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Europe
Norway: the 'Progressive' West slippery slope. A belated commentary.
2011-08-09
By Giuliano Maciocci Sr

It is extremely difficult to understand the rationale (if any) behind terror attacks. All terror attacks are the sick acts of deranged - if perversely lucid - people, who feel impotent against the society they live in or they unwittingly fight for.

The Norway massacre by this young, pleasant looking monster is particularly horrible because it doesn't seem at first glance to have any explanation or justification, twisted or not. Unfortunately, it is as sickly rational (from a sick mind point of view) as any other terrorist attack.

Historians and intellectuals, fearful of the risk of repeating past atrocities (always perpetrated for the 'good' of humanity, of course) have been warning the West's progressives not to push their agendas to their extreme consequences lest they wanted to obtain the opposite of what they theoretically wished onto their citizens (racism, concentration camps, deportations, ethnic cleansing); but power, greed and corruption have muddled the original issues and molded them into perfect demagoguery material. The result? Uncontrolled immigration to the detriment (and often discrimination) of the indigenous population for the purpose of creating voting blocks, welfare and all sorts of entitlements to create dependence and passivity and - of course - more votes, misguided multiculturalism to appease violent minorities, betrayal of hard won ideals (to the point of harsh anti-Semitism, in Norway) for the sake of security, promotion of extreme relativism to undermine societies' institutions, etc., etc., etc..

In a normal democracy, these agendas are eventually moderated through political dialogue or die of their own, either when people see the lies behind the policies or when the nanny state runs out of money. Norway, on the contrary, could afford to drown their citizens in entitlements, accommodate and subsidize fresh immigration and at the same time lull everybody in a false sense of security, thanks to its oil wealth.

Such state of things eventually creates social conflicts which in normal circumstances generate a healthy (at least in the name of democratic choice) shift in politics and nothing more (as seen recently in most of Europe, including Norway). On the other hand, more serious and dangerous effects are produced on the weakest (or sickest, take your pick) minds. To these, the continuous exposure to such social contradictions exasperates their sense of betrayal, oppression, impotence, producing a desire to sow the horror we have sadly often witnessed, as a lesson, a message, a warning or a cry of desperation - who really knows what goes on in their minds.

Someone (individuals or groups) was bound to exploit the situation. Something was bound to blow up.

Forgetting what man really is, his limitations and potential and pretending, for political expediency, that we all are the same good, altruistic, outgoing beings, helps only power-greedy or clueless politicians, while tolerating intolerance for fear or gain only invites violence, of one kind or another.

A last observation: guns in Norway (they declare themselves proudly to be 'multiculturalists and pacifists') are anathema; even the police is totally unarmed. But most of the Utoya victims would be alive today if anyone had had a gun.
That last sentence could be true, and agreed that the police do not carry their guns with them as a general practice -- they have to get them from the lock-up. Also that most of the Utoya victims would be alive if they all threw rocks at the shooter to wound him and distract his aim instead of walking up to him to discuss his issues and persuade him to take a different course. But as for the rest of the paragraph, Norway has a very active hunting and sport shooting culture, and lots of people own things that shoot bullets, both registered and unregistered (see here for details). The shooter was a member of several gun clubs, and reportedly they knew nothing of his political activities.

It should be noted that Norway was under Nazi occupation during WWII for longer than any other western European nation. That bit of history would go a long way towards explaining why Norweigians are allowed to own firearms, while other citizens of other nations are not.
Posted by:Elmalet Greamble7487

#11  Ok Badanov, no big deal, apology accepted and thanks for the compliments.
But if you want to keep it, could you please clean up all the misunderstandings from the comments and delete the "Terry Mattingly?" green header?
Thanks! (^_~)
Posted by: Giuliano Maciocci Sr   2011-08-09 23:30  

#10  Badanov, with an apology like that you'll never make it as a MSM editor...
Posted by: Glenmore   2011-08-09 22:25  

#9  I have to totally take the blame for the confuson concerning this article.

All I wanted to do was to impress on the individual posting this material, that we like to see news links, not personal links in the source box, so I, unhelpfully as it turned out, included the first link on the Norway massacre I could google, enhancing the confusion.

I will not delete the article. It was good and well written. I am glad Rantburg was one of the places you decided to post it.

But, it has to be said, this was amateur hour for us, and for that I am very sorry.
Posted by: badanov   2011-08-09 21:29  

#8  Who's Terry Mattingly?
Look, this is getting too complicated, please delete the post; all I wanted was to publish the piece and then tell my followers on twitter and G+ to come and read it here (which I thought would be good for your audience too). Forget it, thanks.
Posted by: Giuliano Maciocci Sr   2011-08-09 21:03  

#7  
Ok. I added "by Terry Mattingly" at the top of the text. To clarify: Elmalet Greamble7487 is Mr. Mattingly, only posting under a nym all unwilling? Mr. Mattingly, all you need do is erase/delete the nym and type in the name you wish us to know you by. This should also create a cookie attached to the new ID, so that in future the desired identity should appear instead of one of Fred's cute little randomized anonymous thingies.

Next point: if you have written a piece specifically for Rantburg, post it in full without a URL, because the correct reference is here. If you have written a piece for your own blog, link to the blog page in the URL box, but give us no more than a brief summary or a single paragraph from the text. Truthfully, the best way to garner attention for your blog is to put the blog URL In the optional website block when you post comments -- if your comments are thoughtful and knowledgeable, people are likely to follow you home to see what else you have to say. I certainly do, and have commented both here and on various blogs about what I've seen.
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-08-09 09:26  

#6  I spoke with a Norwegian Saturday. I asked him about this and he responded by saying that this was the work of one man like our Timothy McVeigh(I wanted to say Timothy Geithner). End of story. They have moved on. So I say leave this issue to the media talking heads elsewhere in the world.
Posted by: Dale   2011-08-09 07:22  

#5  The killer promotes "patriarchy." How many women would vote for that? I believe he is a movement of one person. He will like the solitaryness of prison life.
Posted by: Thumper and Tenille2812   2011-08-09 06:53  

#4  In fact, I even tried to sign it properly but all I got was this lousy "Elmalet Greamble7487"... ;-)
Posted by: Elmalet Greamble7487   2011-08-09 01:55  

#3  Hang on, mate! The article is mine! I have been only linking it FROM G+ and twitter to have more readers!
There's the other problem: we don't allow the Burg to be used as a platform to attract readers to anyone's blog.

If you want to advertise here, contact Fred: rates are attractive, I'm told.

AoS (moderator)
Posted by: Elmalet Greamble7487   2011-08-09 01:54  

#2  Even original articles published at Rantburg hae some sort of news peg. I have published, written or rewritten no fewer than 600 articles at Rantburg and I have never used social media as a news source.

Maybe the rules aren't clear enough, but the posting interface does display rather prominently a box for a news source. Social media, if you want to include it should be included as a separate link in your article, not as a source.
Posted by: badanov   2011-08-09 00:48  

#1  sorry, but it doesn't say anywhere that you have to have the exclusivity of the piece. I thought I could publish it anywhere I liked it.
Posted by: Elmalet Greamble7487   2011-08-09 00:39  

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