiej even if others don’t!
😂😂😂
Especially your eyes.
❤️ 👀
bricameron says
You know what? No. Present an argument.
bricameron says
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sVR-rtK6GHE
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Only watched one episode. Maybe it got better but I thought if failed spectacularly to go someway to help the rest of us understand why apparently pretty intelligent men and women joined , and continue to join, a Death Cult with repugnant core values.
As for you Dougie my boy – the most appalling feature of Charlotsville was Trump’s “fault on both sides”. That’s the one side who aren’t Nazis, who didn’t parade through town shouting anti – Jewish slogans and didn’t kill anybody by mowing them down with a car. And the other side which did.
If you can find me one example of any ‘liberal’ (whatever that is) using the Trump argument to defend/explain the horrors of Nice, Barcelona or Manchester I’ll buy you a pint of heavy and even a wee hauf.
DougieJ says
I would respectfully bat that back at you LofW – if you can show me an equivalent example of the kind of no-holds barred fury that was shown (quite rightly) in the response to Charlottesville being shown either by the wider Muslim community or by the liberal left in response to the industrial scale Allahu Akbar atrocities I listed above, then I’ll buy you a fine single malt. I think you’ll find that the response is more Don’t Look Back in Anger, this has nothing to do with Islam, candle-lighting, social-media-profile-picture-changing, pencil-holding, this-is-all-part-of-living-in-a-big-city platitudinising…you get the picture.
But I’m sure we can both post counter-examples and it’s not really going to get us anywhere.
Points made. Peace.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
And love
Bingo Little says
Dougie – I actually agree with you on identity politics, but I’m not sure what you’re after with this one.
Islamic extremists are a subset of Muslims. They’re a problem for Muslim communities, but their atrocities can’t be blamed on all Muslims.
Nazis are a subset of the right. They’re a problem for the right, but they can’t be blamed on all those on the right.
The response to both has been horror and condemnation, which is appropriate, since they’re two sides of the same fucking stupid coin.
You’re right that there’s been no “it’s part of living in big cities” re: Charlottesville, but that’s a factor of novelty (as is the fury) – if Nazis had been storming through the streets and ramming people with cars for years, and there was only a certain amount that could be done to prevent it from a security perspective then we’d probably become a little stoical about that too. I’m not even sure “fact of life” is even a political position – it’s certainly the attitude of most Londoners, because in living memory there’s pretty much always been someone trying to blow us up, and life has to go on.
I’m also not sure the two examples are directly equivalent. Charlottesville is more like if supporters of the Islamic State marched through Traflagar Square openly chanting about death to infidels before actually killing someone, and then the Prime Minister defended most of them and described them as “fine people”. I think (hope) we’d all have a big, big problem with that.
DougieJ says
Well I can’t add much to what I said earlier Bingo. In my opinion there has generally been far too muted a response to all of the countless Islamist attacks worldwide in recent years and I have to say that I’m not keen on what often seems to be too quick a concern, following such horrors, about a rise in ‘Islamophobia’. Some will dismiss him as a contrarian but I find myself in agreement more often than not on these issues with Brendan O’Neill and Spiked in general. This article is the kind of thing we need more of imho:
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/after-manchester-its-time-for-anger/19849#.WaE2ckHTWEc
Tiggerlion says
I think we all agree that the Manchester bombing was abhorrent. What I don’t get from this article is anything constructive. It seems to be saying it is OK to be angry and hate the perpetrators but, then, conflates multi-culturism and immigration into the OK-to-hate category.
Let’s be clear, these acts are carried out by people besotted by a death cult. That cult uses the language of Islam, selecting choice quotes from the Qu’ran, whilst ignoring its core teaching. (Christians have done the same with the bible, for example during The Inquisition.) There are some immigrants involved in UK attacks but many were born and educated in this country.
I’m not sure what this article is offering as a solution. An end to immigration? An end to immigration by Muslims? Putting a stop to multi-culturism, whatever that means?
The man who carried out the Manchester bombing was indoctrinated by fanatics. Those fanatics would love to see this country banning immigrants and ghettoising people into separate communities.
Bingo Little says
The comparison to Christians strikes me as a bit daft. In the here and now, radicalisation/terrorism is blatantly a far bigger problem for Islam than for Christianity.
Far right politics, on the other hand….
There’s a war going on between two groups of arseholes who don’t think we can all live together. One side is drawing on disaffected brown youth, the other on disaffected white youth. The vast vast majority of us are simply trapped between the two. Both sides can cock off.
Tiggerlion says
I did use the past tense with regard to Christianity but it was the same tactic, quoting religious texts to support bigotry and the violence of hatred.
To be honest, I don’t understand Charlottesville at all. How can they chant “Blood & soil”? Aren’t white people immigrants? Doesn’t the soil truly belong to Native Americans? They say they love America but why the support for the Confederates? Weren’t they the enemy? Plus, I thought the USA is Isreal’s firmest ally. Why hate the Jews?
It’s simply ancient, ugly prejudice. I come to the conclusion they are totally unreasonable in the literal sense of the word.
JustB says
There’s nothing to understand. If the Breitbart lot want to explain it away with the usual “poor ickle marginalised white men” routine, they have to shut up with the outrage any time anyone suggests Islamist extremism might have a context.
Sitheref2409 says
Less of a problem for Christianity? In the west, maybe.
Central African Republic anyone? Lord’s Resistance Army?
More people have been killed by terrorist acts in America by white Christians than by Muslims.
Bingo Little says
Funny how these types of brave articles telling us all what the proper response to terrorism looks like are almost always written by shouty online edgelords who don’t live anywhere near the types of major metropolitan areas where attacks actually happen.
If “Spiked” want to see anger in London I suggest they come out from behind their keyboards, head down here en masse with their little banners and we’ll see what happens.
JustB says
Spiked is representative of a particularly 21st century phenomenon: members of the most privileged and unthreatened group of people in human history shouting very loudly about how their voices are suppressed and they’re not allowed to say anything.
The idea that anyone other than the most fringe voices are equivocal about Islamist terror is a piece of wishful-thinking fiction. There’s nobody on this site, in any circle that any of us move in – or even in the pages of Comment is Free – that isn’t exactly as or more outraged by Manchester and Nice as by the sight of the Breitbart right marching with Nazi flags. Exactly the same number of people on the left say “let’s understand the islamists” as say “it’s economic anxiety and the suppression of the white working class voice” on the right. Not many, in other words, and only on the extremes.
(Relatedly, I am certain that in 50 years you won’t find anyone in the mainstream of society who will admit to backing Brexit or the alt-right (unless prefacing it with “we were misled, to our eternal shame”). It’s so much more about sticking it to the cucks than it is about any actual principle.)
DougieJ says
Well I don’t know where Brendan O’Neill and the other Spiked contributors live. London, I would hazard a very strong guess. Strange comment from you I feel. What I find infinitely more offensive is the likes of Lily Allen virtue-signalling for all their worth about immigration while living nowhere near the kind of edgy multi-culti areas they claim to love so much. Allen is keeping it real in one of the most mono-cultural areas imaginable – the Cotswolds.
If people are advocating for immigration on the scale of which we’ve seen it in Europe since the late 90’s and particularly since 2015, with all the problems it can bring, namely *all* of the Islamist attacks I mentioned above*, then make a stand and move to East London, Bradford, Birmingham, Luton…
*no Manchester, Nice, Brussels, Barcelona style attacks in Poland, for example. It is unfortunately a simple mathematical fact that the higher the number of Islamic immigrants a country has, the greater the number of ‘radicalised’ individuals there will be.
As Douglas Murray has pointed out in many interviews and in his book The Strange Death of Europe – Angela Merkel et al need to answer for what has occurred as a direct result of their decisions, which no-one outside of their echo-chamber is remotely surprised by.
JustB says
LOL at a self-confessed Spiked fan using the term “echo chamber” pejoratively.
Can’t speak for all my fellow cucks, but the only reason I don’t still live in London is because I can’t afford to, by the way. I only worked on the social frontline of its most grungy and diverse areas for, oh, 13 or 14 years without feeling remotely threatened. But you’re right, Lily Allen is definitely an important voice, and the real enemy.
DougieJ says
slight difference re: echo chambers. I am a reader of a fairly marginal website. Angela Merkel is, I presume we all agree, the most powerful political figure in Europe. If you don’t like Spiked, don’t read it, same as I am free to not read the Grauniad.
Merkel’s policies have had hugely significant consequences and are continuing to do so, whether I or anyone else likes it or not.
By the way, I often describe myself as a libertarian but there is a similar blindness on the more fundamentalist wing of that movement, such as it is.
There is a site that I frequent called Cafe Hayek and that is vehemently anti-Trump, which is fine. I’m also no fan of Trump’s protectionist politics, although here’s where things get messy as the likes of Bernie Sanders and our own dear Jezza both advocate protectionism.
Ultra-libertarians are completely for open borders. This might be understandable from a US perspective but, inconvenient truth or not, immigration that Europe is facing is overwhelmingly Muslim and sorry but that brings a whole different set of issues.
This post brings a rare degree of scepticism to open borders from a libertarian perspective. Hopefully this will bring a bit more context to some of who in outlining my broad thoughts on this thorniest of topics.
Bingo Little says
I don’t presume to lecture people in Bradford about what immigration has done to their lives, Dougie. I will thank Brendan O’Neill and yourself to extend the same courtesy to me and my sort re; terrorism.
As for Lily Allen, what a colossal straw man. I’m not obliged to defend the worst excesses of the left, and they don’t excuse the worst excesses of the right.
It’s a bit rich to point the finger at Muslim immigration as a source of radicalisation and then trumpet the virtues of Spiked. Who’s controlling the number of undereducated, inarticulate, angry white boys out there? Any one could be the next Thomas Mair, right? Or do we generalise more selectively?
Where I will give your argument some credit is that much of this is a backlash to identity politics. It doesn’t make it right, but it’s at least understandable. And the left have been too tolerant of certain aspects of Muslim extremism in the name of cultural/religious tolerance.
DougieJ says
Think you’re being a bit naive about my Lily Allen comment Bingo. we both know that I could list countless examples of public figures – whether politicians or slebs – who spout off about these issues while taking a completely different course in their own lives.
These people have influence, unfortunately. It’s hardly controversial to note, for example, that Hollywood is overwhelmingly left-liberal. They undoubtedly play a huge part in shaping public opinion and it’s an area where the right has been woefully complacent. The left understands the importance of the culture war, and it is winning it as surely and convincingly as it has lost the economic arguments.
So please don’t pretend that Lily Allen, JK Rowling, George Clooney etc don’t have influence. They do, possibly more so than any current politicians. Thing is – I and anyone else am free to spot their rampant hypocrisy and highlight it from time to time.
If leftists called out this hypocrisy from their own side I’d have more respect, but more often than not the silence is deafening. When their hypocrisy is highlighted by the right, they claim, as you’ve done, that it’s a strawman and they don’t matter.
I beg to differ.
Tiggerlion says
I agree. They are hypocrites.
Bingo Little says
Fair enough, Dougie.
I don’t think I argued that Lily Allen and Hollywood don’t have influence. In fact, I don’t think that’s even what we were discussing at all.
I think your Manichean left/right view of the world is deeply simplistic. We’re not obliged to pick sides, and I’ve told you where I agree and disagree with you.
It’s pointless having a conversation with someone who is responding to what they wish you’d said, rather than what you actually said, so I’ll leave it at that, other than to point out that your pal Brendan O’Neill made his name writing for Marxist publications and to this day self-identifies as a “leftist” (yeah, those guys who all love Lily Allen). Food for thought, if you’ve an appetite.
Peace out.
BL
DougieJ says
I’m aware of the background to Spiked. I find that in itself quite interesting. Again – I’m not being backed into a corner of having to agree with every single thing that they have ever published, I just find that I’m in tune quite a bit with them on Islam in particular.
But as you say – we’re not really getting anywhere here. I keep out of these threads for a while then…
Kid Dynamite says
I’d be careful of using Poland as an example of the way to do it, unless by ‘it’ you mean creeping authoritarianism and a massive increase in racist attacks and support for the far right.
http://www.dw.com/en/poland-racism-on-the-rise/a-36812032
https://news.vice.com/story/poland-populist-government-far-right-extremism
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/magazine/the-party-that-wants-to-make-poland-great-again.html
Sitheref2409 says
Douglas Murray? He of the “Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board” line?
No potential racist he, then, that Deputy Editor of The Spectator.
Can I ask out of interest on your stance on the treatment of Catholics during The Troubles? Because if you’re not coming down equally hard on them, I’m going to think that this is less about terrorism and more about skin color or the actual religion.
DougieJ says
Ooh – shocking comment from DM eh? Despicable.
Well sorry but it *is* significantly to do with the religion. Emphatically not about skin colour. There is no significant social issue in Europe today with Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists for example.
People in those groups would be well within their rights to feel aggrieved at the characterising of the grooming gangs in Rotherham, Newcastle and elsewhere as ‘Asian’.
They were from a particular strand of a particular community – overwhelmingly Pakistani Muslims. Not Chinese or Sri Lankan Buddhists. Not Indian Hindus.
It offends me greatly that the cultural sensitivities of this group are rated as so worthy of protection. It’s the main reason that I parted company with the left long ago.
If such things bring a focus on a particular community that they are uncomfortable with, then tough, frankly.
It is or was equally true about terrorist groups in Northern Ireland, but sadly the moderate opinion in the form of the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists was sidelined in favour of the more hardline Sinn Feinn and DUP. Realpolitik perhaps, but still not nice to see.
JustB says
Sorry, Dougie – you’re saying that you agree with Murray’s comment and you’re fine making the lives of innocents more difficult just to smoke out the tiny number of psychos in their community?
What would your ideal “making conditions more difficult” for people who’ve done nothing wrong look like?
DougieJ says
A man drove a van at people leaving the Finsbury Park mosque, killing one and injuring eight people. A car was rammed into protesters at Charlottesville, killing one and injuring 19 others. Thomas Mair stabbed MP Jo Cox to death shortly before the EU referendum.
Was the reaction to the above focused with laser-like accuracy on those perpetrators specifically, with no wider lessons drawn whatsoever?
Were there widespread comments saying that of course this should not lead to the views of all vote-leavers, Trump supporters or white people in general being stigmatised? Or was there in fact an unseemly rush to draw wider lessons about ‘what kind of views we had allowed to grow’?
Has there been anything remotely similar to this ‘collective guilt’ response in the aftermath of the vastly greater degree of slaughter that has taken place in Islam’s name in recent years?
Has. There. Heck. As. Like.
A concern about a feared Islamophobic (made up word) backlash (which, considering the level of atrocities, has largely not taken place) has been far too prominent a theme in my view and that of DM and others. You can imply sinister motives to him all you like, but if you read and watch a greater range of his output you’ll see that is the kind of thing he is talking about. Not mass internment.
Speaking of Douglas Murray, here he is on the topic of Charlottesville talking with Sam Harris:
https://youtu.be/MGHN-uPrvnA
Sewer Robot says
Small, tangential point: all words are made up*. We make them up so we can articulate ideas and communicate with each other in discussions, sometimes on blogs on the internet, such as this. When we have new ideas we make up new words for them.
Ironically, one subject upon which many words of debate have been written is whether the numbers are made up. Those who argue against this would say it is only because the numbers are not made up that your computer works and it is possible for you to exist to write your thoughts.
(*apart from the dozens of names for our God, which were communicated directly by the creator, obvs).
JustB says
Way to not answer the question, Dougie. Like, at all.
Have angry white middle aged men suffered terrible discrimination since Jo Cox’s death in some way I’m unaware of? Have. They. Heck. As. Like. The sum total of your “stigma” is feeling a bit got at by the mean old liberals.
Kid Dynamite says
I think it would take some very selective reading to describe media and online responses to Islamist terrorism as “muted”. I’m also having difficulty in parsing this sentence “I have to say that I’m not keen on what often seems to be too quick a concern, following such horrors, about a rise in ‘Islamophobia’. ” without reading it as you saying it’s okay to give ‘Islamophobia’ a pass. Quite apart from the idea that this kind of division is exactly what these bellends want to achieve, I feel I should let you know I got myself into an awful lot of trouble when I started gobbing off about Yorkshiremen because I was appalled by Peter Sutcliffe. Please don’t repeat my mistakes.
retropath2 says
Actually, back to my OP, I wasn’t seeking the ritual 2 minutes of mail hate, more opinions of the programme, even if triggered by the mail-on-line rabid, to my mind, response. As an apparently pretty intelligent man I can fully see how equivalently intelligent heads can be turned by what often starts as a naive whimsy, if bolstered by hardcore propaganda/lies sufficient to allow the muting of their own critical faculties. To turn a blind eye arguably needs, or is enhanced by, having full vision first. It seems to be the Dr in the series who has strained the credulity of most viewers, but I can see how easily she defined her idiocy. Part of medical training is to try and dispute dogma and replace it with evidence, giving also thus the capability of mistaking the one with the other. History is littered with fools and/or the misguided with medical degrees, and common sense is rarely the strong point of most medics I know.
As to the actual programme, the bit that chilled my blood was the “explanation” around beheadings being “necessary”, to provoke the west into responding all the more, so as to allow the scriptural destinies foretold to unravel. I found it easy to believe they could be made to believe that and do.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Can I ask a practical question at this point?
Lodestone of Wrongness says
No, piss off to bed
bricameron says
Are we still gonna do ‘Stone’endge’?
Blue Boy says
I don’t agree with Dougie’s view that the horrific acts carried out in the name of Islamic State have somehow not been called for what they are by liberals. What you do get is a lack of comprehension of whats going on and how to deal with it, beyond the condemnation.
And to come back to the OP, the State is interesting in this respect. The assumption in the Daily Mail shock piece (not actually mirrored by other media – the Telegraph loved it for example) is that as a BBC/Peter Kosminsky drama, it was bound to be an Islamist apologia full of liberal hand wringing. In fact you could only view it as sympathetic to Islamist terrorism if you think rape, torture, child abuse, slavery, oppression of women and public beheadings are good things. I thoughT the drama was very powerful and convincing on this. Where it was less good was in trying to understand how and why some British young Muslims are persuaded to go and join the cause. The drama showed us this, but didn’t convince the viewer on their reasons. And it somewhat loaded the dice in making all the young Brits travelling, naive, and idealistic decent people, rather than headbanging idiots.
But for all that, it was great to see a piece of work at least try to understand and explore this profound issue and do so in a nuanced way.
DougieJ says
Reasonable comment Blueboy, but I feel this doesn’t quite stack up:
“I don’t agree with Dougie’s view that the horrific acts carried out in the name of Islamic State have somehow not been called for what they are by liberals. What you do get is a lack of comprehension of whats going on and how to deal with it, beyond the condemnation.”
No apologies for quoting Douglas Murray on this specific issue again:
JustB says
Massive opinion-shaper the Dean of Westminster there. Never off our screens and devices.
Anyone who thinks our society isn’t operating at a fever pitch of paranoia around islamist terrorism is choosing not to see it because it doesn’t fit the agenda they want to be cross about. You act like the “MSM” does nothing but equivocate and excuse Islamism, when the reality – as I suspect you know really, although why you’re pretending otherwise is a mystery to me – is that you can’t move for people doing precisely what you want: demonising innocent Muslims because of the actions of their fringe.
On the other hand, there are no innocent Nazis. That’s the difference between Charlottesville and Manchester. The people parading in the US with their flags and chants of a beaten and evil regime aren’t despoiling the reputation of a largely innocent population. Nazis aren’t misappropriating the message of the “good” alt-right and tarring all the nice Brendan O’Neills and Milos unfairly. Islamists are. And I hope that one day, when this is all over and you have to pretend you didn’t run with this crowd out of justifiable shame that you ever did, you’ll see the distinction.
DougieJ says
My conscience on this issue is crystal clear Disappointment Bob. Why? Because I’ve not advocated one course of action, knowing its likely effects on the area in which I live, while all the time making plans to move as far away as possible from said area.
Some of you may know I’m from Scotland but now live in that there England. I can chip in with my opinion from time to time on what I see as relevant issues affecting Scotland but I would consider it the height of arrogance for me to strongly urge a particular course of action knowing that its outcome was purely of academic interest to me.
On the other hand, others who have advocated for mass immigration on an unprecedented scale and who have basically crossed their fingers that nothing too bad would happen (and, as a reminder, I’ve included ultra-libertarians in this) should be the ones to answer for what happened in the real world.
I and others were initially persuaded by the need for action in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. From the perspective of today, such a course looks hopelessly idealistic.
Will Merkel and her followers now admit that opening Europe’s borders to the extent that has happened in recent years might have been done with the best intentions but has in reality been disastrous?
Breath remains bated.
Finally, this is not a scientific observation, but what’s your gut feeling about the proportions of people radicalised by Christian (or even, more vaguely, Western) beliefs compared to similar percentages in the Muslim world?
JustB says
I don’t carry any brief for Islam, despite what you might wish to be true, Dougie. As Bingo says above, nobody can argue that it’s not the world religion with the biggest violence problem right now, and I tend not to love religion at the best of times. It’s just that you seem to want to believe that the people responsible for that aren’t a tiny minority and take action against innocents as a result. Your admired Mr Murray has advocated Muslims’ conditions in the West being made uncomfortable. Your comment “Ooh – shocking comment from DM eh? Despicable” suggests you support it.
Given that, I suspect, since you’re basically a good if misguided guy, your conscience won’t stay quite as blemishless once you come to your senses.
DougieJ says
Well, we’ll see. Certainly at the moment I’m more than happy to pit my conscience against those belonging to what I view as rank hypocrites, and to use a specific example, to trust the words of a gay man such as Douglas Murray over spokesmen for a particular culture or religion.
My observation is that there are more than a trivial amount of people in positions of influence who are prepared to reverse that presumption.
If you don’t want me (in this obscure corner of the interweb) or, more widely, provocateurs such as Milo pointing these things out, then make the case from your own ‘back yards’ so to speak.
Or are you going to double-down on Hillary’s strategy of calling half the electorate ‘deplorables’, similar to the ‘poorly informed’ Brexit meme?
Good luck with that…
ruff-diamond says
First of all she didn’t call half the electorate deplorable, she was referring to Trump’s supporters. Furthermore, at least half the people who voted for Trump were and are “deplorable”.
Or cunts, if you prefer.
Sitheref2409 says
^^^ That
JustB says
Cor, Dougie, did you just use the “some of my best pundits are gay” gambit to try and win credit for Douglas Murray there?Brilliant. Fortunately, being gay doesn’t mean you can’t also be wrong about nearly everything, as Murray and Milo whatsisface so ably and daily prove.
I still don’t think you’ve at all demonstrated what’s supposed to be hypocritical about the pro-diversity position apart from a vague sense that all the bien pensants live in comfortable white suburbia rather than diverse areas and have no first hand experience of the seamier side of life. For which you’ve presented no evidence. It’s just lazy assumptions. You assume that people who are pro-diversity are “champagne socialists” (aka people who don’t themselves need the policies they espouse but want them for others). That “real” people who do “have to” live near Muslims don’t like doing so (and that you’re qualified to be their spokesman?) and that horrid, horrid JK Rowling is telling Mr Salt of the Earth, with his *valid* concerns about Evil Muslims Flooding Sunderland what to think. Well, like Bingo says above, you’re attacking straw men, gleefully shooting down what you wish people said rather than what they’ve said.
What should JK Rowling do to avoid the Dougie Brand of Hypocrisy? Give a shitload of her money away and take a hands-on role in her own charity helping the poorest people in the world or something? Scrabble her way up from the most desperate poverty to a position of wealth and influence through her own work?
Oh. That’s exactly what she has done. Is she allowed an opinion on the running of her own country now, please?
DougieJ says
Hmmm. JK Rowling scrabbled her way up from the most desperate poverty did she? What’s her background, just out of interest?
Apart from that, I think I’ll just leave your response to my hypocrisy charge to speak for itself. Others can judge whether or not I’ve made a valid point or not. And I’ve no doubt that judge they will…
mikethep says
Since you ask, averagely middle-class upbringing, somewhat blighted by her mother’s 10-year journey to death by MS and a ‘difficult’ relationship with her father, whatever that may mean. Degree from Exeter, followed by work at Amnesty International (warning signs there), followed by teaching in Portugal, marriage and a child by a local, then tricky divorce, then the single mum in Edinburgh on benefits years, writing in cafes…the rest we know.
I have no idea why you want it to be any different. Attacking the likes of Allen, Rowling et al for hypocrisy, virtue-signalling and all the rest the moment they put their heads above the parapet, to say something that a good chunk of the population would fervently agree with, is the favourite pastime of the right, hard or otherwise, from Spectator clever-clogs via Littlejohn etc through to the lumpen commentariat of the Sun, Express and – yes – Daily Mail. The more savvy can’t attack Rowling for the way she gives her money away, but they still attack her for not filling her house with migrants. It’s not clever, it’s not original, and it’s very, very boring.
JustB says
She wasn’t raised poor, as you well know, but had some years of living essentially on the breadline. Not that it matters, because you have no case to make against the woman other than that she’s rich and liberal, which infuriates you.
And in any case, every time you make a “point” to counter posts which disagree with you, you engage with one detail and ignore the substance, choosing instead to bang off on a rant of your own. I think that’s what really stands out from your posts on this thread, not some lone-wolf beacon of courageous rigour.
Sitheref2409 says
“I and others were initially persuaded by the need for action in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. From the perspective of today, such a course looks hopelessly idealistic.”
No. It doesn’t. It looks colossally fucking stupid, which is what plenty of people said at the time. It is also a huge input into the current challenges with Islamic fundamentalists and no-one who had the bright idea to go into Iraq seems to want to own that one.
The white Christian terrorists over here – who I see you’ve done a nice job of thinking don’t have a huge problem – weren’t invaded. They’re just dicks.
But yeah. Iraq. Taking out a government; destabilizing the area. Who could POSSIBLY have imagined that something bad would come of that? Oh. wait. Lots of us.
DougieJ says
Just as lots of us could see that unchecked large scale immigration from the Middle East into Europe was possibly a utopian fantasy that wouldn’t turn out too well. But we got it (and are continuing to get it for the foreseeable future it seems) regardless. So 20/20 hindsight works both ways…
Mike_H says
I have no interest in watching this drama. Not my thing at all.
Why would I want to watch scenes on TV that turn my stomach, in the cause of trying to learn something new about Islamist extremism. I’m not convinced there’s anything much left to be learned any more, regarding what these people actually do to each other as well as people in general.
As regards understanding why people join such causes, I’m not sure there’s much more to be learned there either.
There is a hell of a lot of dissatisfaction in our society and different people react to it in different and occasionally extreme ways.
When people embark on an extreme course of action it’s generally because they have convinced themselves to do so. Reason doesn’t necessarily have to come into it.
There are people who, no matter how well-educated or supposedly intelligent they are, or like to think they are, are susceptible to persuasion by others. I suspect it’s a bit of a myth that people of low intelligence or poor education are significantly more susceptible, although they may have less to lose.
There are people who love to exert influence on others. Having power over others excites them and some of these are both very persuasive and very dangerous, both to the people they seek to persuade and to the rest of us.
DougieJ says
@sewer-robot: I like your comment about words. On that point, I’ve decided to coin a new one – Dougiephobia. This is in response to me feeling distinctly marginalised on the AW. I feel that my experience justifies an entirely new word being included in the Oxford English Dictionary.
You get the point.
I get that ‘Islamophobia’ might be a legitimate term in the media simply because of the frequency of its usage, but it should not be automatically accepted as a such by the wider community.
Moose the Mooche says
Jings. Crivvens. Help ma boab.
Dougiephobia is shite!
Stay with us ye big bastit!
bricameron says
Oh there you are. We wuz wondering what had happened to you?
Sewer Robot says
Nice one, Dougie! Unfortunately a feeling of being ganged up on is often the consequence of arguing the minority view. I hope you stick around here and continue to stick up for yourself…
DougieJ says
Cheers
Mike_H says
You’re an idealogue, Dougie. Impervious to any viewpoint that opposes your own, which appears to be set in concrete.
I was going to point something out about why we have “unchecked large scale immigration from the Middle East into Europe” but I’ve made a decision that I shan’t waste my time arguing with you. Because a waste of time is what it would be.
slotbadger says
As a AW-er of Muslim origin (an AWOMO?) I am delighted to discover this app, perfect for us to collectively cringe and simper to those who feel we don’t dutifully collectively flagellate ourselves sufficiently for the doings of some deviant deluded moron or Isis or whoever.
“Why else are people always asking why Muslims aren’t condemning terrorism? Clearly, we need to take our condemnation game to the next level.
…According to my calculations, we need to be denouncing things at fifty times the volume and at least twenty times the speed to meet all the demand. The problem is all that denunciation takes a lot of time and resources. We need a 21st century solution to this problem. With the iCondemn®, Muslims can say “not in my name” at the speed of life!™ And non-Muslims no longer need to wonder whether 1.6 billion Muslims around the world feel the guilt and sincerely apologize for that latest reprehensible crime some idiot carried out while shouting “Allahu Akbar!”
My mum is a practising Muslim. Like millions of other Brits. An immigrant too, as it goes. Like gazillions of other Brits. Taught in a comp for 20 years. She (and the millions like her) don’t ram vans into innocent men, women and children.
DougieJ says
Fair point, as is my statement that I also don’t ram vans into innocent men, women and children, nor have I ever entertained such thoughts nor associated with anyone who has.
If I’d put that as a comment underneath a news article about Charlottesville or similar what would the reaction be, d’you reckon? Fair point, well made? Or ‘grossly insensitive’, ‘check your privilege’ etc…?
Kid Dynamite says
So you don’t drive vans into people, and neither does slotbadger’s mum. But judging by your evasion upthread, you think life should be “made more difficult” for only one of you. Why is that?
I don’t get where you’re coming from with the Charlottesville analogy at all. If there had been a frothing left wing demanding apologies from all white people for such events, maybe. It seems like you are comparing apples to oranges in an attempt to point out how grossly unfair the media and online world are to middle aged white men.
Sitheref2409 says
I’m going throw in that there are plenty of Muslim protests about terrorist acts. I’m going to guess that the majority of the press that some members of this site follow don’t admit to that. The Spectator certainly won’t.
Here’s another line from The Spectator: “Close down Islamic schools. If Muslims want to send their kids to Islamic schools, let them do so in Bangladesh or Qatar, not here. We are not yet an Islamic country.”
But we’ll let the CoE, and the Prods and the Cafflicks run things in Scotland. Let’s not pretend that The Spectator is anything other than a racism-mongering ‘Daily Mail with intellectual pretensions’. Anyone using them as a source is, I think, telling us something about themselves.
DougieJ says
Aye ok…
Sitheref2409 says
Which bit was wrong? I quoted a piece from a publication that one of your primary sources edits. It seems fair enough to me to paint a fuller picture of what that publication puts out as opposed to the sanitized version you prefer.
I note that you aren’t responding to the Muslim peace protests. Why not?
retropath2 says
Jings, I was only asking some views about the telly…..
DougieJ says
Yes, apologies about that retro 🙂
Tiggerlion says
Cuh. What did you expect?
No common sense 😘
retropath2 says
And fools seldom differ…. 😉
Junior Wells says
Interesting discussion. I dont agree with a lot of Dougie’s views but am always impressed by the breadth of reading and preparedness to argue a case.
DougieJ says
Cheers JW
DougieJ says
Can’t help noticing that there’s been no replies to my posting of Sam Harris’s podcast with Douglas Murray on Charlottesville and identity politics. I’ll hazard a guess at the reason for that being that if anyone did listen to it they would realise they are far from the foaming at the mouth white supremacists of some people’s imagination.
I was criticised earlier for ‘playing the gay card’ in this argument but I do feel there is a theme worth examining for the relatively open-minded. Douglas Murray, Milo Yiannopolous and the late Pim Fortuyn are probably only united by their sexuality and, wholly understandable in my view, opposition to Islam (specifically Islamic immigration to Europe where de facto Sharia law exists, such as certain German politicians’ advice to women that perhaps they might not want to be out so late at night). To paraphrase Douglas Murray, there is a world of difference between people who might refuse to bake a gay wedding cake and those who would have people like him thrown from the highest building.
Sam Harris has also made the point that there is a hierarchy of religions that we should be worried about and no prizes for guessing what’s top of the Hot 100. To me that’s obvious but too often we see ‘faith leaders’ presented as morally equivalent in a kind of woolly ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ fudge.
Similarly, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali"Ayaan Hirsi Ali has ludicrously been banned by so-called feminists for alleged ‘Islamophobia’.
I and others notice patterns here, and make no apologies for pointing these things out. I stand by my belief that the left is tying itself in knots on these issues and I for one feel that if that’s what they want to do then fine – just don’t involve the rest of us in it.
Tiggerlion says
There is no religion that hasn’t been exploited by fanatics to espouse violence against others. Almost all ‘sacred texts’ can be used to justify atrocities in the cause of a ‘holy war’, ‘crusade’, ‘jihad’, ‘herem’ or ‘saffron terror’. Even Buddhists were involved in the 969 Movement that killed 200 people in 2012 in Myanmar.
Daesh’s power and influence in the Middle East is shrinking after a string of heavy defeats. There are signs that the migrant crisis has gone past its peak. Overall, numbers have fallen in recent months. There has been a dramatic drop of migrants to Greece but an increase to Spain. Italy and Turkey have stabilised. However, there is little evidence of these migrants, mostly fleeing the broken States of Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, committing atrocities in the name of ISIS. Only the two attacks in July 2016 in Ansbach & Würzburg, Germany, were carried by asylum seekers, one Libyan, the other Afghan. Neither resulted in any deaths. Otherwise, since 2015, when the migrant crisis began, there have been over thirty ISIS atrocities in Europe. The nationalities of the perpetrators have been Belgian, French, British, Morrocan, Algerian, Egyptian, Saudi, Uzbek, Chechyan, Palestinian and Liberian. Most who do carry out attacks have been born in Europe or lived here for many years. Even if you stop migration, you will still leave the majority of the danger untouched.
It would be great if people weren’t so desperate that they risk their lives crossing the Med in dinghies. It’s difficult to imagine how they could be made to suffer more. We should be helping their homelands recover from war, so they don’t feel compelled to leave in the first place.
The West needs to stand up to Saudi Arabia, the protector and the financier of Wahhabism, where Islamic radicalism and the idea of a caliphate originated. I don’t see Trump or May doing much about that.
We also need to do something about disaffected young men in this country and ‘Islamophobia’ and segregation will only make matters worse. We can get all medieval on their arses but, I suspect, that will only give them strength. I agree that hate preachers need to be dealt with, jailed or expelled, and social media should be treated as publishers and held responsible for policing the material on their platforms. Otherwise, the answer is love, unity, multiculturalism and treating others with respect. We need to hold dear everything this barbaric death cult hates about us.
As for Charlottesville, my guess is that those gay commentators aren’t impressed with the nazis, the KKK and the white supremacists either. They regard homosexuality as an abomination.
bricameron says
Bravo, Tig.