Rupert Murdoch is apparently doubling down on Jeb Bush’s call to admit only Christian refugees, with the difference being, according to Murdoch’s tweet last night, that they must be “proven Christians.” So like a really super special religious test of the sort rejected by the United States Constitution.
Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees. Maybe make special exception for proven Christians.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 16, 2015
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Maybe Murdoch ought to stick to Australian politics. He clearly doesn’t get the United States, or what it’s about.
He says these insanely stupid things about refugees right after tweeting of the Democratic debate:
Democratic debate almost too painful to watch. Pathetic group talking nonsense for two hours. Is this the best Dems can do?
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 15, 2015
What’s funny about this is that Murdoch is the same guy supporting a dozen plus Republican lunatics for president, guys so afraid of a friendly media that they insist on doing a big infomercial on Fox to an actual debate.
It’s easy to see from this sort of nonsense why Fox News is so popular with conservatives, a group for whom thinking has become optional.
In fact, Murdoch himself can’t even read something without twisting the words all out of their original shape. Supposedly citing historian Niall Ferguson, he tweeted,
After Paris, Niall Ferguson in S Times compares Europe today with fall of Rome in 410 AD. Some striking parallels. Sure to provoke debate.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 15, 2015
But Rome didn’t fall in 410. The city of Rome was sacked but that’s not the same thing, so there are no parallels at all with how Murdoch parsed this news. In fact, Ferguson said nothing of the sort in the Sunday Times. What the headline says is that “Like the Roman empire, Europe has let its defences crumble.”
Well, that is something we can at least discuss! Let’s face it though, Rome let all sorts of refugees inside its borders, Christians among them, like the dreaded Vandals, from whom we get the word “vandalism.” They were actually Christians, not nasty old Pagans.
The Goths who sacked Rome were Christians too, for that matter, as were many other “barbarians” crossing the borders. O, and those Christian Vandals subjected Rome to a far more fierce and destructive sack in 455.
I would take greater issue with Ferguson citing Edward Gibbon to begin his article, because that’s history with an 18th century slant, and as a historian, Gibbon has been superseded by new thinking on the collapse of Rome. Historians of Late Antiquity don’t talk anymore about a “fall” at all, but even they don’t say the Roman Empire “transitioned” itself out of existence as early as 410.
This complete divorce from reality we see in these tweets and part and parcel of how conservatives are determined to face reality, confronting fact with fiction. It is easy to see why Fox News dedicates itself to an alternate reality when it’s owner can’t find his own backside with both hands.
I don’t know how Murdoch proposes to separate out “proven” Christians from other Christians and probably he doesn’t know either, but the idea that some refugees are more deserving than others based on what they believe is obscene, and as President Obama has said, this thinking is not who we are as Americans.
But then, Rupert Murdoch is not an American, is he?
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
