Anders Breivik

2 posts

Another 15 Minutes

I had the day off, so I decided to pore over Anders Breivik’s self-serving manifesto.  It’s obvious that he took some inspiration from Timothy McVeigh in the execution of his plans.  As others have noted, he cribs some of his personal mythology from the Unabomber manifesto in justification of his actions.

Madmen like Breivik and Kaczynski write this stuff to preserve their place in history, and we read it in a vain attempt to find some reason, some explanation, for their atrocities.  Of course, there isn’t any:  some people are simply evil.  To give attention to their ramblings is to play into their hands.  Yet here I am laboring through all 1480 interminable pages.

After all the conspiracy theories, historical revisionism (which he claims to abhor), and claims to be a knight in a shadow order of renewed Templars, we come to Breivik’s planning notes.  This is where it becomes clear that he’s not only deluded, but quite incompetent as well.

Continued...

Norway’s Oklahoma City

Before shooting 84 people in Utøya, Anders Breivik used ammoninum nitrate to blow up government buildings.  Sound familiar?

Breivik was a member of the right-wing Fremskrittpartiet (“Progress Party”), a group taking a hard-line stance against the lenient immigration policies traditionally held by Scandanavian governments.  This is one of their promotional posters:

"The perpetrator was of foreign origins!"

The caption translates as, “the perpetrator was of foreign origins!”  Breivik himself appears to have been less than fond of Muslim immigrants.

So, what happens now?  Likely the same thing that happened here in 1995.  The Norwegians will see increasing calls for stricter gun control laws and regulation on vehement discource.  Those holding conservative or libertarian views will be painted with Breivik’s broad brush.

Extremism isn’t exclusive to nation or a culture.  This isn’t just an American phenomenon.  We all need to be aware of the darkness that lies at the outer margins of any political ideology.