Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - This Week in Stupid (03⧸12⧸2017)

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Dec. 3, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

25:35

This Week in Stupid (03⧸12⧸2017)

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	Hello everyone, welcome to This Week in Stupid for the 3rd of December 2017.
	This week has been a bizarre week in British politics.
	Ever since Donald Trump decided to retweet three videos by Britain first, the political class has been in total meltdown.
	I've genuinely never seen anything like it.
	For example, The Guardian published the observer view of Trump's insults to Britain.
	I just don't know how to explain what they mean here.
	I don't think Trump has insulted Britain.
	I think Trump has retweeted a party that's been on the margins of politics for a very long time, but I don't see how that's an insult to the country.
	But look at the tagline.
	US and UK interests are now highly divergent.
	Forget the special relationship.
	I don't see how that could be true.
	I don't see how Donald Trump retweeting three videos could change the national interests of the US and the UK unless they were conflating the social internal interest of not being racist, which is, I presume, how they perceive it, with somehow with like the national goals of the country on the world stage.
	And somehow, Donald Trump retweeting these videos has appended this apple cart.
	So they claim that Donald Trump retweeted doctored propaganda videos.
	And I checked that link and there is absolutely nothing in there that suggests that the videos are doctored.
	At worst, I think you can say that the link says that they're mislabeled.
	But it's so bizarre.
	I mean, why did you have to lie about that?
	I mean, and even then, propaganda videos?
	I mean, the videos themselves weren't propaganda, apart from the one that was false.
	The videos themselves just record what had happened.
	But anyway, by British far-right fringe group, Trump gave the White House seal of approval to incitement to hatred and violence against racial and religious minorities.
	I just...
	it's so breathtakingly extreme.
	You can hardly believe that they honestly think that Trump is trying to get people to murder people and to be violent against racial and religious minorities.
	I think really what he's trying to do is destroy the Overton window.
	I think he's trying to force them to talk about these problems.
	And there are many good reasons why they should be forced to talk about these problems.
	Because it's their middle class morality that's preventing them from doing anything.
	The way they're interpreting all of this prevents them from doing anything about it.
	It's just been madness.
	For example, on one hand, they'll say something like, don't you dare get yourself involved in internal politics in Britain, Donald Trump.
	But the next sentence, they'll say, sooner the American people turn him out of office, the better it will be for them and the world at large.
	Well, I really think we shouldn't return the favour, should we?
	If we don't want Trump meddling with our affairs, maybe we shouldn't meddle with his.
	But either way, it really doesn't matter, because all of this is people saying things on the internet.
	And believe it or not, people are actually still allowed to say things on the internet.
	And Theresa May decided to reprimand him for this, and Donald Trump just struck back, saying, you've got problems with terrorists, don't you worry about us.
	I think the most amazing thing about this is the fact that we've managed to get The Guardian defending Theresa May.
	Trump's personal rudeness to May is every bit as inexcusable as his ill-disguised racism and bigotry.
	I don't care if Donald Trump and Theresa May have a spat on Twitter.
	It's quite amazing to watch the political classes, the left-wing political classes, rallying around Theresa May.
	Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrats, spoke the truth when he said Trump was guilty of an open, deliberate, calculated insult to the Prime Minister.
	Holy f ⁇ .
	The left-wing press in this country think Theresa May is a monster who is deliberately starving to death the poor people of this country.
	And suddenly, oh, milady, let's defend your honour.
	You've been the victim of an open, deliberate, calculated insult.
	You fucking lunatics hate Theresa May.
	You fucking hate her.
	You think she's evil.
	Don't give me this.
	Oh, oh, now we care about Donald Trump insults Theresa May.
	No, you don't.
	No, you fucking don't.
	You don't care about this at all.
	But you do care about Britain first.
	I don't know a lot about Britain First because I've never bothered to look into them.
	You have to understand, like, in Britain, parties like Britain First and the British National Party, any sort of heavily nationalist party, is just in the political wilderness.
	They're really, really, really outside of the bounds of mainstream politics.
	And it really is because British people have the desire not to be seen as racists.
	They don't want to be chest-thumping nationalists.
	They find it unappealing in general.
	Not being British, not having pride in one's nation, but the sort of vocal nationalism that I suppose that it's all thanks to Nazi Germany that vocal nationalism is a bit of a taboo subject in Britain.
	But it's not very well received, is the best way to describe it, I think.
	And no one would consider Britain First to be a reputable political organization.
	And so I never bothered looking into them.
	I don't know what their beliefs were.
	I didn't know anything about their history or their organization or anything like that.
	And so I had to go to their Facebook page and actually have a look and watch a bunch of their media and see what I could find out about them.
	And honestly, as far as I can tell, they have two things that they want.
	They want to get rid of Islam from the UK and they want to stop all immigration.
	That's all I can find from any of their sort of policies or principles that they operate from.
	They don't like Islam.
	Okay.
	They don't like immigrants.
	Okay.
	Does this make them fascists?
	Well, not really.
	I mean, I can't find any economic information about them.
	I can't find any, like, social policy beyond Ban Islam.
	I can't, I don't think they have many plans for any of these things.
	They seem to be just an activist group for these two issues.
	And I can hardly believe that it's Britain First that is leading the Guardian to print things like, in such a toxic context, the special relationship with Britain was unlikely to prosper.
	They're talking about the special diplomatic relationship between the US and the UK as if it's already over.
	As if we have decided, you know what, we won't be close allies with the US anymore.
	What good could that possibly do us?
	Because Donald Trump is a racist and Britain first exists.
	And the Guardian spell it out for us here.
	The US-Britain relationship is about a lot more than trade and jobs, although they're very important.
	At its heart is defense, security, and intelligence collaboration.
	Yes.
	Yes, that's true.
	This is why I literally don't care if Donald Trump tweets something mean at Theresa May.
	I mean, personally, I don't really like Theresa May.
	She's really making a pig's ear of Brexit.
	She made a pig's ear of the bloody election.
	And she's going to make a pig's ear of pretty much anything else she touches.
	I have no need to defend her honour.
	And, I mean, to be honest with you, I want her gone.
	But if she does get offended by something Donald Trump says on Twitter, I don't care.
	I'm sorry, but the defense of the United Kingdom and the close working relationship that it has with America is way more important than Theresa May's honour, in my opinion.
	It's amazing that The Guardian thinks we will throw away this close diplomatic and political relationship because of a tweet.
	That is blows my mind.
	This piece continues with the usual hysterical scaremongering that you would expect from The Guardian and finishes with, Last week was a wake-up call for May and the Tories.
	Britain cannot rely on Trump's America.
	Before she finally burns our bridges to Europe, May should consider this.
	The president of hate is a menace to our inclusive values, our national interests, and to all our people.
	Trump is not Britain's friend.
	And again from The Guardian, Britain should demand an apology from Trump and cancel his state visit.
	Trump's overnight tweet is at once both trivial and epochal.
	Theresa May, don't focus on me, Trump tweeted in the small hours.
	Focus on the destructive radical Islamic terrorism that is taking place in the United Kingdom.
	We are doing just fine.
	On one level, this was just another piece of late-night extremist presidential scattergun.
	But on the other, it was a high-velocity bullet aimed unerringly at the cerebral cortex of the UK government's international strategy.
	I think you're giving Trump way more credit than he deserves, to be honest.
	I do not think Trump thinks nearly as far ahead as these people do.
	I mean, they seem to have bought into the 4D chess narrative, which, while amusing, I'm afraid I do not believe is true.
	Trump sent a variety of messages in those 26 words.
	All of them foul.
	At their root is the anti-Islamic prejudice that the president routinely fosters among his extreme right political base.
	He may not have cared much that the source of the anti-Islamic videos that he shared on Twitter on Wednesday was a tiny and virulent British extremist group Britain First, but he certainly cared that the videos had been promoted by the most mouth US right-wing propagandist Anne Coulter, one of his key advocates.
	And he will have felt vindicated, not embarrassed by the response in the far right.
	Thank God for Trump.
	That's why we love him, tweeted the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
	I find this amazing.
	The Guardian is citing David Duke.
	Like David Duke is a legitimate source for anything.
	Like who gives a fuck about David Duke's opinion?
	Seriously, who gives a fuck?
	I mean, you know that Jeremy Corbyn was endorsed by both the Daily Stormer and the Communist Party of Britain, which are two organizations that I place on a moral equivalence with one another.
	There is no moral difference between them, and yet nobody cares.
	They only care that, for example, when Trump is endorsed by Andrew Anglin and the Daily Stormer, then they give a shit.
	If PewDiePie is endorsed by Andrew Anglin and the Daily Stormer, ironically, then they give a shit.
	But the fact that, like, say, Jeremy Corbyn is endorsed by the Daily Stormer and the Communist Party is just something no one cares.
	They don't care.
	What propaganda narrative does that feed into for The Guardian?
	It's terrible for The Guardian.
	They have to ignore it at all costs.
	But by the way, David Duke likes Donald Trump.
	Well, no fucking shit, he does.
	Of course he fucking does.
	But David Duke, just like the Daily Stormer and the Communist Party of Britain, are fucking irrelevant.
	This is interesting though.
	It's a direct challenge to Britain and its values.
	May could not avoid commenting on Trump's retweeting of Britain first videos while at the same time credibly maintaining her own genuine commitment to anti-racism.
	So now Theresa May is opposed to racism.
	The Conservatives are anti-racism, which is not normally how The Guardian likes to portray the Conservatives.
	Normally, the right wing is just considered to be the racist wing in Britain, and in America as well, let's be honest.
	I think one of the things I find most amusing about this entire debacle is the summoning up of the old spirit of Britain by The Guardian and other far-left outlets.
	The realities of Trump and the uncertainty about what comes afterwards also aim a dagger at the Tory Party's post-Brexit delusion about global Britain, particularly the white Anglosphere incarnation beloved of the fiercest Brexiteers.
	Every reality facing May, political, economic, cultural and strategic, screams that the closest practicable relationship with the EU is Britain's proper and principal destiny.
	Brexit was always a disastrous course for Britain.
	Trump's tweet should be one of those small agate points that turns the balances of the world, just as Churchill said.
	You mean the virulent racist who starved to death about 4 million people in Bangladesh because he didn't really like Indians?
	Is that the person you're quoting, Martin Kettle, Guardian columnist?
	I mean, I'm just saying that The Guardian recently published an article about an Indian politician who drew cheers from an audience when comparing Winston Churchill to some of the worst genocidal dictators of the 20th century.
	So I'm just saying maybe we shouldn't be quoting Churchill because, you know, it might get a bit unPC.
	Anyway, naturally, after being brought to the attention of the world by Donald Trump and all of the subsequent media frenzy surrounding him, Britain First have been noticing they're getting a flood of membership requests, which doesn't surprise me in the least.
	But what does surprise me is that apparently it's only in the hundreds.
	It's not in the thousands, it's certainly not in the tens of thousands, it's only in the hundreds.
	That's how unpopular the position of Britain First is.
	And it's not, as The Guardian points out here, the fact that their views are particularly fringe.
	There are lots of people who don't like Islam as an ideology, but that's not the same as disliking Muslims as people.
	I find this legitimately hilarious.
	A firm slapdown from the office of Prime Minister followed condemnation by Jeremy Corbyn.
	The Archbishop of Canterbury joined in.
	Even Melanie Phillips, author of a book called Lundinistan, which laments the transformation of the urban landscape by headscarves and niqabs, told BBC Radio that she was absolutely appalled.
	Really, Melanie?
	Seems that might kind of be up your alley.
	Seems like it's kind of your thing.
	So The Guardian is quick to point out that many of the views apparently espoused by Britain First, and I'm going to take The Guardian's word on this, although what I have seen myself does seem to corroborate this, is that Britain First's views that Islam is inherently violent, that Sharia law is a creeping threat, that British Muslims share some kind of culpability for terrorist atrocities committed in the name of their faith, are widely held.
	Only a very small number of people are going to take to the streets and engage in stand-up arguments with fellow citizens who do not share their beliefs, as Britain First members do.
	Far, far more identified to some degree with the positions they espouse.
	Well, okay.
	Let's say that that's true.
	Let's say that large numbers of Britons actually do agree to some degree with some of the things, if not all of the things, that Britain First are saying.
	Let's take Britain First out of the equation entirely, in fact.
	Let's ignore Britain First because they're a tiny fringe organisation, presumably of racist fascists who just want to exterminate Muslims, right?
	Just gas chamber the lot.
	So we're going to ignore them because obviously we don't want gas chambers, we don't want purges, we don't want ethnic cleansings.
	It's not what we want to do.
	So do people think that Islam is inherently violent?
	Yes.
	Why do they think that?
	Well, history and the doctrine of Islam.
	The teachings of Islam seem to make it look inherently violent.
	That it's going to incite its own followers to violence, to kill the kaffar, wherever you find them.
	I mean, I'm just saying it's in the material itself.
	Is Sharia law a creeping threat?
	Well, the British government has recently had to do an inquiry into the 80-plus Sharia councils in Britain because they're violating the rights of women.
	So yeah, it probably is.
	It probably is actually a creeping threat that we should stamp out.
	I don't agree that we should have any kind of Sharia law in this country, whether Muslims want it or not.
	And if you want Sharia law, then you're probably going to have to go to a country with Sharia law.
	Because Sharia law is not compatible with British law.
	And that's why the government has had to investigate these fucking councils.
	It's not like a hate crime to say that.
	It's the truth.
	And a lot of people seem to believe that British Muslims share some kind of culpability of terrorist atrocities committed in the name of their faith.
	Now, this one I don't actually like.
	I don't agree with, to be honest.
	I don't think that random Muslims can be held accountable for something someone else has done.
	Even if the ideology, even if they share the ideology that persuaded them to do it, it's not something that was in their control.
	It's guilt by association.
	And it's a punishment for a crime that you personally didn't commit.
	So I can't sign up to that.
	But I mean, the other points are things that are true.
	It is that Islam is inherently violent.
	I mean, like, a lot of things are inherently violent.
	Islam is one of those things.
	Communism is another one of those things.
	Fascism is another one of those things.
	You've just got to own it.
	You've just got to own it.
	And it's weird because anti-far are owning it.
	You know, if you can look at PhilosophyTube's latest Anti-Far, who are they?
	And he just openly admits in there, yeah, Anti-Far are pro-violence.
	Well, there we go.
	Just own it.
	Islam is inherently violent.
	Which is why we get all of these terror attacks.
	Which is why you get mobs of Muslim men attacking and beating and doing whatnot to non-Muslims on the basis that they're not Muslims.
	There is an inherently violent doctrine within Islam.
	We just have to own that.
	And on the plus side, this is what I think makes liberalism so attractive.
	It's not inherently violent.
	In fact, it finds violence to be a delegitimizing factor, especially within a democracy.
	There is no justification for it.
	In a 2016 survey by Comres of 2,000 Britons, 31% agreed that Islam promotes acts of violence in the UK.
	Islam as a doctrine absolutely does.
	Some 43% said it was a negative force in the country, and only 28% believed it was compatible with British values.
	Well, that's good to know that the British public are basically woke on the problem of Islam.
	Anecdotally, I am only too aware of this strength of feeling.
	Well, maybe it's because it's real.
	Maybe it's because, literally, what are we going to fucking do?
	Listen to this.
	This is Majid Nawaz talking to Aisha from Manchester.
	Let's see what she has to say regarding Sharia law.
	It's a big shame because we want to be part of the solution.
	What do you mean we?
	You're with me, aren't you?
	You believe in liberal democratic values, don't you, Asha?
	I am a conservative Muslim.
	I do believe in democratic values, but I don't completely agree with the liberal values because I think sexuality to be sinful.
	No, but that's fine.
	You don't want to force your opinion on others, do you?
	no of course not but there you are so you're on that you're on the liberal democratic side of this you may be conservative but you know you're no different to jacob reese mogg you know he's not an extremist and nor are you but the point is the minute you want to say one day i want a caliphate that punishes gays and criminalizes them then i've got a problem But that's not the issue.
	Issues killing people.
	Do you aspire one day to a Sharia state that will criminalize and outlaw homosexuality?
	Yes, I do, because eventually, I think that would be, I don't actively aspire to it, but eventually, and you would know this because you're in his foot area.
	You were in his book.
	Yeah, and I reject all those ideas.
	And the difference is you don't.
	Would you, okay?
	You aspire to one day, you aspire to a caliphate that would criminalize and punish homosexuality.
	What about adultery?
	Do you aspire one day to a Sharia-compliant state that punishes homosexual adultery?
	If it puts the necessary principles in place, then I would agree with that.
	With punishing adultery?
	Of course, I think adultery is disgusting.
	Okay, and what's the punishment?
	Okay, so look, as someone who's grown up in this country, I'm not sure.
	No, no, don't look me, Aisha.
	If those ideal Sharia conditions are met, as you've just said, what should the punishment for adultery be?
	I'm not trying to evade your question.
	You believe in stoning people to death?
	It's part of the Sharia.
	It's part of the hoodud.
	You can't deny that as a Muslim.
	Yes or no?
	In an ideal Sharia-compliant state, do you believe in stoning adulterers to death?
	Okay, okay.
	I will answer your question.
	If you agree that those compliance, those actual boundaries of what you need to prove, the burden of proof is so high that it would never actually be done, right?
	In an ideal, when the burden of proof is met and all the Sharia conditions are complied with, in an ideal Islamic state, do you endorse the stoning of adulterers to death?
	Yes, but in principle, however, I don't believe that it would ever happen because the burden of proof is so high.
	What are we going to do?
	What are we going to do with Aisha, who is in favor of stoning women to death if they have an affair?
	The British government has no position on whether you have an affair or not, nor should they.
	And as Majid points out, this is a personal decision that is nothing to do with the government.
	It's nothing to do with the laws.
	But this is what Aisha wants.
	And she was born and raised in Britain.
	Going back to our apologist from The Guardian, he says, whenever I've written about the subject, for example, on how Islam itself is insufficient to explain jihadist terrorism, imagine thinking that.
	Imagine thinking that these people aren't killing themselves because they believe that they're going to go to heaven.
	Imagine thinking that, in fact, they're doing it for some other reason.
	But anyway, I've had conversations with ostensibly liberal friends who are convinced that Islam is a force for evil in the world and that all Muslims are homophobic.
	My dude, they almost all are.
	In Britain, half of them want it outlawed.
	Now, I'm not saying that's half of them don't like homosexuals.
	It's obviously way higher than that.
	It's just that a percentage of those people who don't like homosexuals also don't want it outlawed because I guess they hold a live and let live interpretation as Majid Nawaz holds.
	But that's not the majority.
	That's the minority.
	And you can look at the Pew Poll results.
	It's something like 88% or 90% of Muslims across the world think homosexuality is immoral.
	90% of them.
	I mean, what are you going to do?
	You're going to try and persuade people that Muslims aren't actually homophobic.
	Because every time you speak to a Muslim, the chances are 9 out of 10 times, you will be speaking to a homophobic Muslim.
	I said that I think that the Overton window is over, and that's because the practice of ostracism that's been used in mainstream politics for unsavoury political positions has unfortunately created an army at the gates.
	Britain First has 2 million likes on their Facebook page, outpacing the Labour Party with 1 million and the Conservatives with 650,000.
	The small consolation that the BBC managed to slip into this article is that about half of those likes come from abroad.
	Okay.
	But that still makes it as popular on Facebook as the Labour Party, the biggest political party in the entire fucking country.
	You can't act like there aren't millions of people in the country who share these views.
	And I'm just saying, these are the people who we know are brave enough to defy the social norms to go and like their page.
	And Donald Trump, by retweeting one of their videos, has completely demolished the Overton window on this issue.
	Now we have to talk about Britain First, because that's all the press are talking about.
	They think that since Donald Trump has brought this to the fore, they have to do damage control as much as possible.
	And it's okay, okay.
	But now, once you've done damage control, okay, we all hate Britain First, they're all a bunch of racists.
	But as you showed in the Guardian article previous to this, lots of people have a problem with Islam.
	Lots of them.
	And it's the Muslims themselves, like Aisha from Manchester, who are going to drive this to the fore and they say, well, I think that homosexuality and adultery should be illegal.
	And in principle, I would agree with stoning an adulterer to death.
	We can't have that in this country.
	This is counter to our values.
	We don't think that the state should have that kind of power of the individual.
	Put simply, everyone and their mother knows that Islamic values are not compatible with British values.

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