Ep. 125 - No Evidence Austin Bomber Was A Terrorist
Lefties, desperate to point to a non-Muslim terrorist, are calling the Austin bomber a terrorist. But there's no evidence he was one. We discuss why and why the distinction matters. Then, Frank Furedi, author of “Populism and the European Culture Wars: The Conflict of Values Between Hungary and the EU,” joins the show to discuss another terribly abused “ism,” populism and what it means for the democracies of the West. Finally, some news, and one of the great poems ever written, by Rudyard Kipling, on “World Poetry Day.”
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The Austin Bomber is dead and one imagines eternally ensconced in the burning hot metaphysical bomb down below where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Up here, lefties, desperate to point to a non-Muslim terrorist, are calling the Austin Bomber a terrorist.
But there's no evidence that he was one.
We will discuss why and why the distinction matters.
Then, Frank Ferreira, author of Populism and the European Culture Wars, The Conflict of Values Between Hungary and the EU, joins the show to discuss another terribly abused-ism, populism, and what it means for the democracies of the West.
Finally, some news and one of the great poems ever written by Rudyard Kipling on World Poetry Day.
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
Before we get to any of that, I know there's a lot to talk about today, and this matter of language is extremely important, and lefties are trying to abuse language as they always do, We need to be precise about this.
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All right.
The Austin bomber is dead.
We are all very pleased to hear that.
President Trump tweeted out the good news.
Governor Abbott did the same thing.
Unfortunately, this kid didn't blow himself up until he had already killed two people and injured six.
He didn't start with him, unfortunately.
But at least he's dead now.
Bombing started a few weeks ago.
They started on March 2nd.
They've been terrorizing the Austin area.
But there's a distinction between terrorizing and terrorism.
That's a specific term.
The bomber is a 24-year-old Austin resident who was only caught because he used a FedEx store.
This is pretty good press for FedEx, as you might imagine.
When I was thinking about this this morning, there were a lot of post office jokes I could make here.
I think they would be in poor taste.
I think it is too soon.
I'm just going to move on.
Maybe at a later date we can revisit, and I'll make all of the very funny jokes that went through my head.
This is a replay of the Unabomber, and now he's dead.
Good.
Unfortunately, the illiterate left cannot just be happy that the bad guy is dead.
They are desperate to point to a non-Muslim terrorist, and so now they're calling this kid a terrorist.
The problem with that is that there's no evidence that he's a terrorist.
Here they are, they're losing their minds on this.
Some guy named Rollins Martin tweeted, White domestic terrorist!
Not Muslim!
Not a Black Lives Matter activist!
But Donald Trump's DOJ doesn't want to admit this is a problem!
I think Donald Trump admits that someone blowing up Austin is a problem.
From some ex-NFL person named Matthew Cherry, literally the template they used to describe white terrorists shaking my head, and that's because the Reuters or the AP reported that the kid was quiet and introverted and reserved, which is true.
All these serial killer types, it's always like, oh, I didn't...
Not him.
He was always so quiet.
He was always so nice.
And then from a Hillary campaign alum known as Charles or Charlotte Clymer, depending on when you started following his Twitter account, Mark Anthony Condit was a white male terrorist and likely white supremacist.
He perpetrated terrorist attacks against a community, resulting in death and destruction.
This is not quiet, reserved, a nice boy, or whatever the hell else whitewashing nonsense.
First of all, there's no evidence he's a white supremacist.
That's completely made up.
And one can both be quiet and reserved and a terrorist.
That's true.
Also, there's no evidence that he's a terrorist.
This from Kumail Nanjiani, who is from the show Silicon Valley.
The bomber is not a terrorist.
Got it, because people are pointing this out.
Finally, from some musician named Michael Jolet.
Lots of white people saying, well, let's slow down and figure out motivations so that we're using the term terrorist properly.
Seriously?
You need to understand that black men are routinely murdered by police at one gazillionth the scrutiny you are pretending to give this term.
So, okay, I don't know how that factors in.
We're just talking about what does terrorist mean?
What is the term terrorism?
Does it apply to this kid?
According to the illiterate left, the Austin bomber is clearly a terrorist.
What did Mark Twain say about this?
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
Terrorism has a meaning.
I know we blur words a lot.
Words have meaning.
Terrorism has a meaning.
Terrorism is targeting civilians with violence to achieve political ends.
I'll say it again.
terrorists target civilians with violence to achieve political ends.
When terrorists target the military, that isn't terrorism.
When people target civilians and just blow them up because they want to kill people, that also isn't terrorism.
It requires political ends.
Now, I will say this is a relatively new word.
Terrorism really only was invented in the 1970s.
It's only been in the popular culture for about 50 years now.
So I understand people are trying to debate what does this word mean?
What doesn't this word mean?
So, that's fine.
Let's ask.
What definition of the term is the most useful?
Is the most meaningful?
What distinguishes it from other acts of war or acts of violence?
Not all acts of violence are terrorism.
Murder isn't always terrorism.
You can go down the street and kill somebody.
That doesn't make you a terrorist.
But you can also go down the street and murder somebody, and that is terrorism.
Rape isn't always terrorism.
You can rape people for reasons that are not terrorism.
But Sometimes rape is used for the purpose of terrorism.
The left really, really wants to point to a terrorist who isn't Muslim because virtually all of the terrorists we see today are motivated by Islam and a vision of Islam.
So they try to blur the words.
They actually already have a kid who isn't a Muslim terrorist.
This happened recently.
That kid in Charlottesville who shot up the black church, that is terrorism.
That qualifies as terrorism.
He targeted civilians to affect his white supremacist political agenda.
He wrote about his political agenda.
He was affiliated with political groups.
That counts as terrorism.
There you go.
There's your non-Muslim terrorist left.
You can be happy with that.
They always try to blur the words here.
That is what political correctness is.
Political correctness is taking clear terms and precise language and then muddying it all up so that they can try to confuse different categories.
It's really insidious because we don't even know what we're debating at that point.
Should terrorists be entitled to Geneva Convention protections?
We need to be precise in our language if we're going to figure that out.
The reason that we have a definition of terrorism in one part is so that we can protect civilians in times of war.
There was this big debate about 10 years ago.
Should we torture terrorists or should we give them, I don't know, all American constitutional protections and three hots and a cot and eggs Benedict for breakfast?
Should we give terrorists Geneva Convention protections?
The answer is no, we shouldn't.
We should torture terrorists.
I think Andrew Klavan said it should be an Olympic sport.
We should torture terrorists to protect civilians.
The Geneva Convention protections exist to protect civilians in times of war.
The deal basically goes like this.
If you decide, if you agree not to target civilians, we will give you certain conveniences and nice regulations when we deal with you in times of war.
If you extend those same protections to terrorists that you do to lawful actors who don't target civilians, you take away any incentive not to target civilians.
It's very insidious.
I know it seems nice.
Oh, well, wouldn't it be nice if terrorism didn't imply certain things?
No.
No.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
We need to be precise in our language, also so that we know who our enemies are.
More on this in a second.
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I want to wrap this up because we have to get to our guest who's got really interesting things to say about populism.
But one of the reasons we need to be precise in language is that in statecraft we need to be able to ascertain who our geopolitical foes are.
The imagination of man's heart is evil from the beginning.
There are plenty of murders and atrocities that are going to go on in the world.
We can categorize those murders however we like.
Some of those categories are more useful than others in forming a coherent picture of the world.
Think about guns.
There are 32,000 deaths each year involving guns.
Is that it?
That's all?
Is that the murder weapon?
Is that the only thing that matters?
Are all other distinctions trivial?
60% of those deaths involving guns are suicides.
Is that detail important?
Does that give us a better picture?
80% of the remainder are gang-related.
Does that give us a better picture of these deaths from gun-related incidents?
Of course.
The only way we can solve problems is by gathering all of the information that we can and forming a picture and narrative of what happened.
The right uses precise language, blunt language, clear language.
The left hates clear language.
They want to blur these things because they already have a picture of the world.
They already have a narrative.
They don't want to solve problems.
They want to vindicate their incorrect vision of the world.
Who cares if it works in reality?
Does it work in theory?
If we want to solve problems, you need to see clearly.
If you want to see clearly, you need to use clear and precise language.
Some evidence may turn up that this Austin bomber was secretly an ISIS sleeper cell or a communist trying to overthrow the government or whatever.
Right now, there's no evidence that he was a terrorist.
I know the left is angry.
They want their non-Muslim terrorist so they can validate their false narrative that different religious visions and different moral frameworks and different ideas matter.
They have different effects on the world.
They want to be able to deny all of those differences.
Too bad.
Don't let them scream you into saying things that aren't true.
Use clear language.
Speaking of being shouted down by mobs, let's get to populism.
We have got to bring on Frank Ferretti.
Frank is a sociologist and social commentator, formerly professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury, and is the author of 17 full-length books.
Frank's work largely focuses on fear, risk, and uncertainty, and how Western societies respond to all those things.
So it's a fitting topic for today as we talk about terrorism and now the anxiety of populism.
Frank, thank you for being here.
It's a pleasure.
Frank, Trump, Brexit, the Italian elections, on and on and on.
Among self-appointed elites on both the left and the right, there is no dirtier word than populism.
Europe, to a lesser degree the U.S., have embraced mass migration with open arms, yet they wring their hands over popular elections.
Why does the West seem only to fear its own people?
I don't know.
It's a very new development where Increasingly, the elites feel very comfortable in talking about ordinary people as if they're uneducated, as if they're very simple, as if they haven't got the intellectual resources to deal with complicated issues.
And I think the reason why that is is because in many ways they've lost the capacity to communicate, to talk, to engage with people in everyday life.
And because they haven't got that ability to communicate, they've kind of almost drawn in on themselves.
One of the things that I find quite interesting as a professor is that a lot of my colleagues in universities have more or less come to the conclusion that the only way they can get by is that they talk to themselves, people like themselves, people who are very educated.
And whenever they make an attempt to break out of that, they usually find that it just isn't working.
So you've got this real segregation that has occurred, where in their eyes, ordinary people are often seen as It's just somehow a bit of a threat.
They feel very uncomfortable with the passions of everyday life.
And particularly in Europe, you've got this new development where anti-populism has almost become its own ideology, where being anti-populist is almost seen as a sign of respectability, that you are a sensitive, aware person.
Well, Ed, that's always what we hear, the unwashed masses and all of this preening and looking down your nose.
You pose your book as a battle between the European Union and Hungary, and I want to get to that specifically.
What does Hungary get right that Europe gets wrong?
I think Hungary has got a lot of problems like every society, but it's very good on standing up for very basic values.
So, for example, If you go to Hungary, you go to Budapest.
It's a very modern city.
But people have got a very clear sense of what is right and what is wrong.
They're quite able to sort of avoid what I see as being the plague of non-judgmentalism, which exists in American society or in England where I live, where you basically say, well, I'm not sure what is right.
I'm not sure what is wrong.
You decide.
I got my views.
You got your views.
And when we do that, we kind of give up on Making important decisions and calculations about the world.
Hunger is also very good at standing up for sovereignty, basically saying that we're a sovereign nation.
What that means is that we're not allowing ourselves to be pressurized from forces outside.
We take into account what our electors want to do.
There's a kind of accountability element.
Which I think a lot of people appreciate that their leaders are standing up for Hungary's interests and not pretending that they just like, you know, the same as any other European country.
I think finally, what I love about what I really love about Hungary is that it's the most anti politically correct country in the world.
And therefore you can make jokes, you can be yourself, you can talk normally, you don't have to watch your words.
The other day I was talking to a Hungarian professor and she looks at me and says, you know, Frank, unlike you people in England, we in Hungary still know the difference between a man and a woman.
We don't need a million pronouns in between.
And she was absolutely right because what she was really getting at is that once we change our language and once we have Z and D and all these different pronouns, then basically what we are saying is that the old distinction between man and woman, which was historically the underpinning of human relationships, just goes out the window.
And I just like that kind of blunt, down-to-earth kind of quality of Hungarian cultural life.
It's so important because it's a question of clarity.
It's a question of bluntness.
When you use this mealy-mouthed language that we use in the UK now, especially, and that we use in the United States, everyone is walking on eggshells.
Everyone is so anxious and so nervous.
But if you just speak clearly and call things like you see them, life is a little easier.
You can breathe.
It's a little lighter.
You can see things more clearly.
And this does get down to the people.
Ronald Reagan used to point out that it was really only communists who would use terms like the masses or the unwashed masses to refer to their fellow citizens.
You quote in your book pro-European Union commentators who use words like swarming to refer to the people.
Now, if I'm a reasonably smart person, and you're a reasonably smart person, and all of the people we know are reasonably smart people from our butcher to our colleague at whatever university, how did the bureaucrats of Europe come to conclude that the people on the whole are idiots?
Well, I think that there's a kind of sense in which they basically believe that people who haven't got their outlook, who somehow don't share Their particular values.
Do not share those values because they don't get it.
And it comes from America, actually, because I don't know if you remember, in America, a lot of feminists used to use the expression, they just don't get it.
Right, right.
And actually, we got it.
We absolutely got it.
We got it.
I promise.
Absolutely.
We got it, but we disagreed with them.
And they cannot simply say, well, they disagree with us.
They have a different view.
Particularly, they cannot say that they have a legitimate point of view that's different to us.
They just say, well, these people don't get it.
And once they say they don't get it, they say, well, the reason why they don't get it is because they're a little bit thick.
They're a little bit slow.
They haven't got the education, they're disadvantaged, and really they're like a second-class citizen.
And what's very interesting is if you examine the language very, very closely, it almost has a racial characteristic.
I mean, if you talked about another race using that kind of language, you'd be called a racist.
But when it comes to these people, the populists, you can use the kind of intemperate language.
We're never using a polite kind of company.
And it's really a question of putting people down and dehumanizing them.
I think it's a language of dehumanization that I find very disturbing when anti-populists talk about the people as if they're just simply swarms or just deplorables.
Irredeemable.
It is clearly dehumanizing.
It is one of those things, and you bring it right home with the idea that they don't get it.
Oh, they just don't get it.
it.
Because what that is to say, these people who have such a clear utopian vision, such a progressive vision as they use, if you were to stand in the way of progress, which is so clear, it's so evident to anybody who gets it, then you can only be one of two things.
You have to be either incredibly stupid and probably incapable of self-government, or you have to have ill intent.
You have to have malevolence.
You have to have bad intentions.
Otherwise, anyone can see clearly the road to progress.
And if you're either of those things, if you're cruel and vicious and have bad intentions, or you're profoundly stupid, you can't govern yourself.
We can't have you governing us.
That is exactly their rationale.
Now, I will push back a little bit against the populists.
You write in defense of the tradition as well as in defense of popular sovereignty.
Traditionalism or the great traditions that we've inherited from our forefathers.
What happens when those two things come into conflict?
Fifty million Frenchmen can be wrong and frequently are.
Pre-European Union Europe tore itself apart and its traditions apart, most spectacularly in the World Wars.
Even today, the popular culture in Europe and the U.S. absolutely hates itself, hates its own traditions.
What happens when a good, solid, patriotic admirer of tradition can't trust the people or feels that he can't trust the people?
Well, you raise a very important question because obviously the world changes and traditions are not always appropriate in all circumstances.
I think there's a difference between being traditionalist, which is to make an ideology out of traditions and become very dogmatic about it, or to see traditions as a living phenomenon that's continually alive and can engage with new experience and new reality.
So there are many things that have happened That are really good, that weren't around in the old days.
So we have to be very selective.
And this is the challenge that you and I have, which is we look upon our past, we see what was wrong and needs to be fixed.
And we look at what was really important, the clear underpinning of our civilization that we need to take forward and make sure that the young kids are Are socialized into.
And I think, for me, the big tragedy when I go to American campuses, when I visit educators, is that they are extremely scared of the past and they're very, very bad at kind of communicating traditional values, you know, to their young people.
It's almost like they've given up on that and instead are making it up as they go along.
That's true.
This is the big worry that I have.
You saw when I was on campus not that long ago, and you see it among young people, is not only an ignorance regarding their own culture and their own traditions and their own form of government, but a real hatred of it, a real contempt and disdain.
What Harold Bloom said, The literary critic calls the school of resentment.
You no longer approach a text and say, oh, what can I gather from Virgil or Cicero or Thucydides?
You look at it and you say, I hate these guys, these racists, these bigots.
How can I teach them?
How can I teach Thucydides about ancient Athens or something?
It's a real fear because I think among conservatives we say, look, we trust the people, we trust individuals, but what happens if they become so ignorant of their own culture that that is what prevents them from self-governance?
Not their insufficient progressivism, but their insufficient...
Understanding and love for their own culture.
That's a real worry.
Now, speaking of the future, what does the future look like for populism in Europe and America?
Right now, we've just had these Italian elections where the populist parties were able to make a big dent.
You wrote that it's really the end of the European Union, or it signals that.
Are we headed, as Western culture, irreversibly into decadence and decay and technocratic exhaustion, or is there hope for a cultural resurgence?
Well, I hope there is always hope.
I've just been to Italy recently and I was fascinated by the way in which young people in Italy are looking for new solutions and they're experimenting with new ideas.
They're rejecting the old order and many of them are saying, look, we've had this European Union breathing down our necks.
We had all these rules and regulations.
That kind of emptied our lives of meaning.
We're looking for something new.
And you get that in England.
I think one of the nice things about England was that after Brexit, you had all these young kids and young adults saying that for the first time they've actually understood what it means to be a citizen when your vote counts.
And you don't have to simply pretend that you're just like everybody else because there's a lot of pressure on you to conform.
So there is something in the air.
But the problem is Is that both old school liberals and also I would say old school conservatives are at the moment very hesitant about knowing how to deal with this.
So for example, you mentioned how conservatives are able to say this and that, but a lot of conservatives that I know are very insecure.
They often tell me that, good on you, Frank.
I'm glad you opened your mouth.
Thank you for knowing it.
Yeah.
They tell me, I said, well, look, why don't you open your mouth?
Because we're not living in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.
You could easily open your mouth.
But they're extremely wary.
And I had this experience the day after Brexit, you know, sort of I had about 20 emails from other academics saying, Frank, we're very glad you spoke out on Brexit as an academic.
That was very, very important.
But we feel that we're not able to do that because, you know, we're very insecure.
We're worried about our jobs and everything else.
I emailed back to them and said, actually, speak out.
Because at the end of the day, the more of us that speak out, the more we create a milieu.
Where our political foes and our enemies become insecure.
So the way that I look at it is that if we are able to be a bit braver, have a bit more courage, open our mouth and give voice, particularly to young people who think like we do, there's no reason why we cannot create a countercultural force that takes up this very powerful political culture that dominates most aspects of everyday experience.
That's so true.
True.
That is such a good point.
We can take heart because we are the counterculture.
For the first time in my life, the pro-liberty guys are the cool guys.
That's a wonderful thing to, a wonderful bit of hope to end on.
Even if our culture is irreversibly in decay, you know, hope springs eternal in the human breast.
We'll at least get a few more good days out of it.
Thank you so much for being here, Frank Ferreira.
The book is called Populism and the European Culture Wars, The Conflict of Values Between Hungary and the EU.
I really encourage everybody to read Frank's writing.
He writes regularly.
You can find it online because we don't get a great view of Europe from the United States, and it's really important to see what's going on and what we're witnessing here that are global trends.
All right, Frank, thank you for being here.
We have got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
I said goodbye to YouTube a long time ago, but we've got to say goodbye to Facebook.
I tried to hold it out a little longer today so you could hear from Frank, but what is coming up is worth subscribing just for what is coming up.
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You get me, you get the Andrew Klavan Show, you get the Ben Shapiro Show, you get the conversation, you get to ask questions in the mailbag, which you should do right now, so you can get your mailbag questions in today, and I can answer them tomorrow on the show.
Forget all that.
It doesn't really matter.
The Leftist Tears Tumblr.
Here it is.
Here it is when the people of Europe decide that Angela Merkel doesn't get to destroy that continent.
Germany has tried to destroy that continent basically since the dawn of history.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, Germany has tried to ruin it.
And now they're doing it through mass migration and putting down national sentiments throughout Europe.
Well, tough.
It ain't going to happen, guys.
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It's World Poetry Day.
And I actually really like poetry.
I write a lot of poems that are similar to my book.
They have similar content.
But I really enjoy poetry.
And unfortunately, poetry is dead.
It is a dead art.
It doesn't exist anymore.
There are a couple poets that you can still read.
And that's kind of interesting.
Dana Joya is one of them.
He writes...
Sort of nice poetry.
But the great era of poetry is over.
There are a number of reasons for this, which maybe we'll go into some other time.
Cultures go through periods.
At some points, different art forms come up and down and up and down.
Our art has really decayed.
Obviously, you see this in popular music.
You see it in popular film.
It's just there's less stuff there.
There's less beauty.
There's less rigor.
There's less form.
And there's less depth of content.
So we have to go back in time, and I want to read to you.
This might not be the deepest poem ever written, but it really is profound.
It stirs my soul, and especially as I prepare to get married, I think it's important to share this with you.
It's a poem by Rudyard Kipling called The Betrothed.
It begins with a little line that says, You must choose between me and your cigar.
Breach of promise case, circa 1885.
Open the old cigar box, get me a Cuba stout, for things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarreled about Havana's, we fought or a good cheroot, and I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar box, let me consider a space, in the soft blue veil of the vapor musing on Maggie's face.
Maggie's pretty to look at, Maggie's a loving lass, but the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, and the truest of loves must pass.
There's peace in a Larignaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, but the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away, thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown.
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear of the talk of the town.
Maggie, my wife at fifty, gray and dour and old, with never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.
And the light of days that have been, the dark of the days that are, and love's torch stinking and stale like the butt of a dead cigar.
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket, with never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket.
Open the old cigar box.
Let me consider a while.
Here is a mild manila, there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion, bondage bought with a ring, or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
Counselors cunning and silent, comforters true and tried, and never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.
This will the fifty give me, asking not in return, with only a suttee's passion, to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me, when they are spent and dead.
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead, the furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main.
When they hear my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, so long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent them with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, and the more and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between the wee little whimpering love and the great god Nicotine.
And I have been servant of love for barely a twelve-month clear.
But I have been priest of cabanas for a matter of seven years.
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light of stump that I burned to friendship and pleasure and work and fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove.
But the only light on the marshes is the will-o'-the-wisp of love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar box.
Let me consider anew.
Old friends.
And who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke.
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
Light me another Cuba.
I hold to my first sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse.
Oh, does that stir the soul?
That is one of the great poems ever written.
I'm going to get in trouble for that tonight, I think.
That is our show today.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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I will see you tomorrow.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire forward publishing production.
