Douglas Murray and Dave Rubin: Recasting The Immigration/Identity Debate In Terms Of Mercy vs. Justice, Not Good vs. Evil

September 21, 2017



Douglas Murray, author of 'The Strange Death Of Europe,' joins Dave Rubin on this edition of The Rubin Report to discuss Europe's crisis with immigration, identity, and Islam from a Western perspective. They touch on why issues of immigration and identity are so difficult to move past, and make the case that the time has come to debate these issues with a higher level of maturity than "good vs. evil" or "Churchill vs. Hitler." Instead, he casts the opposing sides of the argument in terms of "Mercy vs. Justice."

Beginning 20 minutes into the above clip, Murray discusses about how immigration and identity issues are so difficult to solve, even between very similar groups: "Let me give you an example: In Scotland there is a small amount of Catholic-Protestant [conflict], mainly centering around football supporting, Celtic Rangers, where they go by religious affiliations, still. Still! Because of a movement of Catholics from Ireland into Scotland a long time ago."

"I had a very dear friend who died recently," he explained. "He was a brilliant, very, very brave man called Sean O'Callaghan who was a double agent within the IRA during the troubles, and he got up to the top of the IRA command, and he was informing all the time to the Irish state. He was an extraordinary man, he saved many, many lives."

"I wrote an obituary for him, and others of his friends did. One of the... only negative pieces about Sean was in the Boston Globe, who referred to him as somebody who when he came out with his memoir, came out to 'hawk' them around America, not just selling the book, promoting the book, but 'hawking' it. Why would that appear in the Boston Globe?"

"Only because of a very long time ago, a large number of people from Ireland arrived in this country, settled in Boston, and held on to their Irish identity. And some of them held onto their belief that the IRA, a murderous sectarian gang, were in effect, their people. So all these centuries later, the attitude in the Boston Globe, when a man dies, who risked his life, and saved many, many lives, is to attack him as a grass, and a snitch. That's the movement of Catholic Irish people into America."

"Who on Earth thinks when you bring the entire developing world into Europe, including very large numbers of young men from the Muslim world, this is going to be sorted out by next February. Or roughly this time next year?"

Host Dave Rubin interjects: "I use the term lazy thinking a lot, but maybe that's not the right way. It shows an inability to think, you know, what you said about Merkel in 2010. She thought [Mideasten immigrants] were going to leave. That is not lazy thinking, that is -- do you even think. You know it is pretty good in Germany, if you let people in, has there ever been a self-imposed group of people who left a Western country to go back to the third world?"

"It is very, very uncommon," replied Murray. "Of course, once people realize the economics work better in Western Europe, than it does in sub-Saharan Africa, of course, they come."

"We're so torn about this, and we need to rouse ourselves to more than moroseness. It seems to me because we're not sure why --I'm pretty sure why-- but as a culture, we're not sure why it should be our right to keep anyone out," he continued.

"In America, it is legitimate to say America is a nation of immigrants. It is not legitimate to say that about Britain. It hasn't been since the late 20th Century, a nation of immigrants. Even the Norman Conquest a thousand years ago only shifted the population by about 5% in the UK," he said. "So I understand that in America, the whole thing to do with immigration is a bit harder. People feel they are not talking about them, or about you, but about me. And in Europe that is a bit of the case now. There are people who talk in those terms, but there is also just this additional thing of: By what right would I be allowed to say anyone can't come?"

"I think there are all sorts of ways," Murray said. "First, the law should matter. The difference between illegal and legal is everything!"

"I'm not a Canadian," Rubin replied. "Why? Because we have a border. That means a Canadian has to obey the laws of Canada, and I have to obey the laws of the U.S. People think that is somehow controversial."

"What a beautiful thing it has been to watch [Canadian PM] Justin Trudeau have to face this reality," Murray quipped. "It is so easy for politicians... to grandstand on this. 'Let them in! Open the doors!' Because when the effects happen, hopefully, you'll be out of power, retired in a nice area with people like you. Which is their dirty little secret all along."

"Trudeau is one of these people who berated, and morally grandstanded -- and then of course when there is a movement of people from America crossing the Canadian border, they start to get worried," Murray said.

Next, he gives an American example: "Bill Gates, by the way, at the beginning of the migrant crisis, said that America should take in the same proportion of migrants in that year as Germany did. Germany took in an extra 2% of its population one year alone. Bill Gates said the U.S. should take in the same number as Germany did into America. Interestingly enough, only a couple of months ago, Bill Gates did a reverse ferret on that. He actually said... that if Germany continues like this, it will be destroyed."

"Imagine if Bill Gates, instead of being the world's richest man, had been in charge of anything!"

"Then you'd have gone through what Germany is going through, and it would have vastly outlasted him, as this problem with vastly outlast Merkel, and all of us," he said.

"So the issue, it seems to me, is demanding that our political leaders think through things beyond the two-year electoral cycle, the four-year electoral cycle, or more importantly, just tomorrow's headlines," Murray concluded.

"You might have a bad morning's news. It is a lot better than f**king up your country, it is a lot better. It really is."

"And the second thing about this is: We have to develop the ability to have an adult discussion about these things that recognizes it is not between 'You're for the migrants, I am against them.' Or, 'You're Churchill I'm Hitler, you're Chamberlain, I'm Hitler.' Just to have the discussion and recognize it, these are different opinions about our future. I say towards the end of the book [The Strange Death Of Europe] that we have the tools to do it. Aristotle showed us a long time ago. This is just a competition between virtues."

"Angela Merkel, very understandably felt the human virtue of Mercy, to be merciful to people who are trying to come," he explained. 'I say yes. But there is another virtue competing with that -- which is the virtue of Justice. Justice for the people of the world wanting to come and have a better life, but justice for the people of Europe. If you have the discussion on those terms, between competing virtues, not being good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, Churchill vs. Hitler, me good vs. you Nazi, then you might be able to get somewhere in this discussion."

"But it is as if we have wounded ourselves before even starting the start line," Murray said.

Dave Rubin comments: "I worry about this stuff constantly, I'll be staring off into space in the middle of the day, and I am literally worried about the fate of the Western World. I wish I was playing video games."

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