I haven’t been vague.
“Right side of history” is the gaping hole that lets bias flood into the room. Everyone can be convinced god is on their side, just as everyone can be convinced they are on the right side history..
FYI, another sign or bias is when someone is intent on treating their collaborators as opponents.
You know, there’s a book that you would benefit from, but I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Bye Felicia! 🙋🏿♂️
Ah, you beat me to sharing this by a few minutes. I've deleted my top-level post, but I'll keep it as a comment here, because my reaction was opposite to yours.
A fun interview to take you into the weekend: "[UK interviewer] Andrew Neil DESTROYS Ben Shapiro!" Lest you're thinking that quote is too boo-outgroup...
Shapiro was the one who tweeted it.
I'll cop to my bias prior to writing this. I've been hoping to see someone else post this, because Ben Shapiro is not my favorite, and this interview really doesn't present him at his best. I find myself enjoying this a bit too much to really be a credible neutral source, but I'll take a shot at summarizing nonetheless.
I had no idea who Andrew Neil was prior to this. Some context I have since heard: he is one of the leading conservative commentators in the UK, previously working under Rupert Murdoch and writing for the Daily Mail, currently chairman of a media group that runs some of the most influential center-right media in the UK. He's provided some passionate commentary in defense of western values, and is famous for hard-hitting interviews with a wide range of people. A great moment between him and Alex Jones: "This is half past eleven. You're watching the Sunday Politics. We have an idiot on the program today."
So what happened? This is one of the only times I'll actually encourage watching the video over reading a summary, because it's fast-paced and frankly pretty entertaining. Neil comes into the interview pretty aggressively, pushing back against a lot of Shapiro's positions and focusing especially on the contrast between Shapiro's commentary about the ways discourse is being degraded and the ways Shapiro himself degrades discourse at times. Shapiro responds largely by firing off questions and accusations about Neil's motives.
A couple of highlights:
Neil asks Shapiro about titles of videos like "Ben Shapiro Destroys The Abortion Argument" and "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Transgenderism". Shapiro responds by saying he can't be held accountable for what random people post on YouTube, not mentioning that the videos in question are, well, posted by The Daily Wire itself.
He asks about the recent Georgia anti-abortion law in pretty harsh terms, asking for a defense or response from Shapiro. Shapiro's response: "My answer is something called science. Human life exists at conception. It ought to be protected," then asking why Neil won't admit he's on the left and his questions are motivated by bad faith. I was disappointed with Shapiro's answer here, since I'm broadly pro-life myself and would like to see the position represented well, but "something called science" doesn't really do it for me.
In the end, Shapiro tersely cuts the interview short after one too many hardball questions. Final words from Neil: "Thank you for your time and for showing that anger is not a part of American political discourse."
All told, it's a pretty fascinating crossover between American and British politics, and probably not Shapiro's finest moment.
That was my top-level comment. I'll take a moment to respond to your main question as well: Why throw old things at him? Because the UK isn't as familiar with him as the US, and snark is still a huge part of his brand. I'm fully and deeply on board with the message that there's too much hate in politics, but even as he writes condemnations of that hate, I see Shapiro as a vector for and intensifier of it. The video titles above are a good example, alongside his pinned tweet ("Facts don't care about your feelings"), his comments in the interview... this sort of combativeness is a huge part of his brand. If he's approaching things from that combative of an angle, I expect to see him prepared with thoughtful responses to combativeness directed at him. He didn't do that here.
As far as I can tell, the book is not out yet.
And I'm not planning on reading it either.
Ben Shapiro saying rap isn't music
I don't have a twitter but in his twitter, you can see him defending multiple times West x Muslim rethoric and here is a link to his book on "how reason and moral purpose made the west great"
Some one should tell conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro that he used a 'commie phrase' for the title of this book.
Ben....what the hell do you call this then?
https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908
Shapiro wrote an insightful and well researched book on America as the unique confluence of the legacies of both Athens and Jerusalem - it's a good read. https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908
Here’s a great book for you https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908
Except you know, preservation of values and moral virtue. If you’re actually curious you should take the chance to read this book sometime https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908/ref=asc_df_0062857908/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385575011665&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17354138199487605660&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&...
The real problem is that a lot of the people who deserve criticism and backlash use rhetoric that starts to tread into the Nazi camp.
You use Shapiro as your example so let's take one of his main talking points: "The West is great." Well what do Nazis have to say about the matter? "The Nazis said that since Western civilization, created and maintained they asserted mostly by Nordics, was obviously superior to other civilizations, then the "Nordic" peoples were superior to all other races..."
So yeah. The rhetoric isn't that much different. So why are we so concerned with splitting hairs over what we label these clearly terrible people who are basically saying the same thing that Nazis did?