Sunday, November 13, 2011

Douglas Murray in Copenhagen

The British opinion writer Douglas Murray recently gave a talk at Trykkefrihedsselskabet (the Danish Free Press Society) in Copenhagen.

Below are some excerpts from his speech. The full video is available at Snaphanen.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

10 comments:

Sagunto said...

Re: this man's comments about the EDL:

The EDL wasn't founded solely because of police behaviour. The EDL is not the problem, and it surely isn't going to dissolve should the police suddenly uphold and enforce the law as they should. My guess is that this gentleman would dislike the EDL regardless of any valid points they make, just because of their overall working class outlook. A matter of "taste" as it were.

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag

Reliapundit said...

OF COURSE THE EDL'S PF THE WORLD EXIST BECAUSE TH GOVT AND COPS AND MAJOR POL PARTIES DOING THEIR JOBS.

PATRIOTS WILL NOT SIT NY AN DO NOTHING.

AND TH BRIT COP DID PREVENT THE ISLAMIST SCUM FROM BURNING THE POPPIES THIS YEAR - AND THE EDL IS WHY.

NOT MURPHY AND HIS ILK, HOWEVER GOOD HE IS IN MANY OTHER WAYS.

GOD BLESS THE EDL!

Sagunto said...

Reliapundit -

"I can't hear you.." ;)

XPGMCMLXIII said...

Douglas Murray is wrong Enoch Powell did not kill the debate it has stalled where Powell left it, indeed Douglas Murray's lecture is almost an enumeration... but where Powell used high and low metaphors in an attempt to communicate to both sides of Britain's social divide. Douglas even with his brilliant intellect appears to have the unalterable class doctrine that Britain's social divide can not or should not be bridged to defeat a common enemy.

Anonymous said...

I think Douglas Murray is more sympathetic to the EDL than he lets on, but is walking very close to the edge of social unacceptability, with his career on the line.

I can't find it now, but recently there was a statement on the Henry Jackson Society web site from one of its leaders, explaining his self-imposed inactivity in protest against Murray's appointment as associate director.

He also posted a video as evidence against Murray, showing Murray making what he considered to be favorable comments concerning the EDL, if I remember correctly. I recognized the video from YouTube.


ChristianInfidel (my new moniker)

Lawrence said...

Sagunto said... The EDL wasn't founded solely because of police behaviour. The EDL is not the problem, and it surely isn't going to dissolve should the police suddenly uphold and enforce the law as they should. My guess is that this gentleman would dislike the EDL regardless of any valid points they make, just because of their overall working class outlook. A matter of "taste" as it were.

The intellectual people I know with similar attitudes toward the working class generally identify themselves as Progressives.

Progress to them means convincing the lesser educated classes to agree with them and support their more intellectual ideologies.

I see a lot of that happening in Britain right now in context of the reactions against the working classes comprising the EDL.

Continental Europe has long since throttled the working class, but it's disheartening to see Britain going down that road so quickly.

But anyway,... seeing the working class in Greece cry out for changes offers some ray of hope that Europeans still have some ability to take their nations back from their own Progressives. Or, it could just be one more nail in the coffin of Western Civilization.

Sagunto said...

Lawrence -

I agree with your observations, though I'm not sure whether I share your hope when you say:

"But anyway,... seeing the working class in Greece cry out for changes offers some ray of hope [..]"

For me to have any hope, they should be crying out for a return to sound money, a drastically reduced central state (effecting the de facto abolishment of the welfare state system) and the end of central banking, in short: a return to freedom and free markets.

I'm afraid that the Greek working classes are not thinking about that, not by a mile. Left-wing or right-wing progressives, it's all same old same old..

Lawrence said...

I think our reliance on welfare systems is a consequence of mis-managed (mostly mis-governed) markets.

Central banking might work within a nation's sovereign authority, but outside of that it only serves to create a sort of fiscal dictatorship.

First thing is to give people back their right to open and run a personal business without a lot of government intervention.

In the greater sense, economies will always exist in context of supplying basic needs. But they can't grow without the potential for profit that fuels entrepreneurship among the working class.

As long as governments tax the wealth out of any instance of risk taking, entrepreneurship and growth will not happen. Banks may prosper since they still manage the money industry, but nobody else including their governments will prosper.

This ideology is directly opposite that of the current Marxist driven and/or Keynesian drive efforts currently employed across most nations comprising Western Civilization.

Sagunto said...

Lawrence -

(posted initially in wrong thread, reposted here)

I don't know for sure, but it might be that we have a different take on this:

"I think our reliance on welfare systems is a consequence of mis-managed (mostly mis-governed) markets."

The way I see it, the welfare state system was made financially possible when government got into the business of taxing people's property, while at about the same time, a system of fiat money was being erected to finance the surplus expansion of central government not already made possible by the looting of income taxes and so on.

In my view, markets should be free one 100% and not "managed" at all by whatever state bureaucrat. Management (i.e. the setting of interest rates by the FED; manipulating the money supply) leads to distortions in the market, which leads to the Business Cycle: boom, bust and deep economic depressions, prolonged by the state.
There's no need at all for a system of central banking or any central monetary authority, any more than there's a need for central house building. Central banking featured high on the priority list in the Communist Manifesto. That says a lot.

Cheers,
Sag.

Anonymous said...

The EDL isn't a problem, if you think so, you are looking trough the glasses the BBC provided for you.

Good speech overall though.