Contributors

Saturday, July 23, 2011

The Massacre In Norway

The recent massacre in Norway should be a wake up call to the rest of the world. As Nikto and I have been saying for quite some time, the people that commit these despicable acts these days are generally conservative. Christian...Islamic...Atheist...doesn't matter...conservative.

Anders Behring Brevik, one of the suspects they have in custody, belongs to a right wing extremist group and is a fierce nationalist. He has written posts on the web that are critical of Islam, lists his religion as Christian and his politics as conservative. He also enjoys playing "World of Warcraft" and the book "1984" by George Orwell. Combine all of these things together and you pretty much have your garden variety right wing blogger.

An important difference to take note of, however, between right wing extremists around the world and in this country is perhaps the naivete of a country like Norway. Gun ownership is allowed in Norway and Mr. Brevik apparently registered his Glock under one of the extremist group names. Something like that would raise red flags in our country. Why it wasn't there demonstrates a lack of understanding of what these people are capable of which is odd considering the problems they have had in the past with such groups. I'm also at a loss as to why, if gun ownership is allowed, people didn't have any on the island. The shooting spree could have been halted a lot sooner.

I have to say, though, that I think it is doubtful that this sort of ideologically obvious attack would happen here in the current political climate. It has become very apparent that our right wing groups are kept pretty much in line by their masters and our government, specifically the DHS. The leaders of the conservative movement in this country (Kochs, Norquist etc) know that they would very quickly lose power and leverage if any sort of violent act was tied to their ideology. Essentially, they'd be done. And the Department of Homeland Security keeps fairly good tabs on what these groups are up to and it all seems very low level these days largely due to the aforementioned reasons.

I guess I'm hoping that countries in Europe get the message after this horrific nightmare and being to take steps to keep people like this in check. Their rose colored glasses need to be tossed in the garbage.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Christian...Islamic...Atheist...doesn't matter...conservative.

Bullshit.

Anonymous said...

" The shooting spree could have been halted a lot sooner."

Yep.

I may disagree with most of the things you believe, but this ain't one of them.

84 people dead at last count.

Madmen will always be with us.

jeff c. said...

They are largely conservative. Look back at all the major terrorist attacks over the last 20 years. Al Qaeda is considered a CONSERVATIVE Muslim group. The Middle East is filled with conservative groups that want Israel wiped off the map. A conservative shot Yitzhak Rabin. The Atlanta bombings were done by Eric Rudolph, a right winger. David Adkisson was a right winger who thought liberals and Democrats should die so he shot up the Knoxville Unitarian church. Tim McVeigh was a far right anti government wacko and all the abortion clinic bombings/murders were all right wingers. Need I go on?

Juris Imprudent said...

My political beliefs have as much to do with this kind of violence as your left/liberal views do with the mass murders by Stalin and Mao.

It is a stupid and pointless attempt to smear. What is really common is the belief (of the zealot) that the govt is controlled by sinister forces at odds with his righteous view. And that any violent act is acceptable to breaking that unholy bond.

Larry said...

I don't know where in the world you get this strange idea that the fiscal conservative/social conservative/libertarian/TEA Party types and whatever other groups you will wish to conflate into an imaginary whole, are controlled at all from the top down. That's just ... odd.

Since you brought up what a good job da gubmint is doing at suppressing "Right Wing Violence (TM)" (a division of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, LLC), would you finally care to comment on Federal gunrunning to Mexican drug lords?

Anonymous said...

Jeff,

First of all, define "conservative".

Secondly, have you noticed that you list a number of examples of INDIVIDUALS who carried out heinous acts? At best, that makes these people EXCEPTIONS to the rule, not the rule itself. Unlike Islam, where the majority of muslims at least assent to terrorism. In other words, in Islam, Jihad IS the rule.

Third, even your examples are broken. For example:

Eric Rudolph:

http://extremepolitics.blogspot.com/2007/06/eric-rudolf-unrepentant-terrorist.html

Speaking of conservatism, Rudolph is surprisingly hard to pin down ideologically. It would be easy to write him off as a Protestant fundamentalist nut, especially since his website is hosted by the charming folks over at the Army of God website. Rudolph is a practicing Catholic, once attended a Christian Identity church, and peppers his webpage with biblical passages. However, he expresses an admiration for Friedrich Nietzsche, which is to say the least unusually for a right-wing Christian. In fact, his fusion of Catholic thought and his survival-of-the-fittest, pro-terrorist outlook makes him unique in the annals of right wing extremism.

http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2003/06/12.html

Charles Stone, a retired Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who hunted Rudolph, told AP that Rudolph’s rhetoric was a "smokescreen," and that his anti-government views were motivated by a federal ban on supplements to fight his father’s cancer. Stone said that Rudolph's marijuana use "made him more paranoid and fed his anti-government views."

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_archive.html

Consider, for instance, the content of Ms. Davis' remarks, particularly the associations she makes between Christian Identity -- which is the core of Eric Rudolph's belief system -- and mainstream Christianity. If ever there was a boundary there, in her eyes it has been eradicated. And the more we see this kind of worldview become common, the more trouble we are in as a nation.

For most of the history of Christian Identity (its origins stretch back to the turn of the previous century), its beliefs -- which are that white people are the true children of Israel; that Jews are Satanically descended (or inspired) pretenders to the title; and that the rest of humanity is comprised of soulless "mud people" -- have been widely denounced as a heresy. Even the most conservative fundamentalists -- whose doctines of scriptural inerrancy certainly are an important component of Identity, though interpretations obviously differ, and whose cultural conservatism on racial and other issues forms a common ground -- have considered Identity anathema.

This becomes a serious problem when the boundaries between the mainstream religion and the extremists begins to be erased. Sometimes this is done intentionally, especially by Identity folk like Rudolph; sometimes it is done unintentionally, by simple thinkers like Ms. Davis; by politicians like Porter Goss; and by media folk looking for a smart angle and coming up with an old tire."


I've read similar "erasing the boundaries" thinking exposed about McVeigh, the idiot who flew his plane into an IRS building. I bet if I had time to do the research, it wouldn't be hard to find articles describing how these guys you've mentioned depart from American conservatism in general as well as Biblical Christianity.

Larry said...

Yup, it's just the standard smear job. No different than smearing the the entire liberal left and all environmentalists with Ted Kaczynsky. I'm sure we can come up with other examples, and Jeff C. and Mark can explain why [whine]that's different![/whine] I'd rather stay out of that pit of idiocy, though. They live down there and have the advantages of home ground and experience.

sw said...

are you enjoying dancing on the graves of those children markadelphia and jeff?

sw said...

are you enjoying dancing on the graves of those children markadelphia and jeff?

Anonymous said...

I think Mark is defining conservative as people who are not flexible in their ideas, my way or the highway types. People who do not question their own thinking or the thinking of their affiliation.

Could he be confusing conservative with fanatic?

Haplo9 said...

>I think Mark is defining conservative as people who are not flexible in their ideas, my way or the highway types.

The irony is that describes Mark best of all, though he goes to great effort to convince himself otherwise.

Anonymous said...

I think Mark is defining conservative as people who are not flexible in their ideas, my way or the highway types.

So, not at all like the folks at MSNBC who allowed Keith Olbermann to become a household name and make millions making every nasty accusation against Bush he could think up for years.... and then fired someone instantly for remarking that Obama was "being a dick".

Anonymous said...

I think Mark is defining conservative as people who are not flexible in their ideas, my way or the highway types.

A twitter account under Breivik's name had only one tweet, on July 17, loosely citing English philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."

I only wish he used his belief for good! The sad part is he thought he did. If he had only been open enough to question his own thinking.

My heart aches for those who have lost love ones. It aches for the misguided too.

Mark Ward said...

First of all, define "conservative".

under Breivik's name had only one tweet

it's just the standard smear job


http://www.startribune.com/world/126066083.html

The Norwegian man who was charged Saturday with a pair of attacks in Oslo that killed at least 92 people left behind a detailed manifesto outlining his preparations and calling for a Christian civil war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination.

The police identified him as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian, while acquaintances described him as a gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threats of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.

In the 1,500-page manifesto, posted on the Web hours before the attacks, Breivik recorded a day-by-day diary of months of planning for the attacks and claimed to be part of a small group that intends to "seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda."

Anonymous said...

I am going to call my congressman to outlaw Norwegians.

I've always said that 'lutefisk' was a Scandinavian plot.

Juris Imprudent said...

You know who else had a detailed manifesto?

Larry said...

Well obviously, Juris, if Kaczynski had a detailed manifesto and believed many of the same things as such prominent liberals and environmentalists as Al Gore, then there must be something dangerously wrong with liberal thought. Obviously. At least it would be if such a thing as logical consistency in Markadoofius-Land. Unfortunately, the rules of Calvinball apply there.

Juris Imprudent said...

Dammit Larry, I was trying to snare the silly left/liberal that immediately pounced on Hitler.

Ah, Calvinball. Thanks for that reminder - made me smile.

Juris Imprudent said...

BTW, we've seen this rush to judgment before around here - anyone recall the Loughner threads? How about Andrew Joseph Stack (flew his plane into the IRS building in TX)?

Seems some people just can't help leaping to [erroneous] conclusions.

Anonymous said...

Well obviously, Juris, if Kaczynski had a detailed manifesto and believed many of the same things as such prominent liberals and environmentalists as Al Gore, then there must be something dangerously wrong with liberal thought. Obviously. At least it would be if such a thing as logical consistency in Markadoofius-Land. Unfortunately, the rules of Calvinball apply there.

Since when is it sane to demonize people who want to conserve natural resources? When someone just murdered so many kids? Daah Larry- Duffious.. Go back to your Finius and Ferb

Larry said...

Anonymous @ 6:14 PM, you need to read about sarcasm and satire. You clearly don't understand the concept, and probably think Jonathan Swift really was advocating the eating Irish babies.

Juris Imprudent said...

How perfect, just before this rolls off the front page more information comes in about the killer...

In the world according to Anders Behring Breivik, a seat on Oslo's city council was once nearly in his grasp — until he was sidelined by a jealous adversary. Nonsense, says the so-called rival, who notes that Breivik attended just five or six party meetings and barely spoke.

In his early 20s, Breivik writes, he spent a year working alongside a mentor who schooled him in the ways of business and management. The man calls that a bizarre exaggeration, noting that the only thing he taught Breivik was how to record corporate minutes.


So who was this guy in reality - apparently just a garden variety nutcase. His fears and attachment to "conservative idelology" about as substantial as a cloud sandwich. Congrats M, your reaction to him and your rant tells everyone a lot about you and very little about anything or anyone else.