Short Reflection on Douglas Murray's Disastrous Rogan Interview

It’s long and not worth it. Which is why I’m here to summarize the highlights.

Douglas Murray really laid a turd on Rogan the other day. He started off telling us we should only listen to experts (such as himself) on questions about WWII, Israel, Ukraine etc. Beaten back from that retard position by two chuds, he established a new line of attack telling us that Americans who use the word “we” when referring to our sons, daughters, and national treasure wasted to fight pointless foreign wars are being insincere since it’s mostly not “we” who are doing the fighting. His insulting pose left in me with an intense desire to knock that glib and arrogant smirk off his face.

This glib conceit was deeply insulting in a variety of ways. Perhaps he doesn’t care if lower-class Americans and Brits are used as cannon-fodder for globalist adventurism but I suspect it runs deeper than that. He, like many upper-class Brits, have spent 80 years pretending they still have an empire (by-proxy): the USA. For them the USA is a land of infinite power and capacity and if not, well, that’s not his problem.

If he had his way the US would destroy itself for the priorities of the Yookay’s demented and decadent ancient hatreds. After all, they are the globe-spanning sophisticates and we would do well to listen to our betters.

If I may generalize: this is the problem with all European elites. They fundamentally disrespect democracy and fully embrace rigid class structures. These structures, as we see in Japan, India, China,and Europe, preclude brilliance and innovation in all sorts of ways but that never gives pause to their presumed and apparently self-evident superiority.

Another area Murray failed to apply his much-vaunted sophistication and expertise was in their discussions of WWII and the Ukraine War. Despite Murray’s protestations, there is a valid point to shaving a bit off the Churchill hagiography and "ze evil Germans" without tossing the basic outlines of the narrative. Murray's insistence on the six million Jews massacred number for one is historically illiterate...as is his insistence that the barbaric Treaty of Versailles had nothing to do with WWII (he actually claimed there were two choices at the end of WWI: the draconian Treaty of Vesailles or a German victory). He also insists that Russia wasn't provoked in a hundred ways into invading Ukraine — or if they were it’s still solely their fault. He literally falls back on the "but they started it" assertion to demonize Germany for WWII and Russia for the current Ukraine war. Such declarations are not just ahistorical and wrong, they’re also dumb.

For a guy who hates the mass immigration waves globohomo inflicted on his nation he has an inexplicable blindspot when it comes to the neocon mindset he so thoroughly embraces. The neocon project is inseparable from the globalist one. He really needs to pick his battles and perhaps consider that he himself is a victim of the apparently ubiquitous Dunning-Kreuger Effect his type incessantly wave around when they refuse to engage in the merits of an argument.

After telling Dave Smith he cannot opine on the Israel conflict since he hasn’t take the Israeli Propaganda Hasbara Tour and “seen the checkpoints” for himself he then, over an our and a half into the thing, veers into the only real pont of substance in the podcast. He should’ve started there.

I think many American have sympathy for the difficult position Israel finds itself in with regard to Gaza and the Palestinian problem. Letting supplies into the occupied territories means letting in the components that can be formed into rockets and weapons — since it’s impossible to block all materals that can be thus manipulated. Palestinians, like most humans, are ingenious at coming up with ways to transform seemingly harmless goods into weapons.

And many of us also understand that the Palestinians had countless opportunities to turn away from violence and some of them will never choose to do so. Where Murray really fails is in applying his selectively nuanced positions to this problem — and acknowledging bad actors on both side who practically preclude any chance for peace for all those who would choose that option.

He is happy to point out the corruption of Hamas leaders who live as billionaires in Qatar while while ignoring the massive corruption and walking conflict of interest known as Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is desperate to hold onto power since his longstanding corruption likely means he will spend his final years in prison once his never-ending tenure finally ends.

Murray, in one of this final pirouettes, derides the ineffectiveness of US power in the Middle East (fyi the British were always better at it) while half-acknowledging the disastrous levels of chaos our meddling has left across the entire region. The image that results is of a man who pines for the days of the British Empire and all its brilliant successes while refusing to acknowledge that the realities of the current day Middle East are largely the result of their own calamitous Great Game and subsequent toadying embrace of the US’s own cynical neo-imperialist enterprise. He simultaneously denies the power of the US to shape the region while ignoring the ever-growing chaos garnered by our continued adventures.

He displayed a revoltingly smug Cheshire-grin when he denied having anything to say about a potential imminent Iranian war that could result in the deaths of tens of thousands of US soldiers and shred the final pretense at US naval dominance in the world. It’s a war Israel (and Murray) has been pushing towards for decades and now, at the precipice, Murray has nothing to say on the subject.

In a thousand ways over two hours Murray displayed his dishonest rhetorically style and arrogant self-assessment. The real shame is that there is a reality underneath all his dishonesty that really matters — that the US could, if it so wished, force both Palestine and Israel to stop reacting to the worst elements in each camp and force the good-faith elements within each side to move toward some kind of peace.

But then this seems to be the neverending human tragedy: that those who act with bad faith and arrogant self-regard, and always seem to occupy the positions of any power, refuse to look beyond the sloganeering towards real solutions.

As you may have gleened from the above there is a lot of noxious and dishonest argumentation from Murray in this hours-long podcast. If you want to get the gist of the thing in shorter form, here are the last 16 minutes of mendacity, strawmanning and utterly specious argumentation from Murray.