anders breivik, the elephant sleeping in your bed, sitting on your chest, so that you cannot breathe ***
humanity exhibits an odd ambivalence about killing humans, given that we are so accomplished at it.
the precepts against killing are sacred, yet often honored more in the breach than in the observance, and almost all societies have occasion to war or other instances of socially sanctioned & organized killing.
i don’t think of anders breivik as i toss & turn trying to sleep, tired & into the morning hours. but, i wake with him every morning in bed besides me, and he is with me constantly throughout the day.
i am a bed mate of breiviks, like it or not. as, i suspect, a goodly number of conservative thinkers.
oh, it is not so much that a bunch of norwegian teenagers are dead at his hand. in this world of indiscriminate bombings, church burnings, assassinations and just plain old garden variety mayhem and violence, what difference does a bunch of little plump dead towheads make? in the sum total of the bleak statistics of social mayhem, the deaths of these children make nary a blip on the screen.
no, the problem is that anders breivik thought to kill them, that he planned and carried out his plan with relative dispatch and precision, and that he explained his decision to do so in relatively cogent terms. and the cogent terms he chose to justify his actions were the terms of partisan political thought, and thought of a conservative variety.
that’s the problem.
which western conservatives have done everything in their power to avoid confronting. they simply have done everything possible to escape being tagged as “responsible” for the death of these children, even as their writings would seem to contemplate the eventuality of their occurrence.
keening disavowal of responsibility for his action ring throughout the conservative blogs as the plaintiff howls of a pack of remorseful coyotes, disdaining the carcasses of the sheep killed the evening before.
it is an issue that must be confronted.
but, first, let us get one issue out of the way.—
and, that is, i care not about the impious hanky wringing, the crocodile tears of the left, as it decries the violence of what anders breivik did in & about oslo, norway. in my view of things, there simply is too much blood of the hands of the left, historically and in contemporaneous events, for any criticism from them to be taken seriously. their high comments are simply propaganda, and an attempt to take the high ground “morally” in the social debate. stalin, lenin, mao, pol phot, fidel and che espoused killing, indulged in killing, and taught their disciples the rhetoric of agitation and killing.
and, anybody who doubts the left’s involvement in the jihad and terror campaigns of islam is an absolute idiot. the jihad, the terror, would not exist without european radicalism, and the subsidy of its efforts by the left.
the left is at once the apologist and sponsor of the terrorist violence in the world.
so, to hell with the criticisms of the left.
my concern in this essay is not what the left thinks of us, and not what we should say in response to it, but what the attitudes and the beliefs, and analysis of the right should be, in terms of coming to intellectual and ideological grips with the killings undertaken by anders breivik on 07.22.2011 .
what do i think about it. what do you think about it. how should you approach it in terms of your overall world view.
that is my focus.
the fundamental command of our religious and legal heritage is “thou shall not kill.” this must be acknowledged, and it seems equally obvious to admit that anders breivik violated this basic stricture in rather dramatic fashion, and intentionally.
and, nothing in the facts as i am familiar with them suggests in the slightest that any of those persons attacked and killed by breivik presented any kind of an actual or apparent threat to his immediate personal safety. in short, breivik killed, and he killed without any legal excuse to protect his own life or well being.
if there is to be any morality or moral authority in what breivik did, it must be found within another context, because certainly justification, excuse, or even comprehension does not lie within the content of the simple facts of the matter, and that is, breivik killed strangers who presented no direct threat of harm to him.
now, i don’t know if i have the intellectual capacity to handle all of what follows, but, i think i can tentatively point the way for an analysis that will get a little better grip on this. so, recognizing that this may not be a complete path, i offer my thoughts with the hopes that it will spur others who are more gifted to explore paths that need to be thought out.
circumstances do hint at contexts which though they may not justify breivik in what he did, do suggest that actions along the line that he took may someday be justified for conservatives to advocate, and to carry out, … , if the political circumstances justify it, in that the evils perpetrated by the left can no longer be tolerated without response.
we find these paths suggested by the moral justifications which excuse a person’s conduct, e.g., killing another human, in times of war, and in those times when a person moves to act in defense of others, or in the defense of a community, or heritage, or a country.
i have not forgotten that the children that breivik killed were defenseless. nor have i forgotten that they were the pick of the socialist/leftist/marxist litter, and that they were being trained as elite cadres in the socialist & marxist movements in europe.
they were not soldiers of the left just yet, but, they were soldiers of the left in training, and as such, were not entirely innocents. nonetheless, as i ponder this, my inchoate thinking on this suggests that soldiers in the making are not yet soldiers. not quite yet.
keeping these limiting observations in mind, let’s move to some contexts in which breivik’s actions would be perhaps tenable from a moral and ethical point of view, and within the context of political conflict.
because, in my view, we are at war with the left, and it is open, and likely to spring into open conflict and violence.
in war, or in civil war breivik’s actions might very well have been far seeing, and entirely justified, given the presence of certain situations.
for instance, some years back israel struck a graduation ceremony in which a large number of cadets were being inducted into the security forces of hamas and the gaza strip. the israeli’s struck quickly, and savagely, and they killed a large number of police cadets to be inducted into the hamas security ranks as they stood in formation.
they were entirely defenseless.
in my view, this strike was entirely justified and to be lauded. the israeli’s were, in my view, killing an enemy who was and is involved in open warfare and hostility with the israeli state, with the israeli people, and with judaism as a religion. hamas sought to destroy israel in every such respect.
had these cadets been a year or two younger, and at a summer indoctrination camp to recruit and nurture young “palestinians” into the “state security apparatus,” would such a strike have been justified? in my view, and by the “rules of engagement,” such as they are and such as they have been defined by islamic terror, the answer is yes. i feel this way because when a person joins a military or paramilitary organization, no matter his or her age, and there is ongoing conflict between that organization and the citizens of a country, or another country, then that person has become an enemy combatant. it is probably superfluous to say, but at such point, that person becomes “eligible” for sanction, including death.
anders breivik did not kill youngster who were members of a military or paramilitary or security apparatus of a warring state, nor did he kill members of a paramilitary or security apparatus who may have been considered to be either suppressing or at war with its own citizens.
this would be considered so by most objective standards. and, by most objective standards, norway seems to be a relatively peaceful society.
it is precisely at this point that the analysis gets to be very fine, and quite sophisticated, and perhaps even a bit slippery.
this is precisely so, because it is obvious that at this precise juncture, anders breivik would have to say that he took a different view of matters, as he perceived and analyzed them. we have, of course, at this juncture, several interesting issues, and that is the difference between anders breivik's subjective analysis and what we may loosely define as the objective view of things, and that is also the fact that in all likelihood anders breivik would assert (and probably will at his trial if given the opportunity) that his view of things, that very same view which prompted the long term planning, preparation and execution of his plan, and the execution of the children, … , that this view of things was based upon a coldly objective view of things.
we find a very rough parallel in the american declaration of independence. (for all of you just looking for something to spring on, please understand that i am not saying that anders breivik presents either analogy or metaphor for thomas jefferson.) i am suggesting a similarity in methodology in breiviks enunciated rationale for the acts he committed.
we have at first a declaration of general principles.
and, this is followed by an indictment, or more particularly and more precisely, a bill of particulars setting out the wrongs and perfidies of breivik’s perceived antagonists, and perceived enemies.
and, here, we must understand breivik precisely, in order to make the most clear judgment of his analysis and derivative actions.
breivik does not just indict the left for its attack upon the west in general, and for its attack upon norwegian society in particular.
breivik’s indictment, his bill of particulars, is aimed precisely at persons like the ones he killed, e.g., the leftist youth of norway. he first tries to establish his bona fides as a person not only eligible to make the judgments he will make, but supremely well qualified to make the assessments and judgments which will follow. he does this by reciting his own involvement in gang activities as a youngster, and his involvement in what may be regarded as norways leftist avant garde.
he also describes the activities of islamic gangs in norway, and how he and his fellows made strategic alliances with these gangs in order to avoid direct confrontation with them, and to achieve domination of other “indigenous” norwegian gangs as well.
and, then he comes to the part that must be examined most closely in order to make an assessment of how close he comes to making his argument.
breivik asserts, and attempts to convincingly prove, that the leftist establishment, indeed, even the leftist governing parties of norway connived and insinuated themselves into the activities he describes in order to attack norwegian society, traditions and values, and to recruit cadres for a continuing similar assault to have direct involvement in norwegian politics, and to identify future norwegian political operatives to carry on the political assault against what he considers traditional norwegian life.
in short, anders breivik attempts to make the case that the children he killed were precisely the same, or equivalent, to the situation i have set out previously, with regard to “children” being recruited as cadets in the hamas paramilitary groups.
to anders breivik, the matter is not metaphor, it is not hypothetical, it is fact that he attempts to establish in the biographical portion of his “manifesto,” as he recounts the actions of leftist youth gangs in the principle norwegian cities.
in my view, anders breivik is not merely recounting the interesting tidbits of a holden caufield’s existence, he is laying the ground work for the assertion that what his plans, contemplates and ultimately executes is in the nature of self defense of his society, his heritage, his people, against the all out assault of two antagonistic and very lethal forces, that being islamic immigration and the leftist & anti-nationalistic political creed that the norwegian left used, had used, and will use to attack the essence of the norwegian people in the future.
in short, anders breivik does not regard the people he killed as towheaded innocents, but as a political cadre already committed to carrying out the long term schemes of an antagonistic left. they are not children, but, young fledgling soldiers in the perceptions and analysis of anders breivik, and, more important, i believe quite evident in his belief, enemy combatants. undergoing basic training, to be admitted, but enemy combatants, nonetheless.
i will not be surprised in the least, if, at his trial, anders breivik exhibits absolutely no contriteness for killing/murdering children, but, rather, stubbornly insists that he did nothing else than the soldier’s admittedly unpleasant task of killing his adversary, an equally cunning and deadly soldier in his or her own right.
anders breivik will assert that he was simply doing his duty, and defending his society from alien attack. alien, in the sense of advanced by alien muslim youth, and, alien in the sense that it is an attack advanced by an ideology inherently alien within the context of what it means to be norwegian.
the trick, i suppose, is to decide just how “objective” anders breivik was in this assessment. are his the ravings of a lunatic?
i personally do not believe so.
he is to me, when looking at it from a clinical sense, pretty lucid and quite cogent.
and, i would suspect from this vantage, that anders breivik will do everything in his power to prevent an assessment from norwegian psychiatric examiners and authorities that he was mentally unbalanced and criminally insane when he killed those children on the island, and in the waters of the lake.
i don’t think he made his analysis on the basis of subjective delusion, but strove with all of his ability to make a clear, convincing and lucid proof that these children were not political innocents, but were leftist political operatives bent on destroying norway’s heritage, its societies and its values.
and, it is upon this assertion that the fulcrum on attack and defense of breivik lies. here is the argument of history. and, here is the fulcrum of partisan political animosity and attack.
and, it is here that each and every conservative has to undertake personal examination and evaluation of what happened.
i for one have argued many times that as an american conservative, imbued with the values of locke, blackstone, rousseau, jefferson, jay, hamilton and madison i have not only the right, but the duty to defend my values and my heritage from leftist and islamic attack.
i have no doubt in the principles that i assert, nor do i take very seriously the leftist attacks upon me for believing as i do, because i have history, and the weight of political and philosophical authority on my side.
what i do hesitate in making absolute pronouncements on such matters, and in moving from philosophical to concrete actions premised upon such principles, is in making sure that the indictment of my adversaries, the statement of that bill of particulars which would justify taking to violence and attacking persons, is iron clad, and certain, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the matters asserted.
i have little trouble with anders breivik's actions, in theory.
i am not convinced that he was right enough, at this juncture, to have taken the actions he did. and, i would have been less reserved in the matter had he not attacked defenseless children. now, baby rattlesnakes are lethal from the time they come from the egg, and they are purposeful from the time they come from the egg, and they do not nurse on mother’s milk. they kill for a living from the time they come from the egg.
i am not convinced that the norwegian children that breivik killed were rattlesnakes, just yet.
i am quite convinced that european socialists, and muslims acting in concert with the general onslaught of islam against european nationalist entities, and against european peoples whose ethnic identity has been solidified for centuries, are a lethal antagonist. and, that it is correct to view them in that manner.
had anders breivik attacked adults, in congress assembled to advance their attack upon the identity of norwegian society, i would have considered his actions well within the pale.
i feel it is the right and the duty of the individual to defend his country, his society, and his rights of affiliations. i am not the only one who feels or has felt this to be the case, as discussed in an earlier post at this blog:
"i direct your attention to the website of ayatollah sayyed muhammed hussein fadlallah, the link being http://english.bayynat.org.lb/fatawa/s10p1.htm . the subject discussed is self defense according to the islamic law of sharia, and, if you will notice, the article is under the heading of "fatwa."
my notions of what is entirely fit and proper for you and i to do in defending ourselves from islamic predation and depredation is precisely confirmed by islamic doctrine, and this islamic scholar. he writes, this man learned in the ethics of self preservation, and in the defense of one's fellows and one's homeland:
'self-defense and all that which is aimed at preserving one's life are intrinsic urges. thus, the shari'a has made it lawful and obligatory on the mukallaf to comply with it. furthermore, by rewarding the practicing self-defense and punishing for its abandonment, the shari'a has stressed its importance for it aims at man's prosperity, progress of nations, and peace and security of the human race.
the importance of this sacred duty is not less than that of enjoining good and forbidding evil, if it does not outstrip it. by taking to the former, we aim at defending the faith and moral values; by practicing the latter, which is a defensive jihad, we mean to protect the very existence of the human race society, and the homeland, hence the plethora of quranic verses and traditions (hadith) which talk favorably about this topic; parallels have often been drawn between jihad and striking a deal with the creator, in that embarking on it would open up a special gate to heaven, which allah has reserved for the elite among his creation.
we will confine the discussion to the defensive type of jihad (al jihad ad difa'ie), because the jihad in the way of allah (al jihad al ibtida'ie) is not feasible before the re-appearance of the twelfth imam (may allah hasten his re-appearance).
defensive jihad does not stop at defending oneself, property, honor, etc., rather it goes far beyond this circle to cover the defense of others, be they muslim or non-muslim. furthermore, it goes beyond driving away direct threat to one's own being to that which is indirect, e.g. that which may result in undermining society, the land as a sovereign entity, and all that which relates to its security, economic welfare, political interests, and so on of the type which makes the individual and society function according to what allah has ordained.
on certain occasions, self-defense against the dangers on a personal level could fall on the individual himself (wjibun aini), if he can do that. however, should the individual [an other, for instance: jjjay] not be in a position to protect himself, others should, by way of wajibun kifa'ie, take it upon themselves to do it for him [as myself, for instance: jjjay].
yet, defending the homeland and other public interests falls within the remit of wajibun kifa'ie to start with. that said, it might take the description of wajibun aini sometimes.'"
(for articles dealing with notions of self defense, you may find them indexed here. http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2010/07/an-index-of-posts-on-self-defense-original-sources-at-the-posts-.html . you should not be surprise to find that the views of ayatollah fadlallah are not particularly unique in the views of ethicists and religious thinkers over history. his views on defense of society by the individual are not dissimilar to thinking in the talmud, for instance, given my rather superficial familiarity with it.)
let’s get to the brass tacks of this whole discussion.—
will i, as a conservative, abandon my calls for resistance to the liberal/radical socialist/marxist attacks upon personal liberties and upon a western heritage i hold valuable, even up to and including violence and killing to secure those liberties?
the short answer for me is, of course not.
i view the writings of hobbes, locke, rousseau, blackstone, thomas jefferson and “publius,” the collective works of john jay, alexander hamilton and james madison as of continuing validity and vigor, and entirely dispositive on the issue that it is morally, theologically, philosophically and politically correct to kill in order to protect heritage and liberty.
i retract or recant not one word of what i have written on the subject, and i sure as hell am not surrendering my guns, nor giving up my ammunition, nor abandoning my tinkering with such instruments.
as far as i am concerned, charles johnson and his lizard, and his lizards, can take a flying leap at the moon, and i am absolutely unmoved intellectually by his attacks upon my personality. quick frankly, i much prefer the intellectual company of the worthies above mentioned, than the puerile and limp wristed hanky wringing of johnson and crew.
the fact is, johnson is an intellectual light weight, and the writings of the enlightenment are far and away superior on such matters to mutterings on any topic i have ever covered in these pages.
in short, i have the intellectual history of the enlightenment on my side, and the actions and writings of the founding fathers, in making revolution against england in the name of the values announced in these pages, whether or not ably done so on my part. the simple fact is, the enlightenment is far nobler company for any thinking person over the attitudes of marxist deconstruction.
so, on point of principle, i will not renounce violence, nor killing, nor revolution if necessary in order to preserve the values i hold dear, and to protect the heritage of western civilization.
nor will i renounce anders breivik, to the extent his actions were motivated by similar concerns.
nor will i accept criticism leveled to other conservative writers for holding the in some situations violence is the natural recourse to those who would protect themselves, their fellows, their culture and their national identity.
to my way of thinking, the principles enunciated by the enlightenment and its philosophs and political thinkers, and summarized and identified as “natural law” philosophy, advance truth in these matters about as surely as any system of human thought is capable.
again, to the extent that anders breivik may have been motivated to do what he did by such notions, i will not renounce him on that front.
and, as said above, i will continue to advance those ideas in my own writing and advocacy.
but, to my mind, this is not quite the end of the discussion.
we have the "law," the ethos of the enlightenment. the thinking of our own "federalists." it is established. (it is still vital and vigorous, cited in contemporary supreme court holdings. you can look it up.)
the last remaining issue is the most difficult of all, and that is the celerity of the analysis advanced by anders breivik in applying his principles to the social situation he perceived in norway.
in short, were his perceptions of the social and political environment in norway correct, or at least correct enough within the context in which he applied them?
who knows? as roy medvedev said in another context, “let history judge.” many have written or advanced social indictments of a given situation, and acted upon them, and it remains the subject of political and social controversy whether such person were right or wrong in their actions.
i suppose gavrillo princip is about as good an example as any.
and, within this same regard, john brown supplies about as clear an example of the controversy over “social” or “historical” truth to be found in our own history, as any person extent. the controversy over brown remains fresh, and interesting to this day.
there is no doubt but that he was a stone cold killer.
and, there is no doubt that he acted in the name of principle and precept he held higher than the injunction against killing. and, there can be no doubt that he acted in the belief that what he did was to rid this country of pernicious evil. and, that the institution he sought to destroy was evil.
the question remains, was the perception of evil held by these people true, and were the victims of the attacks the appropriate victims in light of this analysis. (the inspiration for the television series “matlock” was an atlanta, georgia lawyer by the name of tommy lee jones, not to be confused with the actor: the lawyer was real. jones once said, that the key ingredients to any successful defense of a capital case devolved from the answers to two key questions: 1.) did the victim need killing, and 2.) was the killer the right man for the job.)
so, the key to the matter, by my way of thinking, is not the analysis of the key principles we advocate as conservatives in justifying violence, if necessary, to protect our rights, heritage and politics, … , those are long established and honored by history and actual observance.
no, the keys to the legitimacy of any act of political violence or killing, lies in the celerity of the identification of the perpetrator of the evil sought to be destroyed, and whether the victims identified as suffering a right wrath, the right victims.
i’ll not dodge the issue.
anders breivik’s analysis of european socialism and its aims and devises, and the harm socialism has done to western civilization, free market economy, freedom of speech and intellectual inquiry seems to me spot on.
so, the "victim," the "entity" towards whom breivik's wrath will be directed, is at least rightfully identified in the persons of the left.
i am not convinced, however, and, in fact, i doubt very much, that anders breivik killed the right persons when he opened fire on the children on the island outside of oslo. i have no difficulty with his assaults upon the government workers and bureaucrats advancing the left, attacked by his bombing attack.
i do not think that he acted correctly in killing children. if he meant something along the line of the hypothetical i advanced above, say by equating these children to youngsters recruited into the hamas security forces, or “military,” then i do not think he advanced or argued that proposition with sufficient clarity to attack the defenseless youngsters in question.
to my view of things, the question is not in the principles to be advanced and protected by recourse to violence, and even killing.
those are well established within the context of our political thought and heritage.
the essence of the argument over whether an attack is to be viewed as justifiable, or whether it is to be condemned as immoral, lies in the facts of the situation. do the facts of a situation support argument and conclusion that an antagonist rises to the level of enemy, and that the enemy attempts the imposition of evil upon the people of a society, and that such evil must be resisted by force.
and, the final analysis is, do the people selected as victims properly deserve to be identified as those who do the asserted evil, does the evil they perpetrate deserving of the ultimate sanction of killing, and is killing and violence the appropriate and necessary thing to remedy that evil.
on this final matter, i think breivik falls short in his argument. i do not think that he makes a compelling argument that these children deserved to die.
these are my thoughts on the matter, and you may accept them or deny them as you will, and you may laud or attack me for voicing them, as you will.
let us address a final ancillary issue, which may or may not be of moment, but, which interests me.—
can we make violence and/or retribution for wrong into an aesthetic, or an art? i really don’t think so, and not even the literary talent of yukio mishima focusing upon the world reflected upon a tiny sphere of blood splashing for a moment upon the blade of a sword during sepeku can remove us from the reality of a man eviscerating himself in a final act of contrition. ("true beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs and finally destroys." yukio mishima, http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/35258.Yukio_Mishima ) nor can the cinematic excess indulged in by current film makers make murder anything other than it is, and that is nasty business. nothing funny to the victim in being shot by john travolta and samuel jackson, no matter the sprightly banter.
nor can violence be elevated to truth, no matter the somber tones in trying to elevate it intellectually. there is a reason why those in the craft of espionage call it “wet work.”
it is, what it is, this nasty business.
but, i believe that by recourse to first principles, such as so carefully and clearly done by thomas jefferson in our own declaration of independence, we can bring it into a content it which it is explicable in concrete terms, and that it can be justified as legitimate recourse, if expressed in facts and terms which identifies the evils and provocations lashed out against.
jefferson cautioned that reasonable and prudent men did not turn to violence to protect their interests for reasons merely light and transient, e.g., temporary burdens should be born with grace if there is a way to redress them peacefully over time.
but, jefferson also masterfully laid out that systematic and long term string of abuses inflicted by the crown upon a just people who might otherwise have been content to remain loyal subjects. this is the entire purpose of the bill of particulars laid out by jefferson, e.g., “… he hath impressed our seamen upon the open waters …”, etc., etc., to show that not even a reasonable person or people can suffer such acts and still preserve their honor, their right and privilege, their heritage of assembly and public discourse, and be free and honorable people.
jefferson identified the abuse, he identified the abuser, and he stated forthrightly that the people would resort to armed conflict if such abuse were not address, not redressed. and, he identified quite clearly who the violence would be directed against, and why.
he picked the right fight. he picked the right adversary. he based his argument upon well recognized doctrines of natural and political law, and he stated succinctly the facts and reasons why the colonies would turn toward violence as a remedy.
he did not gussy it up. he stayed grounded, and factual, and he told the world why he would fight those he would fight.
did thomas jefferson make his case, and justify the colonial rebellion? well, to my mind he came about as close as you can come in debate. the matter was settled before god, as sir william blackstone would have expressed it, on the battlefield.
i think jefferson made his case by citing facts, and by clearly identifying the proper adversary in the fight, against whom violence would be rightly directed.
i believe anders breivik did not make his case, entirely, because he did not adequately explain why it was necessary to kill children, who presented no risk of harm to him.
that anders breivik failed in this particular case, is absolutely no reason to abandon first principle, nor is it any reason to abandon a sound methodology for declaring one’s grievance, and absolutely no reason to repudiate violence as a legitimate tool to seek the redress of one’s grievances.
to be judged kindly by history, one must make one’s case, however, and one must pick his or her fight with the right person or persons. i think breivik rightly identified the left, he just chose to pick upon the wrong standard bearers.
let history judge.
john jay @ 02.23.2012
p.s. i do not deign to define the meaning of what breivik did. i suppose that is a task he has assigned himself to perform, over the coming years.
yet something salutary may come from it.—
the left has been engaged in open warfare with the right, in its various manifestations, whether it be free market economy, or religious value, or the value of the “bourgeoisie.”
the left has conducted this war in academia by “marxist deconstruction,” and by an attempt to undermine conservative values.
and, the left has engaged in the support and subsidy of islamic terrorism, and outright leftist terror as conducted in the 60’s and 70’s by the red army brigades, che guevara, carlos the jackal, and the assassinations in central and south america such as described by lewis fueur in “the conflict of generations.” this sort of garbage, this leftist provocation, continues in leftist thuggery in public forums in germany & france, black panther terrorism at voting booths, and s.i.e.u. thuggery at all levels of political life.
the community organizer & handler soros run the “occupy” movements.
leftist violence, all of it, and the call continues for more from francis fox piven, probably yesterday.
they wage this violent warfare against the right, because to this point they have assumed & been convinced that ordinary citizens will not strike back at the root source of that, and that is leftist political organization, and leftist political organizations.
i believe that anders breivik has destroyed the surety of that working assumption. i think the possibility of widespread retribution for their efforts is something that must now be considered in their calculations regarding just how far they can go, before the right pushes back.
we shall see, and time shall tell.
*** a recent television commercial, involving a lady w/ a lung condition who cannot breathe at night because of “pressure on her chest,” has here being followed around her house with a baby elephant … consistent w/ her lament, that it is difficult to breathe w/ an elephant on her chest.
well, so it is w/ anders breivik, apparently, with many a conservative advocate professing no “responsibility” for breivik’s action because of his or her writing. well, breivik, is cited by every leftist on earth as being the creature of conservative fulmination, and their “creature.”
never mind that these leftists never assert pol phot the responsibility of karl marx, or the little omelet makers, vladimir lenin & joseph stalin, for that matter.
well, it’s time to get the monkey off our backs, and the elephant out of the bed, so to speak, and to start swinging from the hip again. to say what we think, without worry about “retribution” from the left. this essay is my contribution.
Your entire argument is mooted by three points.
The first is a simple mistranslation. The CORRECT commandment is "Thou shalt not commit MURDER" (I've seen the original document, and have had it translated on the spot. KGV is more wrong than it is right). You can kill all day long (and God sometimes commands it) so long as its justified. A basic natural right is the defense of the tribe. So that whack job Norge (I don't bother remembering the names of mere killers) MAY be justified in his actions, from his own perspective. His target was without honor or practical point, but from a pure combat perspective, that's just classical leverage tactics.
Next, the LIBERAL ideal that killing is somehow wrong is only correct from one specific worldview. Did the Romans, Jutes, Picts, Saracens, Aztecs or Zulus consider killing to be morally "wrong"? Was poetry invented by humanity to woo teenaged tail, or to extoll the virtues of lopping off your enemies' arm? Modernity, liberalism, humanism, and lots of other "isms", coupled with Christianity, had weakened the base biological human spirit beyond what agricultural domestication of the species already did. We're weak, and think weakly. Homo sapiens conquered the globe by killing and eating everything in our path, not by thinking deep thoughts and being nice to fluffy the rabid smilodon.
Next, you're worrying about leftys lumping you in with a lone psycho, and then immediately turn around and lump normal modern liberals in with Stalinist authoritarians, ad if they were some sort of monolithic political bloc. Pot/black? Your average humanist liberal is no more Pol Pot than is the average conservative a cracked-out Templar with a newly-sharpened sword.
Finally, you "conservatives" always make me chuckle (full disclosure: I'm a Bull Moose Republican. There are still something like three of us left). TORRIES like you shouldn't be railing on about individual liberty. Ever. Traditional conservatives are authoritarians, just like everyone else. About the only people around who aren't are libertarians and other anarchists, and most of them have more than a little bit of junior dictator in them as well. It's HUMAN NATURE to fall into groups, and to lead, and to follow. It's how we as a species, with our bad sense of smell, weak muscles, dull teeth, and speed of a rambling chicken conquered the globe: cooperation, grouping, and....collectivising. The cartoon says "JOIN OR DIE" for a reason.
Still, it's nice to see someone who's on your end of the spectrum finally talking like this. You're as wrong-headed as real-live Marxists, but plain talk without any PC-BS in it is rare indeed, and actually refreshing. Sadly, talk like this also gets you watched by Big Brother, and makes you a lovely talking point for loonies on the other side, no matter how small your audience really is.
Oh well, back to worrying about the REPUBLIC. More group-thinkers......
Posted by: Orsonroy | February 25, 2012 at 06:21 AM
orsonroy:
come back any time, and bring your sharp quill and deep ink well.
i am not particularly an authoritarian, which is were i would take exception to your remarks. i think you mistaken on that particular point.
i enjoyed your remarks.
john jay
Posted by: john jay | February 25, 2012 at 08:57 AM
p.s. and, yes, the times when god really got his nose in a twist with the hebrews were: 1.)worship of the golden calf, and 2.)refusing to go into battle upon god's assurances that he would carry the day in the face of horrible odds, and refusing to "cleanse" the land of milk and honey upon crossing the jordan.
it's why moses stayed on the other side. "the prophet never gets to see the promised land," and all that.
Posted by: john jay | February 25, 2012 at 09:01 AM