Douglas Murray

You’re drifting right for sure, OP. Drifting right into conversion camp.

People who demonize wokeness are brainwashed conservabots. "Wokeness" is the reason why we have gay marriage, gay adoption, gays in the military, etc.

[quote] he’s starting to make sense

When did he not make sense?

Conservatives are only "pro-Israel" because they hate Muslims more than they hate Jews

Yes, I recently bought three of his books and agreed with all of them. He is unafraid to say what needs to be said!

OP is self loathing. I hope things improve for you.

R6 Seems like the whole world is drifting to the right

R6 - Douglas Murray isn't anti-gay, he's anti-woke.

My Jewish liberal gay friends love him because he tells the truth about the Israel-Palestine conflict. He’s also very intelligent and has that dry British way of calmly shooting down ignoramuses.

With Cristopher Hitchens gone, he's the best of that genre that we have right now.

[quote]Douglas Murray isn't anti-gay, he's anti-woke.

Not only is he not anti-gay, he's gay.

He kinda looks and sounds like he stepped out of Brideshead Revisited. And I’m here for it

[quote]He kinda looks and sounds like he stepped out of Brideshead Revisited.

He plays it to the hilt too, particularly in his adopted home country of the United States (note that he, a life-long conservative--both lowercase and uppercase--and noted critic of multiculturalism, chooses to live in liberal, ultra-diverse New York City).

He's become too much of an actor (and fancies himself a bit of a comedian), what with his self-consciously bemused/would-be comical facial expressions. When he talks about how hard it is for young people to "get on the property ladder," he'll have a sad/concerned look on his face, will insert a meaningful pause here and there, a sigh... Way too mannered overall.

He hosted his own show for a while on right-wing British cannel Talk TV (not sure he still does), but he's better off limiting himself to the role of commentator.

BTW, is he paid by Israel?

*channel, sorry

Hangs out with a lot of gay pron stars in NYC and WeHo.

undoubtedly a barebacking slut

R2, you don’t understand what “wokeness” is.

“Woke” is a zealous advocacy for proportional diverse group representation, often at the expense of merit and purpose. If there are group disparities, it’s prima facie evidence of racism, sexism, bias, etc. Also, “wokeness” polices speech and prohibits you from suggesting any alternative for disparities, like, “Well, black people have lower average IQ, so you’d expect to see them underrepresented in cognitively demanding fields,” or “Well, black people commit more crime, that’s why they’re disproportionately in jail.” “You can’t suggest that! That’s blaming the victim and it’s racist!” It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but if you’re concerned about disparate outcomes, then you need to address it from that angle because focusing on racism and bias will provide little in the way of remedy.

Example of woke — making Prince Eric’s mother, the Queen, black. The producers decided to keep Eric white, but they REALLY WANTED A BLACK QUEEN, so they contrived the story of Eric being adopted just so that they could get their black queen.

r17 YOU don't understand what "woke" is. Woke is a term invented and used by black people when non-black people are confronted with incontrovertible evidence showing black people being treated differently than white people in identical circumstances, and find that with evidence they cannot deny, finally believe what black people have been saying for decades and decades. It has been extended to gay people, who have similar experiences. Numerous videos exist of police actions, including weaponless black people being shot dead in the back while the police reports say the officers felt that their own lives were being threatened. If a white person is convicted of a crime and gets a slap on the wrist, and a black person is convicted of the exact same crime and is sentenced to 10 years of hard time, that is a disparity that is not representative of anything other than bias. Videos show black people being denied entrance to their own building complexes or pools by other residents.

Ignorant people, such as yourself and most of the rest of the rightwing have seized upon this term as a substitute for what used to be called political correctness, and what most of us who were raised properly understand as basic good manners. When people use the "n" word or the "f" word as insults and get pushback, their defense is that their free speech is being impinged upon because of "wokeness". It's a bogeyman word used to rile up people who want free license to denigrate and insult people and never suffer any consequences. In the past, people who did this sort of stuff were confronted by shaming by some in their community. But with the explosion of the internet and social media, and the loss of immediate repercussions like a fist in the mouth, really crude, uncouth, and malicious people feel emboldened to say vile things and then rush to try to seize the moral high ground saying that they are being censored.

^ FYI words often change meaning over time.

You've provided the history of the word woke, but this is the year 2024 and R17's description applies.

The word has entered common usage and among it's meanings, the Merriam-Webster dictionary list this:

"Politically liberal or progressive (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme".

That sums it up nicely.

For you R18:

Democratic strategist James Carville comments on ""woke"

Since you're keen on definitions, might I ask you what term exists for "politically conservative or right wing (as in matters of repressive racial and social justice policies) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme"?

If there is no term for such, might I ask you to provide an explanation as to why not?

If there is no term in widespread use, by, say, progressives when referring to right wing people, what does that say about the strong efforts on the part of social media influencers to make "wokeness" a term of derogation.

r21, if you listened to the entire clip, including the follow- up with Don Lemon, he very eloquently explains why Carville is wrong - but again, partly in not understanding what woke means. To follow up with r19, the Merriam Webster definition is NOT a definition that a woke person would use. It is a derogatory definition imposed by right wing people and then demonized.

R18 must either be Joy Reid or Sunny Hostin. Whoever it is, she’s looking for work soon.

Don Lemon. Such a brilliant mind.

[quote]Since you're keen on definitions, might I ask you what term exists for "politically conservative or right wing (as in matters of repressive racial and social justice policies) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme"?

Well, people do throw around the term Fascist a lot.

R18, I am an attorney who recently settled a Section 1983 lawsuit against police. My client was white. I have a feeling that in this post BLM world, if he had been black, he would have been offered more money.

Look at Tony Timpa, the white George Floyd. His son was only awarded $1 million, whereas George Floyd’s family got a settlement of $27 million. Tony Timpa wasn’t even a criminal. The cops who killed him had the charges dropped.

Police misconduct exists against ALL races, and it’s worth fighting against. But you listen to BLM activists and the far-left, they tell it like it’s a uniquely black problem. I think that narrative was destructive toward police reform.

he seems like a rancid cunt

Woke is fine in that it brings to light important, overlooked truths, but any ideology carried to extremes gets absurd. People who have adopted the privileged/oppressed paradigm to explain every problem and analyze every complex situation are led in absurd directions to oversimplified and often indefensible “answers.”

The Middle East is an especially inappropriate place to use Western progressive ideology. Analyzing that conflict on the basis that Arabs are brown and therefore oppressed and Jews are white and therefore privileged, in almost total ignorance of the history of the region, or, at best accepting one side’s propaganda version of history, has simply given license to express antisemitism as virtue.

R18 schooled R17. Good work.

[Quote] pro-Israel

Like being pro-Nazi in the 1930s.

This video is the best explanation of woke I've seen

Extreme identity politics + German guilt pride. The pleasure and mania of life's eternal victims throwing up acid on leftwing movements.

I haven't read his books, so maybe r5 can help me. Does he ever acknowledge that "Western" values are often contradictory, a struggle between old Christian values and Enlightenment values? He never seems to in his interviews or debates. It always seems to be one smooth "Europe was harmonious and full of light and laughter before those damn Marxists and then those damn Muslims came along and fucked it up." Does he actually define Western values, or are his books just one big litany of stupid "woke" people saying stupid woke things and Murray laughing at their stupidity?

He's very clear about homophobia in Islam. Does he ever, anywhere push back against homophobia on the Christian Right, particularly in the U.S. where it's rampant? Or are they good allies who must never be criticized in any way?

Is Israel ever wrong about anything at all, other than not being brutal enough at various times? Is there any reason at all to think that, yeah, maybe Palestinians got the short end of the stick when Israel was created and, you know, maybe we can find some kind of answer that doesn't just say "Fuck 'em, they lose, Israel wins, shut up."

no thanks

[quote] Is there any reason at all to think that, yeah, maybe Palestinians got the short end of the stick when Israel was created and, you know, maybe we can find some kind of answer that doesn't just say "Fuck 'em, they lose, Israel wins, shut up."

They rejected the 1948 partition in order to drive the Jews away or kill them. They have returned to this goal repeatedly, most recently last year. They rejected the Oslo two-state solution in order to keep this fantasy alive. They repeatedly turn to violence to advance it. When Israel gave them control over Gaza they turned it into a military fortress. Hard to have much sympathy unless you endorse their goal of an Islamic state replacing Israel and millions of Jewish refugees with nowhere to go.

[quote]With Cristopher Hitchens gone, he's the best of that genre that we have right now.

No, that would be Youtuber Alex O'Connor (CosmicSkeptic). He's every bit Murray's intellectual equal, and in O'Connor's favour, he's not an ageing fascist sociopath with a worn-out mussy.

Douglas Murray and Andrew Doyle are heroes and role models.

[quote]No, that would be Youtuber Alex O'Connor (CosmicSkeptic).

The video at R1 is a debate between Alex O'Connor and Douglas Murray.

I love Alex, but he's not really a Hitchens type in the same way that Douglas Murray is. Murray has that withering English fopishness thing going. Like a combination of William F. Buckley and Stevie from Family Guy.

I think Hitchens would never join the Trump Cult, even if he might agree with Trump on some things about Muslims. Douglas Murray unfortunately seems to have gone all in for the whole stupid package. If you can't see that most of Trump's cabinet picks are idiotic, or rather if you say you can't see that, you are way too deep in the cult.

Damn...I meant Stewie from Family Guy...

He’s a slack racist British pass-around bottom who craves big black cock and is fooling no-one.

[quote]I love Alex, but he's not really a Hitchens type in the same way that Douglas Murray is. Murray has that withering English fopishness thing going. Like a combination of William F. Buckley and Stevie from Family Guy.

I see that, on a surface level. Hitchens and Murray are eloquent, highly literate, Oxford-educated British men, so naturally, they have certain habits of manner in common. But I don't see any of Hitchens's seering intellectual honesty in Murray, quite the inverse, rather. I'm also aware that Americans, in particular (see most of this thread), can be so easily seduced by toxic idealogy if its mode of transmission is a witty, urbane and seemingly reasonable Englishman. Fascism is always more attractive when concealed in a velvet glove.

^ Oh please.

R40 Some of us are discerning. I enjoy Murray. Do I agree with everything he says? No.

R31, Douglas Murray is in the UK, where there is no Christian Right. As a matter of fact, in the UK, it was the Conservative Party that was all about gay marriage because they were pro-family values and wanted to help gay families.

Well he's also here in the U.S. and very much happy to talk about American politics r42. But it seems he mostly just wants to tell wingnuts what they want to hear. I agree, there's no real intellectual honesty left in him. I think he started out interesting, but then decided to go all in with the nonsense of the Trump cult for cheap American support.

R43, but can you refute anything he says with facts? He does debates with people far smarter than you and leaves them licking their wounds. You might not like what he has to say, but that is your problem.

r45 A writer at Medium magazine did exactly that in critiquing Douglas Murray's 2017 book on immigration. Douglas Murray wrote that people complained about his analysis, but no one could refute his facts. Then these authors, J Spooner and J Stubbs, in copious detail take down his "facts" one by one, chapter by chapter.

My feeling is that he says things very authoritatively (and rather snootily) in a way that makes it difficult to refute on the spot. One would think that with all the technology we have available to us, instant fact verification would be a thing in debates, but, alas, it is not yet there. Otherwise, every word out of Trump's mouth would be deleted as non-factual.

I think Douglas Murray did use to have actual debates with intelligent people. Lately, it always seems two kinds: acolyte "interviews" him, basically telling him he's awesome and wonderful and right about just every durn thing there is. Or complete moron throws out the most idiotic leftist nonsense and Murray gets to laugh at the idiot.

[quote]A writer at Medium magazine did exactly that in critiquing Douglas Murray's 2017 book on immigration.

Funny how Europeans have come to the same conclusions as Murray and are voting accordingly.

Hitchens?? Murray isn't anywhere near Hitchens. (Sam Harris is the only one even approximating Christopher Hitchens.)

Murray is smart for sure. But he's too smug and not all that quick in the moment. Further, his unabashed conservatism gives him away too much. A true intellectual isn't driving by any partisan agenda. Murray very much is.

r47, if you believe that voters vote on "facts", carefully filtered for accuracy using critical reasoning, rather than on the drumbeat of constant propaganda fed them by social media and relentless algorithms pushing them towards certain beliefs, I have some swampland I think you'd be interested in buying.....

Europe and the U.S. have very, very different immigrant problems, and both tend to get confused about that. Europe really does have a problem with people from an alien culture and religion moving in and wanting to fundamentally change the culture to better suit themselves.

The U.S. really doesn't. First of all, we've always had "alien" cultures moving in, as we of course were an alien culture moving in initially. We have a completely different attitude toward immigration itself. But also, over the centuries we've absorbed so many people from so many cultures, that our culture is a complete mutt. Has been for centuries. Mexican-Americans are absolutely not alien to the American experience, certainly not since we took half of Mexico and declared it "us."

The two problems barely have anything to do with each other.

^ Because God knows the British are so much worse off with choices like Tikka Masala, Jamaican jerk chicken, African peanut stew, or Malaysian fried ricefor dinner rather than some good ol' bangers and mash, or spotted dick. How dare these immigrants come into our country and try to change the way that we eat?

[quote]if you believe that voters vote on "facts", carefully filtered for accuracy using critical reasoning, rather than on the drumbeat of constant propaganda fed them by social media and relentless algorithms pushing them towards certain beliefs, I have some swampland I think you'd be interested in buying.....

The European turn around on mass immigration has nothing to do with social media. The populace and the governments can see the effects for themselves. They are ALL intensifying border controls.

Government after government....left or right...has changed course on the issue for a myriad of reasons. See Denmark as an example.

Oh come on r51, it's more than just recipes. That's the most barebones "multiculturalism" out there, and it's bullshit. It's never just a few potlucks, and OMG, look what Muhammad brought, isn't that interesting. No, come on, there is more than just an interesting food court going on in European countries.

Forget Murray and get Alex undressed and into bed ASAP.

For OP :

FOP a man who is concerned with his clothes and appearance in an affected and excessive way; a dandy.

Which Murray is clearly not. What are you on?

Yes, please! He's very attractive.

R51 I have Brit friends with an estate in the Cotswolds who reasons like you.

reason

Whether the US or Europe, the vast majority of immigrants are moving to achieve better economic outcomes for themselves and their families. Europe, even more than the US, is facing a demographic crisis. By 2050, many European countries will be down 20% from their maximum populations. We already have seen the result of what happens then when we look at the economic and social struggles in Japan. Government pensions and social services having to be constantly cut because there are not enough workers to support them, real estate cratering because no bodies to fill the buildings. Has no one noticed that town after town in Italy is GIVING away houses for 1 Euro? I suppose if the answer is that these countries decide they want no immigrants from anywhere, they will decimate themselves until there are too few able-bodied men to defend them, and then they'll be overrun anyway.

I grant that Muslim immigrants come with their own sets of problems, but there again, Muslim people are not a monolith. Much depends on the cultures of the countries they are immigrating from. People in burkas are disconcerting in western countries. Countries go through periods of isolationism and then reopen their borders to increased immigration with some regularity.

It appears that immigrants such as Riz Ahmed or Roshan Seth or Idris Elba are accepted readily. So it's not so much immigrants looking different as in coping with a country in which people no longer look so much alike as they did previously, and suddenly feeling overwhelmed.

Most of that is evasion r59. And yes, there are very good and even necessary reasons for immigration. But the truth is it does open up severe difficulties sometimes, especially when a large group of immigrants are socially cohesive and actually do kind of want to replace the culture of the nation they are emigrating to.

This is total evasion: I grant that Muslim immigrants come with their own sets of problems, but there again, Muslim people are not a monolith.

Muslim people do come in general with a whole set of deeply conservative, highly religious assumptions that don't work with Enlightenment values. It's an issue. It may not be unresolvable, but pretending there is literally no issue is not going to solve anything, ever. Europe is going to have to face up to the actual reality of the situation before it can come up with any answers that aren't complete bullshit and fantasy. Pretending real issues don't exist is never going to work.

As I said, I don't think we have the same situation here in the U.S., either with our actual immigrants (except in a few cases) or with our whole attitude to immigration. The truth is, we undoubtedly can absorb a whole lot of people and cultures, as we have for at least 150 years. We go through out fucking moods, we panic, we get ridiculous, but by and large we do adjust and absorb. I'm not sure what Europe will do, but it has an actual problem it needs to face head on.

[quote]Has no one noticed that town after town in Italy is GIVING away houses for 1 Euro? I suppose if the answer is that these countries decide they want no immigrants from anywhere, they will decimate themselves until there are too few able-bodied men to defend them, and then they'll be overrun anyway.

I'm really beginning to think you have mental problems.

" I suppose if the answer is that these countries decide they want no immigrants from anywhere they will decimate themselves until there are too few able-bodied men to defend them, and then they'll be overrun anyway."

What??

Dear, no one is against immigration. People are against uncontrolled, unvetted mass immigration.

[quote]Has no one noticed that town after town in Italy is GIVING away houses for 1 Euro?

And what exactly do you think that means? At this point, I'm curious to hear your answer....

After people in my family came to the U.S., they spoke German or Russian at home, and married within their own communities, for about two full generations. No one adjusts over night. You have to have faith in our decadent, consumerist culture. We can undermine any other belief system.

[quote]Dear, no one is against immigration.

You only reveal yourself to be a complete fool when you say nonsense like this. Why lie?

Woke for white people just means what they used to call being pc/politically correct. It was initially a term by black Americans to mean being aware of racism and injustice.

Agree r64, but yes, the word has changed a lot. Like "gay." Now it means something very different: an excessive belief that racism, sexism, and homophobia explain most everything. I'm not saying the anti-woke are right, they're mostly morons, but we become moronic when we pretend it really means what it meant in the 1920s.

[quote]You only reveal yourself to be a complete fool when you say nonsense like this. Why lie?

The fool is you.

The comment at R61 was in context to Europe. Europeans are not against immigration. Immigration is recognized as a necessity. Europe has always had migrants.

As I wrote: people are against uncontrolled, unvetted mass immigration.

r66 Many Europeans -- who are not a monolith are against immigration especially from stigmatized countries.

[quote]Woke for white people just means what they used to call being pc/politically correct. It was initially a term by black Americans to mean being aware of racism and injustice.

And now, over time, in popular parlance, it has taken on another meaning. So?

Words have a habit of doing that. Just look at the evolution of the word "queer" or the word "gay" as R65 pointed out

I love him. He speaks out against the nonbinary nonsense.

R67 We can't interview every European but generally speaking, Europeans are not against immigration per se.. They want a sane immigration system with limits on numbers. And yes they prefer to be vigilant about where immigrants are coming from and avoid the intractable social problems a class of cultures can bring.

You are very easy to win over r69, obviously.

r61, I really don't think you understand the depth of the problem. Here:

"Italy, with the fastest shrinking population in Europe, has so many old people and so few young people that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has warned “Italy is destined to disappear.”

If you think that my stating the obvious and using science and statistics to prove it demonstrates that I'm mentally ill, I guess you have the right to your opinion.

[quote]"Italy, with the fastest shrinking population in Europe, has so many old people and so few young people that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has warned “Italy is destined to disappear.”

Solutions: guest worker programs, investments in technology, programs that encourage families to grow, etc.

BTW: "The government of Premier Giorgia Meloni is backing a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033"

There are sane solutions. Uncontrolled mass immigration is not the answer.

I have not read much of Douglas Murray as he's always come across to me as a run of the mill contrarian. Murray, like others of his ilk. take issues that are genuinely worthy of debate and discussion, then misrepresents and exaggerates the nature and scale of these issues. When you manufacture a crisis, you similarly manufacture yourself as the possessor of the solution - it keeps you in the public eye, but by no means makes you a public intellectual.

Hitchens had the advantage of operating before social media really took off. I don't think someone of his ilk would gain prominence these days, as the social media world isn't what you'd call intellectual.

r73, I might agree IF uncontrolled mass immigration had ever really been a demographic problem in Europe.

"Nearly 115,000 migrants — less than 0.03% of the EU’s population — have arrived without permission into the EU via Mediterranean and Atlantic routes so far this year, compared to 176,252 during the same period last year, the U.N. says. In contrast, more than a million people, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria, entered the EU in 2015."

Even 1 million would only be .25% of Europe's population. That's the "uncontrolled" part.

I don't recall advocating uncontrolled mass immigration. But much of the immigration of the past few years has actually been Europe to Europe - as millions of Russians and Ukrainians have fled the conflict between those two nations. And I sense that people in Europe are less disturbed by those migrants than those that arrive from the south. And in theory, those immigrants have already been facing at least some sort of controls at border stops.

Your society is being destroyed before your eyes yet you seek to destroy one gay man who is trying to wake you the fuck up.

[quote}"Nearly 115,000 migrants — less than 0.03% of the EU’s population — have arrived without permission into the EU via Mediterranean and Atlantic routes so far this year, compared to 176,252 during the same period last year, the U.N. says. In contrast, more than a million people, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria, entered the EU in 2015."

You throw around statistics with no sense of the actually reality.

0.03% or .25% (or whatever) of the population sounds like nothing. But the reality is that immigrants are not EVENLY distributed throughout Europe. They're concentrated in cities. In neighborhoods. An always the working class areas. Not the posh areas of the wealthy.

Prato Italy near Florence (as an example) has a population of nearly 200,000 people. The Chinese immigrant population of the town is now around 50,000. A quarter of the population. Adding the illegal Chinese population, that percentage becomes even greater. This rapid demographic change has caused all sorts of social problems that did not exist before. (I know. the town well). Turin has a Muslim Ghetto. As does Milan.

Lampedusa: "In September 2023, over 120 boats, carrying roughly 7,000 migrants—MORE THAN THE TOTAL POPULATION of Lampedusa—arrived on the island within the span of 24 hours."

0.03% of the population (or whatever) sounds like nothing. It sounds benign. So what on earth are those nasty Italians complaining about?

But those number do not tell the real story.

R74 Got ilk?

Here's Hillary Clinton speaking about migrants.

Please give it a listen.

No, we're definitely not trying to destroy Murray, which of course we couldn't. Some of us are questioning his latest incarnation as Trumpy mouthpiece. If you're an intellectual and your response to Trump is "he's just awesome, you guys, and so are all the clowns around him" you're either whoring for the wingnuts or you're losing whatever sense you had.

When has Murray ever referred to Trump as “awesome”?

He seems to keep very, very quiet about Putin.

You can be anti-woke without sucking MAGA cock. In fact, anyone with a bit of intellectual honesty knows that MAGA and the woke zealots are different sides of the same coin; not just temperamentally, but historically speaking, they both exist only in relation to each other.

This guy sucks. Islamic fundamentalism is a curse, and we have neocons and their Zionist bootlickers to thank for it. The woke also can't tell the difference between secular nationalist elements that still exist in the ME (RIP, Syria) and Muslim Brotherhood-funded groups like Hamas, but they're not responsible for the latter's ascendancy. Neocons are.

He’s a snooty bitch.

R2, that's BS. Woke people just follow the culture 20 years ago they were against all of those things.

I bought The Madness of Crowds and I liked it. I wish he used the common sense he advocates for in the book more.

He himself is pretty repugnant. He’s a smarmy, reactionary, contrarian. His book on Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) and praising his abysmal poetry comes to mind.

Like someone above said, he’s a neocon who is constantly beating the drum for war. He also likes to cosplay as an IDF soldier.