Fox News isn’t the greatest at knowing factual things, but this is a bit silly even for them. John Oliver, while calling out bigoted Republican fear-mongering on Last Week Tonight, made this observation about the issue of the Syrian refugee crisis:
Every generation has had its own ugly reaction to refugees, whether they are the Irish, the Vietnamese, the Cubans, or the Haitians, and those fears have been broadly unfounded. In fact, there was only one time in American history where the fear of refugees wiping everyone out did actually come true, and we’ll all be sitting around a table celebrating it on Thursday.
Oliver, referring to the arrival of white Europeans in the Americas, was correct of course. While America has seen multitudes of refugees in its time, the only time it resulted in serious harm to the native population was when white people arrived. This did not sit well with the all white Republican panel on The Five. Jesse Watters missed the point entirely and descended into a hissy fit, representing the victimhood of white privilege perfectly:
I think Oliver should be thanking the Pilgrims, because without the Pilgrims bringing religious freedom here, we wouldn’t be bringing in all of these Muslims, right? Right?” You know it’s also funny, first the refugees, they compare them to orphans. Then the refugees are tourists, and now they’re just little old Pilgrims. Why even vet them, they seem so safe?
Watters intentionally leaves out a substantial amount of context. A lot of the refugees are orphans. They were compared to tourists because a travel visa for tourism is much easier to get than full residency. If refugees were really ISIS members, they would just claim they are tourists and get in so much easier. 784,000 refugees have been allowed into the nation since 9/11, and barely a handful have been tied to any form of terrorist activity. This fact was completely ignored by the commentators, as they kept complaining there is no way to properly vet the refugees. Oddly enough, Oliver had covered the extremely long and complex refugee vetting process in the same show. I guess nobody on the panel had the time to watch that part.
Watch the group of racists on Fox’s The Five, whining below:
Featured image via Youtube screen capture
The idiots on FoxNews just didn’t have the education or wits to make the connection between the Pilgrims and the wiping out of native Americans by disease and by land grab and extermination.
Can’t stomach those idiots. STFU, Fox”News”.
Oh, I am so glad I dont watch Faux as I would REALLY have hated to be informed that the ORIGINAL INHABITANTS of this continent had no religious freedom until after those nice pilgrims showed up. I might have had to buy a new television set to replace the one I tossed the chair at.
That’s exactly why I don’t watch Faux. TVs are expensive.
canadians have lower blood pressure than americans. no fox in canada!
John Oliver, an intellect, Fox intellect bereft. Not a fair fight by any means.
Talk about tangential conversation,that whole group has the reasoning capacity of a group on 10 year olds.
I just can’t stomach Fox. I don’t like liars.
“I think Oliver should be thanking the Pilgrims, because without the Pilgrims bringing religious freedom here, we wouldn’t be bringing in all of these Muslims, right?”
Do these talking mouths even know what they are saying? They, presumably, don’t want the Muslim immigrants coming here — and they are, seemingly, blaming the Pilgrims for the Muslims being allowed to come here (religious freedom). Fox and the GOP are now against the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving? We wouldn’t have the Muslims here if not for the Pilgrims — or so their *logic* goes.
Of course the Pilgrims wanted religious freedom, but only for those who shared their ultra-conservative brand of religion. Heaven help everyone else.
To the FAUX Pundits the Pilgrims were looking for “THEIR” religious freedom only. If you were a Quaker Catholic Jew in the Bay Colony were would have if lucky sent into Exile if not so Lucky KILLED. I get a laugh when they said that America was founded on Judeo Christian principles, when in 1776 the Only Colony that had a Synagogue was Rhode Island.
The British were so much better at colonialism than the Pilgrims. She doesn’t realize that the Pilgrims were English? And they most certainly did not bring religious freedom to the Plymouth Colony, which turned into the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They brought in extreme Puritanism. Either you worshiped and believed how they did or you were forced out, or worse. Remember the Salem Witch Trials? The idiots at Fox do not know their own history, or refuse to accept the ugly truth of our beginnings as a country.
Enough with the refugee guilt trip on America you bunch of liberal loonies. Saudia Arabia has 100,000 air conditioned tents with plumbing sitting idle. Enough tents to house 3,000,000 Syrian refugee’s but refuses to take in any Syrian refugee’s. Same goes with all the other oil rich Arab nations.
It’s about time Barack Hussein Obama gets a set of balls and pressure all these Arab oil rich countries to do their part. So Mr. Obama stop trying to make the middle-class feel guilty when the polls overwhelming say they DO NOT want the Syrian refugees in our country. Especially when the majority are Muslims and men between the ages of 20 to 40. They should be home highting for their own country.
You sir are sadly misinformed.
Are you saying Saudia Arabia and all the other oil rich Arab nations are taking in Syrian refugees? Saying I’m misinformed is not going to cut it. Send me a link stating the these oil rich Arab countries are taking in Syrian refugees. Prove me wrong.
All I hear are crickets.