An interesting article but it is a microcosm of a real problem worldwide. The problem is not the public it is a metropolitan left wing media who live in an echo chamber with identical metropolitan left wing politicians and the left wing metropolitan middle class. The key defining features of this echo chamber are:
1. The detest the nation state and anyone who has pride in their nationality 2. The detest the religion they where born into, pronominal Christian. 3. The despise those who don’t hold their views and happily denigrate those people so they don’t have to listen 4. The use of the term “far right” has come to mean anyone who isn’t in the echo chamber
The NYT is an international leader in this echo chamber but The Guardian is a central inhabitant.
Free speech is an anathema to this group. We only have to look at the Bill passing through the Scottish devolved assembly on hate crime to realise just how out of touch things are. Ed Davy chose to observe Ramadan but didn’t even put down a glass for lent. Try having a discussion with Owen Jones on biological sex and see how long it takes him to insult you.
This peace is very interesting but it is also a warning. Anyone who appoints themselves as a “moral arbiter” and demands their views are more equal than everyone else’s needs to be ignored.
If you have not yet seen it I can recommend the film Mr Jones describing his attempt to report the Holodomor while Walter Duranty and the NYT could see nothing. Also look at the study done by the Danish HMRC looking at the cost of immigration over several generations. The margin for strategic error is small when one only has a small population.
Andrew Best
3 years ago
Good for them A government standing up for its people and culture, what a pleasant surprise
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
The Danes, eventually, woke up to the fact that if they didn’t act quickly there would be no Denmark in the sense of a being western democracy with freedom of speech and association etc. Even so, they are still handing untold levels of welfare etc every year to countless people who will never work and who actively hate everything that Denmark stands for. I know there are plans to inculcate Danish values into the children of immigrants from the age of one, but I can’t see it working. Those children will be inculcated with anti-western values at home and at the weekend etc.
Moreover, within the context of western Europe Denmark is nothing more than a sandcastle holding back the tide of invasion and destruction, which is enthusiastically promoted by almost all politicians, the vast majority of the media and all supra-national organisations etc. Just look at some of the horrifying murders that have take place in Sweden recently. There is simply no mention of them in the fake news mainstream media – you have to get the information from Sanity 4 Sweden and Bretibart etc.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
A welcome article, as is always the case with Douglas, although anybody who keeps up with events knows all this already. And the problem is that only a handful of people will read this here. It will never be featured in the fake news mainstream media.
The fact is that ‘far right’ now means anybody who believes in western values such as freedom of speech, association and enterprise etc. Meanwhile, left-wing and globalist politicians have deliberately shipped into Europe millions of people who do not adhere to these values. This is because those politicians do not adhere to those values themselves, as we see in the Democrat states in the US with their ongoing lockdowns, and as we would have seen had Labour come to power under Corbyn.
Lee Johnson
3 years ago
Restricting immigration is far right ? Wow. Didn’t know that Aussies and Kiwis are screaming fascists. Shame on them.
opop anax
3 years ago
Interesting and insightful as always, thank you, Douglas. If only such an awakening would happen in the UK
Dennis Wheeler
3 years ago
“far-Right’ parties do not believe in extending the rule of law to all citizens.”
I don’t quite get this statement, very baffling. That line as it stands just doesn’t make legal sense. Of course they believe in “extending the rule of law to all citizens” (no one right or left would disagree with that, though they may disagree about what the law should be). Being a citizen means, by definition, that one is entitled to the fullest civil and constitutional rights within that territory under its law. And all found within a given territory – whether citizens or not – are subject to the rule of law governing that territory. That does not mean non-citizens should have exactly the same rights as citizens do under the law, but all are nonetheless subject to the rule of law.
Are you confusing “citizens” in that line above with mere “residents” (whether legal or illegal)? And by “not extending the rule of law” do you mean to say only that “far-right” parties disagree that all “residents” are necessarily entitled to the same rights as full, legal citizens (opposing leftist movements, for example, in many places to give voting rights to resident aliens, even illegal aliens in some cases)?
I think he’s talking about the discrimination certain citizens have faced at the hand of far-right governments throughout history (Jews, gays etc.) Although the term ‘far-right’ has now been so misused that I don’t find it a helpful or accurate way of describing anything.
I’m assuming that Douglas is suggesting that one of the characteristics of a genuinely far right party is that it does indeed advocate for such a distinction. The classic case, as always, being the Nazis limitation of the rights of Jews.
His point – I think – is that most of the parties currently labelled as far right do not advocate for any such thing.
The Nazis were fascists…not a nickel’s difference between fascists and communists. Both were and are repressive just as are all Leftist. The statement that “far-right” is not for individual “rights” is BravoSierra! It is the Left/Progressives/Communist(lump in Fascists) who truly despise the individual and believe in Dictatorships/Over-arching Government control. By the way…Islam is not conducive to Westerners nor those who love freedom.
To me the rule of law means among other things that everyone is equal before the law, and certain people or groups are not priviledged before it.
Paul Theato
3 years ago
Freedom of speech and of opinion and the freedom to offend are the keystones of a civilised nation. There should be no debate about that. None (despite what the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims thinks about it). Feel free to spout whatever pious, or other unevidenced rubbish you wish, but raise your hand to strike down or kill someone with an opposing POV or try and introduce legislation to outlaw opinion you disagree with then go and live somewhere else. Go now, and live somewhere else. Off you go.
tiggs95
3 years ago
I think that there is ample evidence in the media of the effects of ” high altitude cerebral edema” caused by prolonged and repeated trips to the moral high ground.
Mark Lambert
3 years ago
Going back twenty years, it was obvious to most that the Islamic terrorism was just that, religious terrorism. Some non-Muslims insisted it was all political, eg “foreign policy” and made all sorts of excuses along those lines.
It was perhaps weird that it took cartoons to open quite a few more eyes, that the violence actually *was* religious all along. But the ones defending with “foreign policy” now had to defend on “offence” and start asking questions like, “why would you even want to insult Islam, anyway?” I wondered if even those people realised that the crocodile they were protecting, would eventually eat them, but they had to “protect” because of “ethic minority” and “multiculturalism”.
In Boris Johnson’s article regarding the burka in Denmark, and the plans to ban it, I wholly disagreed with him saying that they should not invoke a ban on the grounds of liberty. Let the Danes do what they want if they want to keep hold of that liberty. Britain has lost that chance, and of course part of that was the full-on 18 month reaction to the other part of Johnson’s article where he gave his less than favourable opinion of the frock. We had our chance to tell the religious lunatics where to go, but we blew it.
matthew hilton
3 years ago
Good piece. It is always going to be hard maneuvering between the racist primitives and those who want to keep the flag of freedom of speech flying. Thank you for highlighting the journalist part of the issue. if anybody can get the balance right it is likely to be the Scandanavians as they have sophisticated articulations between the tribe and the individual. It is always much easier when the invaders are conquerors – like the Romans and the Normans who got the aspirational classes to speak their lingo and eat their food. It seems that all those years of sixteenth to twentieth century colonialism didn’t create a hybrid culture sufficiently tough and loved to stand out against the rabid god-bothers.
‘… if anybody can get the balance right it is likely to be the Scandanavians…’
I suggest you research the recent murder in Sweden for Tommie Lindh, who was killed for trying to prevent the rape of a 14-year old girl. You already know the name of the killer.
Then there’s a Swedish girl called Wilma, who had her head chopped off a few months ago by her boyfriend. I’ll give you a clue – her boyfriend wasn’t born in Sweden.
There was no ‘balance’ here in the sense of the reporting by the fake news mainstream media because they more or less failed to cover it.
the balance I referred to was between the tribe and the individual not the balance of press point of view.
benbow01
3 years ago
‘The international press regularly describes the Danish People’s Party as ‘far-Right’. But what precisely does the term mean?
But by their fundamental nature, ‘far-Right’ parties do not believe in extending the rule of law to all citizens, and either do not support the democratic process or believe that it should be supplanted.’
Dear Douglas name here………………………….one political main stream, or other, Party anywhere that that description does not fit. And take a look outside, are we, in our alleged free societies which are not run by ‘Far Right’ Parties, enjoying rule of law, democratic precess and haven’t our inalienable Rights of free speech, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom to enjoy our property been supplanted?
Tyranny has no political spectrum, so Right, Left is meaningless these days as is ‘extreme’ because extreme has become the normal.
Dr Irene Lancaster
3 years ago
It is impossible to live a Jewish life in contemporary Denmark. Jews have had their religious rights withdrawn, the Danish bible society has censored the word Israel from their recent translation of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and the reason given for these backward steps is fear of, or resentment of, Islam. New Zealand has gone even further in this antisemitic direction, by the way. So small may be beautiful, but b also stands for bigoted!
john fitzgerald
3 years ago
Far right means right, liberal democracy means liberals do whatever they want. England for the English, everyone else should show some compassion and leave.
David Jory
3 years ago
How ironic: I made a benign comment and it was deleted. Now I am unheard on UnHerd.
W. P.
3 years ago
It’s a pity that American exceptionalism is represented by its utterly exceptionable press.
airmailpilot
3 years ago
The New York Times died with Jayson Blair, utterly croaked right there
An interesting article but it is a microcosm of a real problem worldwide. The problem is not the public it is a metropolitan left wing media who live in an echo chamber with identical metropolitan left wing politicians and the left wing metropolitan middle class. The key defining features of this echo chamber are:
1. The detest the nation state and anyone who has pride in their nationality
2. The detest the religion they where born into, pronominal Christian.
3. The despise those who don’t hold their views and happily denigrate those people so they don’t have to listen
4. The use of the term “far right” has come to mean anyone who isn’t in the echo chamber
The NYT is an international leader in this echo chamber but The Guardian is a central inhabitant.
Free speech is an anathema to this group. We only have to look at the Bill passing through the Scottish devolved assembly on hate crime to realise just how out of touch things are. Ed Davy chose to observe Ramadan but didn’t even put down a glass for lent. Try having a discussion with Owen Jones on biological sex and see how long it takes him to insult you.
This peace is very interesting but it is also a warning. Anyone who appoints themselves as a “moral arbiter” and demands their views are more equal than everyone else’s needs to be ignored.
If you have not yet seen it I can recommend the film Mr Jones describing his attempt to report the Holodomor while Walter Duranty and the NYT could see nothing.
Also look at the study done by the Danish HMRC looking at the cost of immigration over several generations. The margin for strategic error is small when one only has a small population.
Good for them
A government standing up for its people and culture, what a pleasant surprise
The Danes, eventually, woke up to the fact that if they didn’t act quickly there would be no Denmark in the sense of a being western democracy with freedom of speech and association etc. Even so, they are still handing untold levels of welfare etc every year to countless people who will never work and who actively hate everything that Denmark stands for. I know there are plans to inculcate Danish values into the children of immigrants from the age of one, but I can’t see it working. Those children will be inculcated with anti-western values at home and at the weekend etc.
Moreover, within the context of western Europe Denmark is nothing more than a sandcastle holding back the tide of invasion and destruction, which is enthusiastically promoted by almost all politicians, the vast majority of the media and all supra-national organisations etc. Just look at some of the horrifying murders that have take place in Sweden recently. There is simply no mention of them in the fake news mainstream media – you have to get the information from Sanity 4 Sweden and Bretibart etc.
A welcome article, as is always the case with Douglas, although anybody who keeps up with events knows all this already. And the problem is that only a handful of people will read this here. It will never be featured in the fake news mainstream media.
The fact is that ‘far right’ now means anybody who believes in western values such as freedom of speech, association and enterprise etc. Meanwhile, left-wing and globalist politicians have deliberately shipped into Europe millions of people who do not adhere to these values. This is because those politicians do not adhere to those values themselves, as we see in the Democrat states in the US with their ongoing lockdowns, and as we would have seen had Labour come to power under Corbyn.
Restricting immigration is far right ?
Wow. Didn’t know that Aussies and Kiwis are screaming fascists. Shame on them.
Interesting and insightful as always, thank you, Douglas. If only such an awakening would happen in the UK
“far-Right’ parties do not believe in extending the rule of law to all citizens.”
I don’t quite get this statement, very baffling. That line as it stands just doesn’t make legal sense. Of course they believe in “extending the rule of law to all citizens” (no one right or left would disagree with that, though they may disagree about what the law should be). Being a citizen means, by definition, that one is entitled to the fullest civil and constitutional rights within that territory under its law. And all found within a given territory – whether citizens or not – are subject to the rule of law governing that territory. That does not mean non-citizens should have exactly the same rights as citizens do under the law, but all are nonetheless subject to the rule of law.
Are you confusing “citizens” in that line above with mere “residents” (whether legal or illegal)? And by “not extending the rule of law” do you mean to say only that “far-right” parties disagree that all “residents” are necessarily entitled to the same rights as full, legal citizens (opposing leftist movements, for example, in many places to give voting rights to resident aliens, even illegal aliens in some cases)?
I think he’s talking about the discrimination certain citizens have faced at the hand of far-right governments throughout history (Jews, gays etc.) Although the term ‘far-right’ has now been so misused that I don’t find it a helpful or accurate way of describing anything.
I stumbled over that as well.
I’m assuming that Douglas is suggesting that one of the characteristics of a genuinely far right party is that it does indeed advocate for such a distinction. The classic case, as always, being the Nazis limitation of the rights of Jews.
His point – I think – is that most of the parties currently labelled as far right do not advocate for any such thing.
The Nazis were fascists…not a nickel’s difference between fascists and communists. Both were and are repressive just as are all Leftist. The statement that “far-right” is not for individual “rights” is BravoSierra! It is the Left/Progressives/Communist(lump in Fascists) who truly despise the individual and believe in Dictatorships/Over-arching Government control. By the way…Islam is not conducive to Westerners nor those who love freedom.
To me the rule of law means among other things that everyone is equal before the law, and certain people or groups are not priviledged before it.
Freedom of speech and of opinion and the freedom to offend are the keystones of a civilised nation. There should be no debate about that. None (despite what the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims thinks about it). Feel free to spout whatever pious, or other unevidenced rubbish you wish, but raise your hand to strike down or kill someone with an opposing POV or try and introduce legislation to outlaw opinion you disagree with then go and live somewhere else. Go now, and live somewhere else. Off you go.
I think that there is ample evidence in the media of the effects of ” high altitude cerebral edema” caused by prolonged and repeated trips to the moral high ground.
Going back twenty years, it was obvious to most that the Islamic terrorism was just that, religious terrorism. Some non-Muslims insisted it was all political, eg “foreign policy” and made all sorts of excuses along those lines.
It was perhaps weird that it took cartoons to open quite a few more eyes, that the violence actually *was* religious all along. But the ones defending with “foreign policy” now had to defend on “offence” and start asking questions like, “why would you even want to insult Islam, anyway?” I wondered if even those people realised that the crocodile they were protecting, would eventually eat them, but they had to “protect” because of “ethic minority” and “multiculturalism”.
In Boris Johnson’s article regarding the burka in Denmark, and the plans to ban it, I wholly disagreed with him saying that they should not invoke a ban on the grounds of liberty. Let the Danes do what they want if they want to keep hold of that liberty. Britain has lost that chance, and of course part of that was the full-on 18 month reaction to the other part of Johnson’s article where he gave his less than favourable opinion of the frock. We had our chance to tell the religious lunatics where to go, but we blew it.
Good piece. It is always going to be hard maneuvering between the racist primitives and those who want to keep the flag of freedom of speech flying. Thank you for highlighting the journalist part of the issue. if anybody can get the balance right it is likely to be the Scandanavians as they have sophisticated articulations between the tribe and the individual. It is always much easier when the invaders are conquerors – like the Romans and the Normans who got the aspirational classes to speak their lingo and eat their food. It seems that all those years of sixteenth to twentieth century colonialism didn’t create a hybrid culture sufficiently tough and loved to stand out against the rabid god-bothers.
‘… if anybody can get the balance right it is likely to be the Scandanavians…’
I suggest you research the recent murder in Sweden for Tommie Lindh, who was killed for trying to prevent the rape of a 14-year old girl. You already know the name of the killer.
Then there’s a Swedish girl called Wilma, who had her head chopped off a few months ago by her boyfriend. I’ll give you a clue – her boyfriend wasn’t born in Sweden.
There was no ‘balance’ here in the sense of the reporting by the fake news mainstream media because they more or less failed to cover it.
the balance I referred to was between the tribe and the individual not the balance of press point of view.
‘The international press regularly describes the Danish People’s Party as ‘far-Right’. But what precisely does the term mean?
But by their fundamental nature, ‘far-Right’ parties do not believe in extending the rule of law to all citizens, and either do not support the democratic process or believe that it should be supplanted.’
Dear Douglas name here………………………….one political main stream, or other, Party anywhere that that description does not fit. And take a look outside, are we, in our alleged free societies which are not run by ‘Far Right’ Parties, enjoying rule of law, democratic precess and haven’t our inalienable Rights of free speech, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom to enjoy our property been supplanted?
Tyranny has no political spectrum, so Right, Left is meaningless these days as is ‘extreme’ because extreme has become the normal.
It is impossible to live a Jewish life in contemporary Denmark. Jews have had their religious rights withdrawn, the Danish bible society has censored the word Israel from their recent translation of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and the reason given for these backward steps is fear of, or resentment of, Islam. New Zealand has gone even further in this antisemitic direction, by the way. So small may be beautiful, but b also stands for bigoted!
Far right means right, liberal democracy means liberals do whatever they want. England for the English, everyone else should show some compassion and leave.
How ironic: I made a benign comment and it was deleted.
Now I am unheard on UnHerd.
It’s a pity that American exceptionalism is represented by its utterly exceptionable press.
The New York Times died with Jayson Blair, utterly croaked right there