A man drove into a group of Muslims near a mosque in London on Sunday, shouting, "It's Islamophobia! It's anti-Islamic terrorism!" But is there a link between the rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and the growing threat of radical Islamic terrorism? Ben Shapiro argues that there's no evidence that Islamophobic attacks against Muslims are on the rise across the West, and that it's a deliberate misreading of the situation by people who are politically motivated to wave away the continuing threat of Radical Islamic terrorism. He also talks about Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones, and the situation with alt-right protesters storming the stage of Julius Caesar at Shakespeare in the Park, and how that points to something else that's happening in the modern right-wing movement that is troubling, to say the least. Ben Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show on Fox News Radio and host of the Daily Show with Bill Maher. He's also a regular contributor to the New York Times and CNN and hosts the conservative radio show "The Weekly Standard" and hosts a podcast called "The View From The Top" on SiriusXM's The View from the Cheap Seats, where he's a regular guest on conservative radio and radio host on conservative talk radio stations across the country, and hosts his own show on the radio show, "The Right Turn" and radio show on NPR's "The FiveThirtyEight" on the airwaves. Subscribe to his new show on Sirius XM Radio and the FiveThirtysomething. Click here to get 15% off your first purchase of a new Vaynerdcast valued at $150 or more! . Subscribe today using the promo code: CROWN15% discount code CROWN10 at checkout at checkout. at checkout and receive 15% of your first month free shipping and free shipping all year-round shipping and returns, plus a free shipping discount of $5 off your entire order of $50 or $50 off your second month. CROWN 15% OFF your next purchase, plus an additional 15% discount when you use the discount code, CROWNER15% off the middleman Manhattans at checkout? Get 15% all year long when you buy a VMSRP at checkout, use discount code SHIPPING starts at $99 or $95 or $150 at $95, $150, and get $5 or $99, $50, and they'll give you 5% off a maximum of $150.
00:00:00.000In a horrific act of anti-Muslim terrorism, a 48-year-old man drove a van into a group of Muslims near a mosque in Finsbury Park in London on Sunday.
00:00:31.000The perpetrator should spend the rest of his life in prison, because the UK has no death penalty.
00:00:35.000The left isn't wrong to connect it with an upsurge in anti-Muslim crime.
00:00:38.000According to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has been far too permissive with regard to Islamic radicalism on his own soil, he released police figures that showed, according to Newsweek, quote, Islamophobic attacks had risen fivefold since the ramming and knife assault, a 40% increase in racist attacks.
00:00:52.000The numbers from London's Metropolitan Police show that anti-Muslim motivated incidents
00:00:57.000had risen to a daily 2017 average of 4 to as many as 20.
00:01:02.000But it is wrong to use the anti-Muslim attack as justification for the equivalency between the dangers of the rise of radical Islam and the rise of anti-Muslim xenophobia.
00:01:12.000Yes, attacks on Muslims have risen, and that is unjustifiable and awful.
00:01:16.000Major attacks on Muslims by anti-Muslim terrorists are far less common, however, than major radical Muslim attacks on non-Muslims across Europe, and they are supported by no major terrorist group, let alone state actors.
00:01:29.000Anti-Muslim countries do not exist in the same way.
00:01:31.000Even the most extreme anti-Muslim countries have Muslim populations, for example.
00:01:35.000This London attack marks the first major terror attack in Great Britain against Muslims since 2013, when a Ukrainian student attempted to bomb a mosque in Birmingham and stabbed a young Muslim man to death.
00:01:46.000If I missed one, I apologize in advance.
00:01:48.000In the last four months, however, we have seen the Westminster terror attack, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the London Bridge attack.
00:01:53.000This is not to suggest that violent anti-Muslim terror attacks are somehow better or less disgusting than violent radical Muslim terror attacks on others.
00:02:01.000But they are far less statistically frequent, have nearly no global support, and earn the round condemnation of the entire Western world.
00:02:09.000The left has attempted to broaden the conversation to include individual hate crimes, for example, harassing a woman in a hijab.
00:02:15.000But if we do that, we also have to include the rate of hate crimes by Muslims against others, e.g.
00:02:20.000We have a moral obligation to fight against terrorism wherever we see it, but to pretend that a widespread anti-Muslim terror network is spreading across the West, organized or disorganized, is a deliberate misreading of the situation by people who are politically motivated to wave away the continuing threat of radical Muslim terrorism.
00:02:42.000All right, so we have a lot to talk about today.
00:02:45.000I want to talk about what looks like it could be looming war over Syria.
00:02:48.000President Trump seems to be in a position where the Russians are now trying to push him around in Syria, so we'll talk about that momentarily.
00:02:56.000We'll also talk about Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones, and I want to talk a fair bit today
00:03:00.000About the situation with these alt-right protesters storming the stage of Julius Caesar at Shakespeare in the Park, because I think it's indicative of something else that's happening in the modern right-wing movement that is troubling, to say the least.
00:03:12.000But before we get to any of that, I first want to say thank you to our sponsors.
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00:04:34.000Okay, so lots and lots of breaking news happening in the news today.
00:04:39.000So we talked about this terror attack in London.
00:04:40.000I wanted to lead off with that specifically because I think it's important for those of us who are on the right to point out when these sorts of attacks occur because terror is terror is terror.
00:04:48.000That doesn't mean the terror movements are all the same.
00:04:52.000Other big news today is that the Russian government is basically now threatening war with the United States over Syria, which is
00:05:12.000You know, I think that they're bluffing.
00:05:13.000I think there's a pretty solid shot that they are bluffing, but it's dangerous anyway, obviously.
00:05:19.000Right now, if you look at the situation, basically in Syria, you've got the Kurds all the way up in the north, and then in the west, you have ISIS, which is this big block of territory in the east.
00:05:31.000And then the rest of the country, sort of everywhere from the southeast to the northwest, is split between the Free Syrian Army, that would be the Syrian rebels, and Bashar Assad's government.
00:05:40.000Bashar Assad's government is being propped up right now by Vladimir Putin.
00:05:47.000On Sunday, an American jet shot down a Syrian jet.
00:05:51.000The shoot-down came a little more than two hours after forces allied with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad attacked the north-central Syria town of Jeddin, which was controlled by the Syrian Defense Forces.
00:06:02.000In accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of coalition-partnered forces, the Syrian jet was immediately shot down by a U.S.
00:06:12.000So I hope that I'm reading that correctly.
00:06:14.000In any case, we shot down a Syrian jet and the Russians immediately threatened retaliation.
00:06:18.000The Russian Defense Ministry announced, quote, all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected west of the Euphrates River, which includes part of Iraq, will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.
00:06:31.000So they're threatening to start shooting down American planes.
00:06:33.000Once they start threatening to shoot down American planes, then we are on the brink of war.
00:06:39.000Which is obviously a frightening scenario.
00:06:43.000This has nothing to do with President Trump.
00:06:45.000President Trump did say during the campaign to Hillary Clinton that her attempt to—her suggestion that we set up a no-fly zone over Syria could lead to World War III.
00:06:54.000Now it appears that we are engaging in an air war with the Syrians.
00:06:58.000Is, I think, a not bad move, actually, by President Trump, but I think we have to acknowledge the risks that are entailed here.
00:07:04.000David French has suggested partition of the country.
00:07:06.000We support the Kurds up north to create their own independent state, and that we guarantee air coverage over that area, and that we guarantee air coverage over various other areas, but we're playing a dangerous game of chicken with the Russians, and this is all because Barack Obama never had a Syrian strategy and didn't do anything back in 2013 when he could have and should have.
00:07:27.000Again, I can't blame President Trump for this, and I won't blame President Trump for a situation he was handed by his unbelievably incompetent predecessor.
00:07:34.000Again, I don't think there's any long-lasting great solution here, but the only solution here is going to be something that nobody really likes very much.
00:07:41.000Okay, so the big news over the weekend, at least in the domestic political area,
00:08:05.000...concept of the play is that Julius Caesar has overweening ambition, but is assassinated by a bunch of senators who want to restore the Republic, and then the entire thing breaks down.
00:08:15.000The assassination of Caesar is not seen in a particularly good light in the play.
00:08:18.000The assassination of Caesar is seen as a big mistake by Brutus Cassius and all the conspirators, and the Roman mob is basically whipped into a frenzy by Marc Antony to permanently end democracy and Republicanism in Rome.
00:08:33.000You know, if you read the play, it is not clear that the play is in favor of Trump, you know, Trump-Caesar being assassinated, but the imagery is disturbing, obviously.
00:08:40.000We played it last week, and it, I think, is an obvious and silly representation by the people who decided to do the play.
00:08:48.000It is not, however, linked, and this is...
00:08:51.000It is not advocacy or defense of violence, and it is not linked, it is not linked to the assassination attempts on congressional members by this far-left anti-Trump guy.
00:09:00.000There is no evidence whatsoever that he went and saw the play and then was inspired to do this, even if there had been.
00:09:05.000I'm deeply uncomfortable with this notion that if you listen to Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh and then you go shoot somebody, that it's Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh's fault.
00:09:12.000If they are not advocating violence, it is not their fault.
00:09:14.000Okay, this is a game that we can play all day long, but it's a stupid game and it's a counterproductive game.
00:09:19.000So, nonetheless, there are a bunch of people who want to get their name in the paper, so they've decided they're gonna rush up on stage at these events.
00:09:26.000Now, I am against, as a general rule, snowflakery of all forms.
00:09:31.000I don't like when people rush on stage when I am speaking.
00:09:35.000I would be a hypocrite if I said it was okay for people to rush on stage when someone else is speaking.
00:09:39.000The justification people use when they rush up on stage and try to shut down my speeches, or Ann Coulter's speeches, or Milo's, or Charles Murray's, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, or Heather MacDonald's, whenever they do this, what they say is they are trying to prevent hate speech because that hate speech will generate violence.
00:11:35.000Just to be clear, if I attempt to enter that hall right there and sit down just to listen to somebody speak, or if I attempt to ask a question or to engage in free speech, you will have me arrested.
00:11:46.000Okay, and so I took all of the people from DePaul and we went to a place off-campus where we then proceeded to engage in our free speech event anyway.
00:11:54.000So, all of that is prelude to what happened at Shakespeare and Parker.
00:11:57.000The reason I put that out there is, number one, because I have lived this experience many times, and number two, because it is wrong when the left does it, and it is similarly stupid and wrong when the right does it, okay?
00:12:52.000Okay, so they're shouting, liberal hate kills, and this is violence, and then Pasabajabadoo, he gets up and he starts shouting how everybody is, uh, gebbles, and, uh, everyone here is a Nazi, everyone here is gebbles, because they've come to watch a production of Julius Caesar, in which the current leader of the country is portrayed as Julius Caesar, which, by the way, happened in 2011, when a Minneapolis theater portrayed President Obama as this.
00:13:41.000Because even if the left stopped shutting down my speeches, or Anne's speeches, or Milo's speeches, or any of the rest of these, presumably these alt-right protesters would still go and do this stuff.
00:13:52.000Not because they're trying to demonstrate that the tactic is wrong.
00:13:55.000They're doing it because they are offended by the content, which makes them right-wing snowflakes.
00:13:59.000Although they're not even really right-wing, because I have yet to identify their right-wing principles, other than that they don't like the left.
00:15:11.000They've lost over a thousand seats all across the country.
00:15:14.000Trump is the president and Republicans control the Congress as well as the Senate.
00:15:18.000The notion that the left is winning because of Antifa snowflakes or because of the people at University of Wisconsin shutting things down, it's just idiocy.
00:15:33.000And of course, again, because so much of the right has become tribal instead of smart or conservative, there are a lot of people who have defended this activity, which I'll show you in a second.
00:15:43.000So here's the second protester jumping on stage on Sunday night.
00:15:46.000Ladies and gentlemen, we'll pause here briefly.
00:16:00.000Liberal hate kills, liberal hate kills.
00:16:01.000I've been on the receiving end of this routine from the left, okay?
00:16:08.000I've preached against this for years, okay?
00:16:11.000The minute you start suggesting that words are violence, we grow ever closer to violence.
00:16:16.000The minute you start suggesting that simple political discourse, discourse you don't like, is equivalent to violence, then you are justifying violence in the name of shutting down that discourse.
00:16:27.000Okay, it's wrong and it's just as wrong as when the left does it.
00:16:30.000I don't understand why I have to explain this to people who are conservative and are supposed to be grounded in a Judeo-Christian value system that suggests the value of other human beings and the value of free speech.
00:16:39.000It's really quite disgusting and horrifying.
00:16:41.000Okay, and then a guy gets up and he starts yelling that CNN is ISIS at this situation.
00:17:15.000Sean Hannity, who, again, I love Sean Hannity as a person, but Sean is, I think, I think he's pandering to the worst group of people on the right.
00:17:40.000When I called him on this, and I said, this is, this is, I said, the left chants conservative hate, conservative hate kills, and you call them snowflakes, which is right.
00:18:00.000I mean, and then later, Sean did express his opinion, which is that he thinks it's perfectly fine that they shut this thing down because it was disrespectful to the President of the United States, and in his opinion, it was forwarding violence.
00:18:12.000God forbid somebody should shoot a person on the left, and the shooter happens to be somebody who once listened to Sean Hannity's show.
00:18:20.000I was somebody who, two weeks ago, two freaking weeks ago, two weeks ago, folks, I was sitting here defending Sean Hannity from boycott over the Seth Rich stuff.
00:18:30.000Okay, but the entire left was going after him, and what did Sean say?
00:18:34.000He said, just because I was covering a story in a particular way doesn't mean that the left should target me for destruction.
00:18:41.000Okay, so all of this is highly irritating, and I want to talk about a few more points I have to make on this before I get to how the left has reacted to the shooting, because the left is reacting just as abysmally as you would expect them to.
00:18:53.000But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Upside.com.
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00:20:19.000For free and you can go check it out right now and remember use that promo code Okay, so a couple of more points on this because I think that this is important I think it goes deep to the heart of what the conservative movement wants to be Do we want to be a movement that?
00:20:31.000Suggests that we are going to shut down the left when we don't like what they say Or are we gonna be a movement that actually has some principles now?
00:20:37.000There are a lot of people on the right who have been started using this this phrase my principles muh principles my print like as opposed to my principles and the idea is that you're a baby because you're whining about my principles Oh
00:20:54.000Because those principles obviously don't include the idea that you don't get to destroy somebody's establishment just because you don't like what they're saying.
00:21:01.000I assume, and now you say your principle is winning.
00:21:09.000What are you willing to sacrifice in order to uphold the principle?
00:21:13.000I am willing to sacrifice the notion that a play offends me based on the principle that you shouldn't shut down free speech even for people I don't like.
00:21:43.000And now we've got half the right saying that words are violence.
00:21:45.000This is the predicate to legislation to tamp down on speech in order... This is how you get to Canada.
00:21:50.000You wanna know how you get to Canadian version of free speech?
00:21:52.000Where people get sued for things that they don't like?
00:21:55.000The reason is because there are a bunch of people who say that it causes violence.
00:21:58.000And then there's the tactical argument.
00:21:59.000So my friend John Nolte, who I love, I love John, okay, but John wrote this piece today, Attacking Me By Name, and because at Daily Wire I want to have a site where we have a multiplicity of viewpoints, I printed it.
00:22:09.000He used the My Principles line, I printed it.
00:22:11.000I disagreed with every word of it, including and, and the.
00:22:14.000He talks about how these people storming Julius Caesar, it was like Lincoln suspending habeas corpus.
00:22:19.000Okay, this is just ridiculous to me for a couple of reasons.
00:22:22.000One, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during an actual civil war.
00:22:28.000If we're gonna use wartime morality in peacetime, we're pretty soon gonna be in a war.
00:22:32.000Like, there will be an actual war if we use wartime morality in peacetime.
00:22:35.000Okay, don't quote Sherman unless you're willing to burn Atlanta.
00:22:39.000Furthermore, if we're going to pretend that the left is winning because they, as John says, break windows, hurl eggs, shoot us, shout us down, they're not.
00:22:46.000They're losing because of all of this.
00:22:48.000The more extreme the left becomes, the more they lose.
00:22:51.000The left's insanity drove the right to victory across the country.
00:22:53.000Let's not pretend that Donald Trump came along and suddenly the right won.
00:22:56.000The right had won a thousand seats across the country.
00:22:59.000The right had won back the House and the Senate before Donald Trump was even mentioned as a presidential candidate.
00:23:24.000Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, all have come out against the college snowflakery that is now being evidenced from the right.
00:23:31.000And finally, there's a morality of the tactics question.
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