Paul Joseph Watson’s Video Discrediting Opposition to the Muslim Ban is Bullshit
On 1/31/17 Paul Joseph Watson, the editor of a proven conservative propaganda website, (sorry, I refuse to continue using the euphemism “fake news”) posted a video in which he seems to pick apart the arguments against Trump’s recent Muslim bans, one by one. I won’t link it here to avoid accidental alignment with his incoherent rant. I’ll leave that to the inevitable fascist comments.
I invite those who thought the video presented a coherent argument to re-watch it. Not only are the points made backed up by false information, but even if the points were true — they don’t necessarily support his conclusion. This a classic straw man argument in which points that were never made by the opposing opinion are disproven as evidence for proving his own. Let’s remember, Watson’s main claim is that the executive order is not a Muslim ban.
Here are just three very good reasons people call the executive order a Muslim ban:
1) Trump himself said he would ban Muslims during his campaign. He was immediately slammed by everyone — even Dick Cheney.
2) During an interview on FOX news, Rudy Giuliani accidentally blurted out that Trump put a commission together to figure out “how to do a Muslim ban legally” while attempting to defend the executive order.
3) There is a clause in the executive order which allows an exception for religious minorities. This means that the executive order literally bans only Muslims.
There goes his main claim out the window. But let’s just assume that Watson is unaware of how to use logic to support a claim, and instead focus on some other points he raises.
“The seven countries outlined in the ban were selected by Obama.”
So what? This is taken completely out of context! The seven countries were outlined by the Obama administration in a completely unrelated piece of legislation. America has something called a visa-waiver program. In it, citizens of 38 countries don’t have to apply for a visa when coming to the US. They just land at an airport, and we stamp them a temporary visa on the spot. In exchange, we get to enjoy the same benefit when we visit those countries. The amendment signed by Obama in 2015, simply meant that if you were from one of the 38 countries, but also had dual citizenship in one of the seven outlined in the amendment, you now had to apply for a visa. You could still get in, you just needed to apply for a Visa. This is also true for China, and any country not on the visa-waiver program. In fact, it is trivially easy to prove that Trump chose to apply his ban to this specific list of countries for political reasons. He stands to benefit twice by choosing this list because (a) he can blame Obama for it and (b) the list conveniently excludes countries involved in his business interests.
“Obama banned Iraqis from entering the US in 2011”
Nope. In 2011, the process of admitting Iraqi refugees become slower for 6 months. Slower — meaning Iraqi refugees were still coming in, just less of them. Furthermore, immigrants who were not refugees, i.e. applying for visas normally, could still come to the U.S. once those visas were granted, no problem. This is extremely different from not being allowed to enter the U.S. despite already having a visa, or even a green card.
“Obama spent 8 years bombing Muslim countries, and liberals said nothing.”
1. Liberals are almost always opposed to war, and say plenty.
2. How is this relevant to substantiating the claim that Trump’s order is not a Muslim ban?
“23% of Syrian refugees support ISIS”
This is a Gross misrepresentation of statistics, as outlined here.
Watson also attempts to address the claim made by liberals that alienating Muslims in this way makes them more susceptible to radicalization. He asserts that liberals are being bigots by assuming that Muslims will resort to violence upon being offended.
1. Being marginalized in a country that you grew up in, being subjected to increased frequency of hate crimes by those empowered after the election of a known racist, is not the same thing as “being offended.”
2. Obviously extremists resort to violence when offended, but no one is making that assumption about refugees — these are people fleeing their home countries in search of freedom.
3. How is this relevant to substantiating the claim that Trump’s order is not a Muslim ban?
He then goes on to pick apart a handful of idiotic tweets. We must agree with him that the tweets are idiotic, but again, none of this is relevant to substantiating the claim that Trump’s order is not a Muslim ban. Neither is the point that 16 Islamic countries ban Israelis. Again, so what? We should compare America to these countries? For what purpose?
According to Watson, the degree of protesting at JFK and other airports nationwide, indicates that the American people have been duped into being more concerned about the Trump’s order, than they are about Islamic Terrorism itself. He slams liberals as being unsympathetic to death and destruction worldwide at the hands of terrorists. He claims that the left-wing media are to blame for this. This argument is a logical fallacy for several obvious reasons:
1. The left, the right and all Americans are outraged by Islamic terrorism.
2. We are all outraged by the death of the innocent.
3. Where & who should we protest regarding the above outrage? A protest, by definition, is the people making their voices heard to their own authorities. Where Islamic terrorism and the ensuing death do occur, we stand in solidarity.
4. None of the above outrage, makes outrage for Trump’s executive order any less valid. Especially when the executive order was an affront on America itself. It is a 180 degree turn against our founding principles, and a gross exercise in over exertion of power against the law and the constitution.
The video posted by Watson yesterday is a scary example of a wider phenomenon occurring on social media. The division in the American public caused by the election of someone who ran on a platform of bigotry and xenophobia, has resulted in a new era of propaganda in America. We have been referring to this phenomenon with the euphemistic “fake news,” but this is a wider problem including silly memes, a proliferation of misinformation, and the slandering of any view in opposition to the current administration. For example, the claims above about Iraq in 2011 and the list of 7 countries in 2015, have even been confused for each other and fused into a meme which reads “Obama banned people from these 7 countries in 2011.” As outlined above, this is completely false. This meme is either being circulated out of total ignorance, or as propaganda.
As Americans living in a democracy, it is always healthy to hold views in opposition of the President. Obama was no exception to this rule. He was indeed slammed by conservatives when he was deemed too liberal, and by liberals when he was deemed to sell out the middle class to banks and corporations. What’s scary is when the president tells you that you should not oppose him, and when his supporters facilitate in the proliferation of his propaganda. This is the makings of fascism, and should be resisted with every fiber of our being.
Additional reading:
Looking to do your part? One way to get involved is to read the Indivisible Guide, which is written by former congressional staffers and is loaded with best practices for making Congress listen.
