Here’s a tricky little etiquette question for our age: What does one do when one finds oneself with admirers who are, well, perhaps just a teensy bit fascist?
If you’re a presidential candidate with an orangish hue and a deep dislike of Muslims, you pretend you know nothing about them, even though you retweet some of them on what seems to be a fairly regular basis.
If you’re the YouTube bloviator who calls himself Sargon of Akkad, you see their support as a FLAWLESS VICTORY.
Sargon — not the head honcho of the Akkadian Empire but rather the obnoxious YouTuber who recently started that petition to “Suspend Social Justice in Universities” — recently got a shout-out from one of the speakers at a rally of the English Defence League, a group of far-right do-gooders who think the best way to do good for England is to rail about Muslims and beat people up.
That’s the EDL guy in the picture above, who came to the rally with a little Sargon of Akkad sign and everything.
Sargon’s response:
If I can make racists praise universal freedoms, individual rights and the highest moral fortitude, I win. https://t.co/r9zOdlXj1T
— Carl Benjamin (@Sargon_of_Akkad) May 10, 2016
Well, that’s one way of looking at it, I guess.
Here’s some footage of EDL members demonstrating their brand of “moral fortitude” to the general public:
And here’s one idealistic young EDLer expressing his love of individual rights and universal freedoms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjuNuqIev8M
So congratulations, Sargon of Akkad — actually Carl Benjamin of Swindon — on your big win.
And while I’m on the subject of Carl of Swindon, I should note that I made a TRAGIC ERROR in my post about his dumb petition against “Social Justice in Universities.” At one point, I declared that “[t]here aren’t any departments of Social Justice that I’m aware of.”
It turns out that there are some departments of Social Justice that I was not aware of.
Carl of Swindon devoted a considerable portion of one of his videos to pointing this out.
Then, instead of clarifying whether or not his petition was aimed only at these departments of Social Justice, he railed against several academics — well, a recently fired professor and a grad student — who were not actually connected to any departments of Social Justice.
Also, for some reason — my memory is a bit foggy here — he decided to weigh in on trans issues, quoting an anti-trans hate group that has tried to disguise itself as a professional organization of pediatricians as if it were in fact a professional organization of pediatricians.
Note to Carl of Swindon: When making terrible transphobic videos in the future, try to remember that the American College of Pediatricians is a transphobic hate group — literally designated as such by the Southern Poverty Law Center — with perhaps 200 members. The American Academy of Pediatrics, with 60,000 members, is the actual professional organization.
Hope this helps!
To hell with this fascist pile of trash. What else can I say other than he is the quintessential anti intellectual. Socialist Libertarian Rants already showed how much of an absolute moron he is.
And people think he’s intelligent and rational? Pft give me a fucking break.
Carl of Swindon, fighting for the rights of hateful, mooching, layabouts to be hateful, mooching, layabouts.
Carl of Swindon, Sargon of Akkad,
a quarrelsome lad from Old Blighty,
or an Ozymandian vain ruler of men,
it’s a bit tough to tell though, quite rightly.
One is a scoundrel, or is he a king?
The other’s a knave with a crown.
One drives his enemies into the dirt,
The other’s a boaster and clown.
One of them speaks while the other one listens,
and presses his words into clay
In hopes that his words will be valued forever;
his glories will not fade away.
One birthed a poet, one sired hate,
but both gave their children a sword
to conquer the heathen and redden the fields
with the blood of the traitors who would not call him lord.
What Diluvean floods could not wash away,
the scour of sand surely had,
for who could claim which was the lesser or worse
between Carl of Swindon, Sargon of Akkad.
I didn’t realize that “universal freedoms” included hate. Or that “individual rights” meant hating on individuals who aren’t exactly like you. Or that “the highest moral fortitude” meant making a complete fucking ass of oneself.
But congrats, dude, on your stunning victory.
Oh, this “This week on Stupid” series of him… So many memories… So many horrible memories.
You know, if anyone ever wanted to torture me, the voices of him and tfart would be the perfect soundtracks.
Their mockery tone make me lock my jaw so hard. It’s also weird how they stress random words, like those words were extremely sarcastic or like they were talking to someone who has trouble understanding the english language:
“But David, I will show you the social justice departments just as I get to the end of your rampant ideological illiteracy”
By the way, that’s also something that make it extremely difficult for me to write rebuttals. Every sentence, including casual ones that don’t make any claims and serve only to move the video forward, are SO wrong in SO many layers that I take paragraphs to peel every tiny onion.
This sentence I wrote here, for example: What exactly was rampantly ideological about that article? It was a report with a few humorous remarks, not a goddamn manifesto. Even if it WAS “rampantly ideological”, so what? This site is very openly feminist, so why would anyone even take time to mention an article is rampantly feminist? It’s like he is mocking an article on an impartial News site for blatantly picking a side.
And what is the end of someone’s illiteracy? Is it when this person learns to read? How does Sargons gets to the end of it? By reading the entire article? Does that mean David learns to read when the article ends?
You can’t randomly replace the word ” article” by the word “illiteracy”, dear. This is not how these words work, I know that, and I am not even a native speaker. And you call other people illiterate?
See?! And that was about 3 seconds of video. So congratulations for being able to watch it, David. I’m looking forward for new articles on him.
Anyone else hoping he becomes a more regular subject here? I know I am.
Oooooh, Carl! As you said yourself to David… Oh, Carl,
SUCH SUPERIOR POWER OF STEM LOGICS AND RESEARCH! Not only does he not fact check, he also wants to discuss transgenderity using nothing but a hate group as a source! He is SO STEM he cant tell real science from fake, or even obviously fake institutions from real. He CERTAINLY knows a lot about medicine, especially psychiatry! He doesnt even know the damn name of the institutions.
Also, he makes this gross (meaning both disgusting and basic here) mistake in a discussion he started himself for no reason at all, so one would expect him to know a lot about it! I imagine it was an attempt to show off his “knowledge”? How sad. It’s truly sad to see people this stupid finding theirselves the peak of intelligence. Embarassing, even.
To put it down in your favorite words and tone, Sargon, I am literally baffled by your RAMPANT scientific illiteracy!
The dude in the 2nd video was trying to complain about Sharia law, right? At least our US reactionary bigots know the term. For once someone else’s right wing looks more ignorant and embarrassing than ours!
http://vomzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cool-proud-gif-714.gif
Okay, they know the term because it’s used to whip them up into a hate, but still, proud!
Congratulations Sargon, you’re allies with someone who’s more stupid than an USian right wing fundie.
I believe Britsh law contains some elements of Sharia law, but it’s all to do with property and loans. Anyway, I live in whitey Mcwhitesville now and I actually didn’t realise the EDL were still a thing. Which probably says something about how effective they’ve been.
He’s from Swindon? ‘Nuff said.
(getting ready to get out of bed to get dressed and get on the train to Swindon)
Apparently “universal freedoms, individual rights” do not include freedom of religion, and individual rights do not include the right to not be white.
I’m a bit ashamed to call myself and atheist because of what I have read on this site. It’s been very eye opening! I think I’ll start calling myself a Daoist all the time now, I usually just use it to bamboozle telemarketeers.
That phrase – Muslamic Infidels. Never fails to make me ROFL. So much ignorance crammed into two words.
😀
Zeez are nazi kind of volk I vant running zis country.
I’m constantly reminded even with my channel blocking addons that these people are the face of YouTube Atheism.
What an absolutely charming bunch of gentlemen featured in the first video! And I hope that delightful chap in the second was intoxicated because, wow, so much of coherence.
@varalys the dark
It’s called the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, and as you said, it generally deals with commercial issues. Under the Arbitration Act 1996, it has no jurisdiction in criminal matters, and cannot marry or divorce people.
Oh lordie, here was me thinking we could blame the Akkadians for him.
The EDL came to my city intending to prance about in front of our war memorial, but a bunch of SJWs, WW2 veterans, a kindertransport survivor, Justice for Palestine, the LBGT Pride group, representatives of the mosques, the synagogues, the Quakers and a few hairy-legged communist bonobos like myself came and laughed at them.
They straggled back down the hill to the railway station – and it turned out they were “not from round ‘ere”… which is about the worst thing anyone can say against you here.
Does anyone know what on earth “Muslimic ray guns” is supposed to be referring to?
Zap, you’re now a Muslim?
@KindaSortaHarmless: Cheers for the clarification.
I must ask my Muslimic friends what they do with their rayguns. Also I want a raygun, I feel cheated!
Some of my family are in the EDL. Even some of the ones who aren’t have similar beliefs. I avoid family gatherings because being a left wing, vegan, feminist SJW type in that environment either ends up in an argument which lasts for months or ends up with me being on the sidelines wondering what the hell I’m doing there.
Luckily my immediate family (sisters and mum) are not at all like that. I’m not sure about my dad’s current beliefs, he knows how I feel as I wasn’t shy of an argument to challenge bigotry even when I was a teenager so he never says anything too bad to me.
But what I will say is that growing up in an environment where the N word is used freely along with other racial or homophobic slurs is really not helpful when you start school and start to interact with lots of different people. I dread to think that I might have hurt people with my ignorance. Also, growing up as a girl being told that women are evil and stupid and sluts and “crazy” and that I’d better not turn out like that when I was a teenager even though I definitely would turn out like that because of being feeeeemale really didn’t do me any favours. The bigotries overlap each other (I was frequently told when I was a teenager that if I dated a black man then both he and I would be beaten) and I hate to think that these EDL people have children who are going to either grow up just like their parents or who are going to have to deal with unlearning all that stuff.
Sorry for the teal deer. I just get ranty whenever the EDL are mentioned.
Also “ray guns” is him slurring the words “rape gangs” but it’s much funnier to go with the ray guns interpretation. Someone even made a song of it on YouTube. Search “muslamic ray guns song”
@ varylis and kinda
Kinda has covered this. It’s worth mentioning that under the Arbitration Act parties in civil proceedings can agree (either at the start of the relationship or subsequently when a dispute arises) as to whom should determine the outcome of the dispute and what law should apply.
(This is pretty standard, if you look at the small print in most contracts you’ll see something like “this agreement shall be determined by English law and the English courts shall have sole jurisdiction”)
Agreeing to use Sharia law is reasonably common. The Beth Din is a Jewish tribunal and there’s the Chinese Constituatory court in Manchester that get a lot of work too. A lot of businesses elect to use their own trade bodies as well (there’s a construction industry panel for building disputes for example). Theoretically you could just nominate a mate you both trust.
If you go down this route then the normal courts don’t have jurisdiction at first instance and the appeal courts will only interfere if the result goes against ‘public policy’.
As Kinda points out you can only use the Arbitration Act for civil matters, not criminal or child care disputes.
In terms of business/money, the biggest users of the Arbitration Act are the oil companies. There’s a special oil industry tribunal that sorts out disputes between the big oil companies. It’s considered a nice little sinecure for retired judges as it has an international element and has some pretty nice premises over in Dubai.
ETA: there are other practical reasons for using alternative tribunals. It’s generally cheaper, you can select judges who know about the specialist field so you don’t need expert witnesses and the hearings can be in private with no publication of the proceedings.
“Muslamic ray-guns” is apparently a mishearing of what that very EDL supporter in the clip was saying.
He meant “Muslamic rape gangs”.
Interesting that this is a catch phrase for the far right since at least 2011 when the film was made, as it only really came to public prominence after New Year’s events in 2016 (or possibly “events” – prosecutions have apparently collapsed in some places). And how easily a hateful meme gets transferred to the scapegoat of the day: it was “Syrian rape gangs” and “rapefugees” back in January.
@Dr Nicola, I’m sorry to hear it. Virtual hugs and actual applause for you.
ETA Ninja’d!
@Dr. NicolaLuna: That sounds pretty bad, glad you grew up sane. About the worst it ever got for me was after my dad got another woman pregnant and pressured her into an abortion (his cheating is what got him kicked out the house) the next woman he shacked up with was a Catholic and he converted and would pontificate about gays being sick and wrong, until I’d get irritated and remind him I was gay and he’d make some pathetic excuse about how I was the exception. Fortunately this phase only lasted a few years but it was pretty trying. Luckily both my parents are vehement anti-racists so although I grew up in a town that had very few black or asian people living there (there was ONE mixed race boy in all of my infant/junior school) I wasn’t filled up with toxic messages about them.
ETA: Thanks for the extra info Alan, I did know there was something similar for Jews, didn’t know about the Chinese one though.