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Readers discuss the Norway event
There have been so many different entries, and so many comments on them, that I am posting recent comments in this one entry for easier accessibility, with the comments arranged under the hyperlinked titles of the respective entries to which they are replying.
WHY WE SHOULDN’T WORRY ABOUT THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT OF THE NORWAY EVENT
James P. writes:
Shrewsbury wrote:
We may even find that the liberals’ expressions of hate toward the right become actually less intemperate after this, as they begin to sense the stirrings of the monster which they have done so much to awake, and, having cried wolf a thousand times, now find themselves confronted by a dragon; and begin to realize that all their silly ranting about how awful the right is will be of no use if they are to be confronted by a right which really is awful.
This might be the case if the left were sane, capable of compromise, and willing to permit the right to prevail in some political, economic, and social space of its own. But this is not the case. The left believes the right is evil, and is thus incapable of tolerating the right. After all, it is wrong to tolerate evil or to compromise with evil. Thus, the right must be totally expunged from the body politic, economic, and social.
The left has spent many decades jousting with imaginary dragons—hidden racism and hidden Nazi conspiracies and hidden right-wing terrorists lurking just beneath the surface of society—and even the tiniest evidence of an actual racist / Nazi / right-wing terrorist, even though he is a lone nut unconnected to any larger conspiracy, will only confirm the left’s belief that their imaginary fears are real and correct. Far from prompting compromise, acts like this one only energize every defensive antibody in the left’s political system.
This didn’t have to happen, the left didn’t have work so long and so frenziedly to try to destroy us, and everything we are, and everything we have, but they did, so it will happen
If the left had not done this, they wouldn’t be the left.
Fred D. writes:
Shrewsbury is wrong not to worry. He is wrong not to worry because of what Sam Francis called “anarcho-tyranny.” That is, the insane thicket of laws will be enforced against the people who are obeying the laws. The people the authorities can find.
In this case, the Norwegian state will soon be sending delegations to the U.S., signing mutual aid agreements, and hiring contractors, all to help them prepare for the next attack by a white right-winger. They will buy network analysis software of the type that is used to track gang activity, and they will begin harvesting names, emails , building lists, and tracking the people they can easily find. In future employment, people on those lists will be denied clearances, they will be tarred as extremists, they will be watched.
They will enact hate speech laws and use law enforcement to grind and harass people who express opinions they do not agree with. They will make it impossible purchase a gun in Europe.
The manifesto will be studied and examined for years in international law enforcement academies. Why? Because it’s in English, it can be understood without reading any other books or trying to understand an alien culture.
This loathsome act of great evil in Norway will be used to delegitimize criticism of the left’s agenda. And it will embolden the left everywhere. Everything the left hoped they had gotten with the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, they got ten times over here.
On another topic. His choice of targets is very odd. Of course it is impossible to fathom the actions of a madman, but why not shoot Muslims? Why not stay in Oslo and shoot immigrants? Perhaps because he knew at some level his targets were Eloi and as such completely defenseless, while immigrants would likely resist.
Patrick H. writes:
The left has indeed been relatively quiet on Norway, certainly when compared to the brouhaha they created over the Arizona shootings. One reason for this quiet (which admittedly may change in the near future) is this: jihadists are dangerous … but they are also stupid. The left is profoundly racist (in the true sense of the word) in that the only people they fear, the only people they view as genuinely dangerous, are white men. Consider that they may be right in this assessment. One white man, of apparently moderate intelligence, was able to plan and execute an atrocity by choosing isolated targets, approaching them in disguise, and then mercilessly cutting them down. One man slaughtered 90 innocents … a staggering total. How was he able to accomplish this evil deed? By planning it carefully. And the plan was infernally clever, wasn’t it?
Why does this matter? Because if, as Shrewsbury suggests, a radical right, willing to use radical violence in pursuit of its aims, is emerging in Europe, then the Europeans may have awakened a monster that will do harm to them on a scale not achieved since the last time white Europeans turned violent—World War II (or Bosnia, if you want an even more recent example of white potential for organized violence). Given white ability to organize, plan, manage, and execute … well, aren’t these the last people in the world you want turning terrorist on you? Jihadists have been laughable in the ineptitude of their attacks. If some new self-styled “Templar” organization has emerged, and its members are even moderately intelligent by white standards, then Europe will be reaping a whirlwind whose scale and ferocity and sheer effectiveness will make them regret ever having sown such deeply planted and fecund seeds of anti-white racism.
The left may have begun to sense, dimly perhaps, that they have gone too far in their campaign to eliminate the white race. Oddly, if whites are starting to get violent, then we may see the same kind of appeasement directed their way that has been directed at the amateur stupid inept bungling jihadists. Perhaps the radical right has just earned its qualification as The Other in leftist eyes … a possibility that is too ironic for me to look at with anything but despair.
Alan Levine writes:
I would like to agree with Shrewsbury’s brave comment, but I cannot. What has happened in Norway is not only a horrible disaster in itself, but a horrendous political reverse for the forces of sanity. I don’t think we have even begun to plumb the depths of this catastrophe. I feel like a man drowning—at the bottom of the Marianas Trench!
James R. writes:
Shrewsbury is excellent and whenever he writes at VFR I take notice as he always has something insightful to say and does it with style. However this time I am not sure I agree with him. I am wondering just how long it will take before Europe and Canada start blocking sites like yours and Gates of Vienna as havens of “hate speech,” and suppressing anti-Jihadist groups on the grounds that they lead to “hate.” They wanted to already, and now they have the excuse.
I am mourning the lives of Breivik’s victims, people who sincerely held wrong beliefs but who, if Breivik is correct, were more victims than perpetrators of the propagandistic Multicultist Cultural Marxism, and in any case did not deserve to be stalked and shot down as he did. But I am also in near-despair not just for these poor souls, but for what Breivik has done. How many people who disagree with him, and who may have had friends among his targets, will want to listen to any argument that even seems remotely similar to his? Sure, most were not interested in hearing such arguments before, but our only hope is to eventually persuade people, as slow and halting as that process might be. Now their ears and eyes will be even more tightly closed. And now he has provided an example for people to invoke every time there is an Islamic attack, that “it isn’t just Islam that does such things. After all, just look at what the murderous Breivik did in Norway. We need to watch out for right-wing hate, and be careful in drawing any conclusions about Islamist violence lest it lead to more Breiviks in the world.”
I always try to remember (but often fail to) that our opponents are sincere too, and they sincerely believe they are the ones doing the right thing, the good thing. This is not so that I will be Panglossian about them in an “we can agree to disagree and then hold hands and compromise so you can have your way” sense, but to continue to see them as fellows, despite everything. I think Breivik lost sight of that, or he would not have turned on them and shot them down so viciously and contemptibly. Breivik stands as an example that merely being correct is not enough to keep one from loosing his way.
May the Lord keep the souls of Breivik’s victims, and comfort their family and friends, and may the Lord guide us all to wisdom and help us as we sorely need it in this time of trial. May the Lord help us reach and persuade those we need to convince, and guide us upon the right path.
Beth M. writes:
Wow—I am blown away by Shrewsbury’s comment.
Hitler’s minions retraced their steps a couple of times when they went too far, too fast even for the uber-obedient German population. Perhaps some on the left-wing will be more willing to consider a slow-down in immigration if they think that the right wingers are: (1) close to a boiling point; and (2) apt to mow down white pro-multi-culti lefties. I always assumed that a white right-winger would snap at some point, but my assumption was that the target would be a mosque or a school full of multi-culti Muslim children. When I saw that the victims were Norwegian, I assumed that the perpetrators were Muslims.
The lone gunman aspect has also got to have them worried, as there is NO WAY to catch somebody like this before he commits his crime. There is no network to infiltrate, no co-conspirator to get cold feet and report the plot to the police.
The news media is obviously in shock, too. They can’t get over the fact that Breivik is tall, white, blond, blue-eyed, “Christian” and intelligent. The left has been waiting for the resurgence of Nazism, and HERE IT IS.
Karl D. writes:
Shrewsbury said:
“We may even find that the liberals’ expressions of hate toward the right become actually less intemperate after this, as they begin to sense the stirrings of the monster which they have done so much to awake, and, having cried wolf a thousand times, now find themselves confronted by a dragon.”
After 9/11 how many times did we hear from liberals and some conservatives that the attack was “blowback,” an inevitability from years of U.S. meddling in the Muslim world? While I think that that claim was bogus, one could view Bleivick’s evil act through the same lens. While I am not totally comfortable with labeling this act as blowback, (as it is much more complicated then that and to call it blowback overly simplifies what he did) there is an element of it that Shrewsbury seemed to allude to.
Let me be perfectly clear. In no way shape or form do I find what this man did to be a just act. It is pure evil through and through. There is nothing that can excuse the mass murdering of innocent people.
Alexis Zarkov writes:
Let’s blame the left for the Norway event. For half a century the left has mounted an unremitting campaign of hate against capitalism, the traditional family, white men, the police, the military, Christians, Israel, etc. Should we surprised that after all these decades one of the targets goes berserk? We should be asking, why so few? Compare and contrast to the Muslims. A mere cartoon drives them into paroxysms of murder and carnage. The response in the West: censor the cartoons. Make excuses for “the religion of peace.” Blame the cartoonist for his “insensitivity.” Conservatives need to push back and push back hard on this issue. It’s the left that has injected conflict into society on a massive scale. They are the ones who resort to violence over and over. Need I bring up the Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army, Baader Meinhof, the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, etc?
Why did Breivik attack the campers? Evidently that was a socialist youth camp, and Breivik was so consumed with hate for the left he went on a rampage slaughtering the innocent. I recommend reading the comments by Lubos Motl, a conservative theoretical physicist (one of very few). He too is stunned at seeing someone who shares many of his ideas go crazy. Motl provides this link to a competent English translation of Breivik’s comments to Document.no. All his comments.
Finally I note that Breivik is quite competent in his madness. He successfully detonated a fertilizer bomb in Oslo. (Compare and contrast to the Times Square Bomber.) Then, on the same day, he impersonated a police officer and killed 97 people over the course of something like an hour. The world should take notice as to what can happen when the First World goes crazy. Last time this happened, we got something called WWII.
KILLER’S SUPPOSEDLY FULLY THOUGHT-OUT PLAN DOES NOT COMPUTE
Alissa writes:
Ben’s point is worth repeating: if the killer didn’t like the way the left smears cultural conservatives as fascists and Nazis, why did he commit an act that will vastly magnify the left’s smears of cultural conservatives as fascists and Nazis?
I’m thinking four things:
#1—Perhaps the killer has been framed (by whom I’m not exactly sure).
#2—Since Breivik was fond of his pagan heritage perhaps this inspired him to carry out these events. Hitler himself was an anti-Christian pagan.
#3—He had a slight mental instability and was dialoguing with a group that he shouldn’t even be talking to (e.g. weapons strategist, terrorist alliance). A “second hidden terrorist.” The way he carried out these activities showed tremendous skill and understanding. He could have had aid from somebody else and couldn’t have done it alone. Perhaps this “second hidden terrorist” influenced him in the midst of mental problems.
#4—“Pessimistic conservatism” where Norwegians backstabbing their own country made them not his “fellow Norwegians” and effectively dead to him. Like Roissy since everything is bad then enjoy the decline. If he killed young Norwegians then less of these “bloody traitors” in the future of Norway.
Ed H. writes:
Regarding the hand wringing of Mark Humphreys and the other modern concerned citizens over the Norway incident I notice that for them Breivik “does not compute.” Interesting and telling term. In a society dominated by the computer, by algorithmic prediction models, and statistical surveys and logical sequential thought, by cradle to grave social engineered existence, the human mind as it actually exists has no place. Of course Breivik does not compute. Existential terror never really does. And when you bring a man, a culture and a race to the edge of existential non-existence you can expect this kind of subrational outburst of the Will to Survive. All the suburban tongue clucking of the liberals both the leftist and rightist sub species will come to the same place, and stare at the same blank wall.
One of the hallmarks of liberalism is its sheer fatuity and shallowness. It understands nothing outside of its pat formulas. Liberalism embraced multiculturalism with the same incapacity of serious understanding that characterizes liberals everywhere, right or left. Utopianism and naivete brought together two cultures that should have been kept apart at all costs, Islam and the West. The Muslim and leftist attacks on the traditions of the West are now causing the inevitable nihilistic urge to destroy from the other side The dialectic of history is never moral. But we do have some parallels to guide our understanding of what is now happening. In the year 1911 the Austro Hungarian empire was a multicultural stew of hundreds of ethnic and religious groups. Instead of the “vibrant” and “diverse” society it pretended it was, it became a laboratory of world destruction. In 1914 a Bosnian Muslim assassinated a Christian prince and it all cascaded into World War I, World War II the Cold War. On July 24, 1911 Adolf Hitler lay on his cot in the working mans hostel in Vienna and wondered why he had to work as a day laborer in his own country.
Jim C. writes:
It computes, if you look at it from the perspective of someone who hates the people who brought Norway “multiculturalism” and Islam. If you’re a whack job, why not kill the children of your enemies? Makes “sense” to me.
LA replies:
I took, “does not compute,” to mean simply, “does not make sense,” “does not hold together on its own terms.”
TIMES ON THE KILLER’S MANIFESTO
Eric G. writes:
This statement stood out to me:
But the attacks, along with what appear to have been years of preparation for them, raised questions about whether the Norwegian security authorities, concentrating on threats of Islamic terrorism, had overlooked the threat from the anti-Islamic right.
By pushing mass immigration of Africans and Muslims the multiculturalists created both sides of the problem. This is the danger of social engineering. They created this monster.
Did those who decided to inundate white nations with hostile alien cultures actually believe there would be no blowback eventually? Are they that arrogant? Did they believe that everyone would just accept their ancestral homelands being turned into a jumble of foreign tongues and faces? And not only that, but favoring the alien races to the point that any criticism is outlawed, see the Wilders trial.
THE KILLER AND THE COUNTER-JIHAD
Ed H. writes:
There is some parallel between the Norwegian disaster and what Open Borders is doing daily here in the U.S. For example, in April alone there were 1,400 murders on the Mexican side of the border as drug smugglers compete to own the routes into the U.S. The real issue is that there shouldn’t be any routes into the U.S. and Obama could, with the stroke of a pen, close the border end the state of civil war in Mexico and the social collapse here in the U.S. Again the “one world” naivete of the Obama cult is the real source of criminality. Our side never makes enough of this fact. The Norwegian attack is the first major blowback from the jihad waged by Islam against the West, jihad imported by the political elite. Did those who caused this mess really believe that they could destroy the European identity without horrid repercussions? Can we ask the multiculturalists what they have planned next in order to keep their delusions intact? More denial? More inaction? More immigration from the Third World? More repression and smothering of the mounting anger and despair of the indigenous Europeans? What is the left going to do now? They created this hell. Let us never for one second let them forget that fact.
BREIVIK NOT RELIGIOUS
Timothy A. writes:
The media are mindlessly repeating the supposed self-description of Breivik as Christian and conservative as found on his alleged Facebook page.
This page was (as seemed obvious from the beginning) hacked to make Breivik fit the hacker’s preferred profile for the killer. The original Facebook page (sans the Christian and conservative descriptions) is shown (along with some other information) here.
Tom G. writes:
You wrote:
Yet the entire media are referring to Breivik as a “Christian” and even as a “Christian fundamentalist” who was planning a “Christian” war against Islam.
I suspect that the liberal media thinks that the Judeo-Christian worldview separates identities. If there were no Christianity but simply a universalist society, there would be no animus against Islam. It is the separationist tendency of Christianity (being saved from, being called out, the elect, etc.) that runs counter to the inclusivist, integrating circle of universalist liberalism. Thus anyone acting against a religion and ideology MUST be influenced by (if even subconsciously) the Judeo-Christian ethos.
Liberalism is the death of Christianity and by extension the death of Judaism (and Israel)—the root of Christianity.
John Dempsey writes:
The Knights Templar 2083 YouTube video which M. Mason sent and you have linked, has at just about the 11:00 minute mark a statement:
Genocidal Ideologies
1. Islam: over 300 million dead
2. Communism: over 100million dead
3. Nazism: over 20 million dead
4. Christendom: 15 million dead
(pre-enlightenment Christendom)
The common factor here is that all of the above are imperialistic (expansionist) ideologies.
Instead we propagate cultural isolationism similar to that of Japan and South Korea.
If he were a “fundamentalist Christian, would he be calling pre-enlightenment (traditional) Christendom a “genocidal ideology”?
THE KILLER HAS A MANIFESTO
Robert M. writes:
Parallels with John Brown and Harper’s Ferry?
If the elite’s orchestrated cultural destruction and demographic replacement cannot be stopped by peaceful political action then what? Acquiescence? Or?
When the stakes are high and normal politics fail are the 1860s in our future? God forbid such an outcome, but will the elites realize the destructive forces they are calling forth before it is too late?
GENERAL
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
Doesn’t Utoya sound uncannily like Utopia?
Alissa writes:
Gates of Vienna has done a couple of posts concerning “Antifa.” They are a dangerous leftist group of youths that continually terrorize conservatives and silence them in Europe. Their name “Antifa” comes the fact that they claim to be “anti-fascist.” If Breivik wanted to oppose leftists while using the tactics of fascists then why did he target Labour Party youths and not “Antifa”? If he wanted to be an European Knight and was part of this underground European movement then why didn’t he target one of the most-well known troublemakers in Europe?
Bjorn Larsen (a Canadian who comes originally from Norway) writes:
Some friends and I are now speculating that the bombing was in fact a diversion, to gather emergency response teams in Oslo while the killer moved onto his real target, the children further north. And whereas his sick motivations may never be known, one can imagine he thought he was eliminating the next generation of socialist leaders while serving up a terrible personal blow to the current leadership whose children may have been were present in the camp.
JL writes:
A PDF version of the Breivik manifesto is available here.
It’s much easier to read than the Word version.
The first half of the manifesto seems to mostly consist of articles from other writers, most prominently Fjordman, copy-pasted from various nationalist and anti-jihadist blogs. The second half seems to have been written by Breivik himself. He claims to be a member of some European-wide secret Templar organization. He describes whom he considers to be his enemies, and gives detailed instructions on how to conduct terrorist attacks. At the end of the manifesto, there’s a diary where he describes how he prepared for the attacks for several years.
A reader from England writes:
In regard to Norway, the Dylan song that springs to mind is ONLY A PAWN IN THEIR GAME. Except this time the pawn (the killer) is the pawn of an excessively liberal society/government whose enforced multiculturalism and foreign immigration have literally driven a moderately conservative youngish Norwegian mad and triggered the evil acts by him which we have just witnessed.
That doesn’t mean that he is not personally responsible for these evil acts, but, as in the Dylan song, the context of his society and its policies and ideologies needs to be examined in seeing how he developed the mindset of a mass murderer.
A reader writes:
This whole thing in Norway has something decidedly fishy about it. There is, for a start, no rational connection between the killer’s nominal political beliefs and his terrorist actions. This implies that he is either (a) merely a madman with political pretentions, not a genuine political terrorist, or (b) the fall guy for some scheme to discredit those political beliefs. I’m prepared to revise this hypothesis if new information comes to light, but for now, the whole thing just doesn’t add up.”
LA replies:
One hopeful sign, from the point of view of cultural conservatives’ understandable worries that the Norway atrocity will be used as a weapon to suppress us, is that mainstream liberal opinion is saying pretty much the same thing as the reader, that there seems to be no connection between the killer’s stated beliefs and his actions. In this excerpt from Sunday’s lead article in the New York Times, note how Partapuoli’s (what kind of name is that for a Norwegian?) observation is identical to that of the reader:
Kari Helene Partapuoli, director of the Norwegian Center Against Racism, said Mr. Breivik did not belong to any violent neo-Nazi groups that she was aware of, and his Internet postings, before those of last week, did not espouse violence.
“The distance between the words spoken and the acts that he carried out is gigantic, because what he did is in a different league of what the debates have to do about,” she said.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 24, 2011 03:25 PM | Send
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