Another Randian recognizing the existence of group differences that matter

A blogger Leonid writes at SOLO—Sense of Life Objectivists:

All those Soloists who so vocally promoted and supported the culture of hatred, (I hate all Muslims’ credo), suddenly became voiceless when Aryan blond beast lookalike Islamophobe killed 76 people, Muslims and non-Muslims in Norway. I wonder what could be a reason for this sudden silence? Is it because they cannot condemn the act which some of them consider as justifiable (the good Muslim who takes his faith seriously is a dead one) and the same time they cannot publicly condone the act of cold-blood mass murder? In any case this is a silence of the shame.

A commenter, the Randian Doug Bandler, disagrees sharply with Leonid’s kneejerk liberal dismissal of Islam critics as people who simply “hate all Muslims”:

Regarding Breivik
Doug Bandler’s picture
Submitted by Doug Bandler on Wed, 2011-08-10 17:00.

Breivik was influenced mainly by cultural Conservatism which closely resembles Paleo-Conservatism. Breivik’s main concern was that white, Christian Europe was in danger of being destroyed by two fundamental enemies: 1) Islam and Muslims and 2) the Left. Breivik was right in that regard.

But Breivik, who was himself a secularist, believed that religion was necessary to provide a people with a moral foundation. So he considered himself a “Cultural Christian”. He saw that the Left was responsible for destroying the moral fabric of European society and paving the way for Islam to dominate the European continent. Again Breivik was right on both counts.

Breivik killed the children of Leftists NOT Muslims because he quite rightly saw that it was indeed the Left, what Lindsay calls “PomoWankers”, that is the greatest enemy of Western civilization. He hated the Left so much that he slaughtered them in bulk.

Breivik was an example of what a cultural Conservative reaction to the post-modern Left from an unhinged, murderous person looks like. But what Breivik was fighting for was not the individualist, free market, egoistic society that Objectivists or most Classical Liberals are fighting for. Breivik was fighting for a white, Christian, patriarchal Europe; Europe how it was before the 1950s. This is the Cultural Conservative vision that is strong in the Paleo Right. Breivik was influence not only by more Classical Liberal writers like Robert Spencer, but also by Paleo-Cons like Larry Auster (who he cites in his manifesto) and the European blogger Fjordman from “Gates of Vienna”.

Here, I must admit I have mixed reactions to this. No not to Breivik himself. He was a vicious killer. But the Left is EVIL. And their agenda will kill the West and it will do so in many ways. Obviously we all know about the economic destruction that the Left is unleashing (with help from weak-willed Conservatives). But the Left is also killing the West by allowing Muslim immigration and by placating and pandering to the Islamic world in countless ways; including two self-sacrificial wars which strengthen the Ummah while weakening ourselves. The alliance between the Left and Islam is one which many of the better Conservatives have taken notice of. This is what Breivik saw and what disgusted him. I disagree with Breivik’s actions, with his philosophy (he was a Conservative), and with his ultimate political vision (a white racialist state), but I do understand the hatred of the Left as I too hate them to the depth of my soul as they are fucking EVIL.

Breivik saw the Islamization of Europe, the massive rape of white women by Muslim males, the destruction of many European cities by Muslim immigrants turning them into “no-go” zones, the Jihad recruitment centers that are European Mosques, etc. He saw all this and it turned his stomach. Unfortunately, he was a murderous man and he took murderous action. But the evil he responded to is real and it is growing.

I don’t expect Leonid to understand this. He is very smart in certain technical areas but a fool in essentially all else. I fully understand why Lindsay doesn’t like the man. I once defended Leonid against Lindsay’s insults. But I was very, very wrong. My apologies again to Lindsay.

Breivik needs to be understood as he is a very important phenomenon. But a fool like Leonid is not the man for the job. My analysis is a good starting point.

Bandler understands that liberalism is evil, not just because it promotes big government, but because it is advancing the Islamization of the West. This represents a rare and hopeful acknowledgment by a Randian that the world does not simply consist of rootless and potentially rational individuals, but that it consists of groups, and that the differences between some groups and our group may pose grave threats to our group.

Also, his admission of at least partial agreement with “paleo-cons” like me (though of course I don’t call myself one) represents a hopeful shift in his thought, given that he wrote to me in April 2010:

At least the Left tries to justify its beliefs with some claim to reason and science. But you base it on nothing but a fantasy which originated with a primitive people two thousand years ago. And on that primitive basis you would govern society and tell us all what we can and can not do. I almost wish that your idiotic Christian hell were real so you could burn in it. Pathetic bastard.

Another Randian commenter who despises me yet finds himself reluctantly agreeing with my warnings about Islam is Madmax.

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Richard O. writes:

Doug Bandler wrote to you:

“I almost wish that your idiotic Christian hell were real so you could burn in it.”

That was a close call. He almost wished that on you.

LA replies:

Of the various groups that hate me,—anti-Semites, Darwinians, Randians, etc.—the strongest expressions of hatred by far have come from the Randians. The have repeatedly expressed the desire that I be destroyed, not physically, but as a person.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 12, 2011 12:56 PM | Send