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Feb. 24, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
14:36
Introduction to the Regressive Left (#RegressiveLeft)
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Is there a regressive left?
Regressive left.
What regressive left basically seems to mean from people who are constantly throwing it around is there are liberals and leftists.
Oh, very well done.
You've accidentally stumbled on the secret to understanding the left.
There are indeed liberals and there are indeed other leftists who we normally describe as progressives.
Sorry, regressives, because they seem to have an obsession with focusing and judging people based on arbitrary characteristics such as race, gender or sexuality, effectively denying the agency of every individual.
This is why these people are called regressive.
The thing is, I think a lot of them don't actually understand their own political existence.
They don't understand that they're actually not liberals.
In fact, they're in opposition to liberals because of their desire to make judgments about people based on characteristics over which they have no control.
What regressive left basically seems to mean from people who are constantly throwing it around is there are liberals and leftists who are afraid.
Yes, well done.
You've identified the second problem with many, many people on the left.
They do seem to be absolute cowards, unable to stand for anything in the face of a withering barrage of accusations about their character.
Honestly, I mean, just they're afraid of being called racists constantly to the point where they will allow crimes to happen instead of taking action that might get them branded as a racist, as in arresting a brown person.
The fact that these brown people are committing crimes and there are victims of these crimes present when the police arrive doesn't matter.
That's irrelevant.
For some reason, the fact that they're brown is more important than that.
And I have no idea why.
And just again, just naked racism.
No, that is not something to be making judgment on.
Whether it's good or bad, it doesn't matter.
That's not going to tell us anything about this case.
It doesn't matter what the motivation of the policeman is.
What matters is the actual facts of the case.
And if it turns out that these brown men are, say, grooming and raping 13-year-old girls, there is no possibility that this is an accusation based on racism.
There is an actual crime going on.
So, just police forces in general.
Just understand that if there's an actual crime going on and someone goes, well, you don't need to call a racist, it won't matter if you are called a racist.
It would be retarded to call you a racist because you can point to the crime and say, this is why we arrested them.
There should be no doubt over this.
And eventually there will be no doubt over that.
What regressive left basically seems to mean from people who are constantly throwing it around is there are liberals and leftists who are afraid of criticizing Islam.
Another brilliant observation.
Your first sentence really is a goldmine of things to talk about.
Yes, there are liberals and leftists, as you put them, who have a real problem criticizing Islam.
Even though I'm in complete agreement with Sam Harris here, Islam is the mother load of bad ideas.
But I guess it's lucky for Muslims that we don't actually care about ideas anymore.
What we care about is skin colour.
And most Muslims happen to be brown, which gives them free pass.
It's incredible.
Again, this is why we have a problem with the regressive left.
And this is why I wish more people in the regressive left would actually take a fucking look at themselves.
What regressive left basically seems to mean from people who are constantly throwing it around is there are liberals and leftists who are afraid of criticizing Islam and are far too politically correct.
Jesus, man, your first sentence is just like full of truth bombs or something.
You've really on the money, right?
Yes, there is a massive problem with political correctness and regressives.
You guys are the political correct culture.
In fact, you actually go out of your way to defend it.
You make videos and write fucking articles going, no, no, no.
Actually, political correctness is expanding free speech.
Political correctness is making comedy better.
All this sort of nonsense.
No, no, shut up.
You're so mad.
You're just delusional.
Everyone who has read 1984 thinks you're brainwashed.
They think that you are actually performing double thing.
You are holding two mutually exclusive concepts as true at once in your mind.
And they can't understand how you're doing it.
They don't know how you reconcile things that are literally not possible to put together.
But, you know, everyone else, I mean, honestly, we think you're some sort of cult.
Everyone thinks you're some sort of mind-washed cult, brainwashed cult.
Nobody can explain it.
Why don't you care about contradictions?
What's wrong with you?
What regressive left basically seems to mean from people who are constantly throwing it around is there are liberals and leftists who are afraid of criticizing Islam and are far too politically correct to confront the essential truths about that religion that only they and their leaders, people like Sam Harris, Samajidnawaz and others, have the courage to say.
No, that's a straw man.
That's simply one issue among many with the regressive left.
The denialism and Islamophilia we see from progressives who you would think would know better given that they generally also call themselves feminists.
That Islam is inextricably linked with terrorism.
I actually think it's the other way around.
Islam is an imperial ideology.
It's the ideology of conquerors.
It makes provisions for ruling conquered people.
It sets laws, it dictates.
It's obviously designed for a conquering tribe.
Their foundational documents contain the idea of a holy war.
For the first time in history, we're actually living in an era where Islam as a political force is very weak.
Which is why they have resorted to using suicide bombers instead of sending armies.
The fundamentalists of this religion are still fighting for the religion.
They are just missing their caliph, the head of the faith, the pope-like figure, who coincidentally was also the leader of the fucking army.
And you know what, this isn't even a condemnation of these things.
This is actually recognizing their virtues as a militaristic ideology as if I was playing Civ V or something.
I would probably choose this ideology because it would be effective when I were to conquer my neighbour's territories, which is what I would do.
However, we live in the real world and I actually don't want that in the real world because these things are bad things that are retrograde and thankfully from a previously more barbarous time and are no longer needed.
That in many cases is an uninreformable and retrograde religion and that Muslims are dangerous.
I honestly would have thought that this characterization, this sort of retrograde, regressive characterization that Muslims are dangerous, must be the impression that is being given by criticizing the ideas of Islam.
I love the way that that slipped in there.
I might have thought that that was a deliberate misrepresentation, but I honestly am not sure that these people literally cannot seem to think like a normal liberal person.
Just the sort of person who thinks an individual shouldn't actually be judged on things that he has no control over, which includes other people's actions or the circumstances of his birth.
I don't blame someone who was raised in a particular type of system to be indoctrinated into that system.
And if that's a bad system, then that doesn't inherently make them a bad person because they may end up doing things that are regressive and retrograde.
But defending it and not criticising it is wrong.
And this person who clearly doesn't know any better, who we've literally agreed has bad ideas, will never know any better unless they are pointed out.
Sometimes someone has a better idea than you.
It's something we're going to have to get used to pointing out.
It's something we're going to have to get used to saying, no, look, you're doing things wrong, and I can explain why.
Now, obviously, there's some distinctions.
Majid Nawaz still identifies as a Muslim, and what he says is different than what someone like Sam Harris says, but the overall gist is clear.
Yes, that the overall rule you just laid down is incorrect, and therefore we're not going to use it, and we're not going to treat it as if it is correct.
It's that leftists and liberals are apologists for fundamentalism, human rights abuses, and sometimes even terrorism.
Now, let's go over this argument on the merits.
Why would it be that some people on the left would want to complicate the conversation we have on Islam?
Good question.
The answer is probably white guild.
These same people have spent a lot of time telling each other that white history is all very, very, very evil.
Despite the fact that almost every single modern good that we hold to be a liberal principle comes out of white European civilization.
But, I mean, that's irrelevant because some people in the past did bad things to other people.
And some of those people that they did those bad things to were brown.
It doesn't matter that there are plenty of brown people who did bad things to white people.
That doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that there are very rich brown countries like Saudi Arabia and very poor white countries like Romania.
It doesn't matter that these things exist and are real.
It doesn't matter.
None of this matters.
What matters is what they have already decided, which are brown people oppressed, white people oppressors.
Therefore, being white people, they feel guilty as fuck because they think they, these skinny white hipster dipshits, have been oppressing Muslims or something like that.
It's just you aren't oppressing anyone, so you don't need to feel guilty.
You aren't white people, you're not an emissary for them.
Nobody's voting you to represent them.
You don't need to feel guilty for things you never did.
You are not acting like a racist towards them, I am sure.
Therefore, you don't need to act like a racist towards anyone else.
Just stop it.
Stop all of this.
And are there a regressive left group of people that are actually justifying the behavior of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and human rights abuses in the name of Islam?
Another straw man.
Nobody is in favor of terrorism and nobody is saying the regressive left is in favor of terrorism.
What we are saying is the way you respond to Muslims being criticized is so strident and reactionary that you shut down any conversation whatsoever as soon as any kind of criticism is leveled.
And therefore, we can never really address the human rights violations for regressives screaming the word racist when criticizing a religion and actions done in the name of a religion by people from various different ethnic groups.
You have broken your own power by overusing these words in situations when they are actually not relevant.
And you've done it so many times that now people don't even care what you call them.
They go and vote for Donald Trump.
Other people may go a little bit too far in some arguments around cultural relativism and justifying certain abuses.
That may happen sometimes.
Don't try and downplay it.
It happens constantly.
This is one of the reasons I'm making this video.
But the bigger concern that most people have is that the human rights discussion around Islam is usually an umbrella through which to push bad policies.
No, it really isn't.
People are really concerned about the women getting their genitals mutilated before they are forced into marriage.
People are really concerned about the women who are now stoned to death because they were raped.
These are actual things that people are actually concerned about.
You selfish twat.
People are not thinking, well, I don't want the Republicans pushing in bad legislation.
They don't give a fuck about that.
There are actual human beings, women in most cases, suffering under a collection of bad ideas.
And the great thing about bad ideas is it doesn't take bombs to get rid of them, and they can be changed overnight.
They can be changed instantly.
But instead of trying to propagate ideas that are going to help millions of people in the long run, you regressive, self-confessed cultural relativists are too busy defending their rights to oppress people in their own countries just in case your political opponents in your country pass some legislation that you personally don't like.
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