Breaking News - Major Terrorist Attack In Oslo, Norway

[The Minsky Moment]

How?  By positing that I'm referring specifically to Muslims, considering my long stance about that specific ethno-cultural group. 

Muslims are merely the proverbial 'tip of the iceberg' - because they're so often... visible themselves.  What the man expressed in his recent actions (and his 'cut&pasting' writings before) is the distillation of a diffuse sentiment amongst large segments of western populations.  A sentiment feeding off feelings of insecurity and alienation, both exacerbated by the twins of mass immigration and globalization.

You may chose to ignore, or worse, dismiss - at your own peril.

That is still rather vague.  Insecurity and alienation are byproducts of modernity, period, as anyone who has read 19th century Russian novels can attest.  Reversing globalization, even if feasible, would not reverse insecurity and alienation; it would alter slightly the way in which it manifests.  The same is true for draconian restrictions of immigration - it exchanges the difficulties of integrating immigrants for the problem of facing a demographic decline accompanied by generous public pension and welfare schemes funded out of current tax money.

Mental pathology will always out one way or another.  A person whose emotional fulfillment depends on belonging to a long defunct medieval knightly order is going to have serious problems in any modern society, no matter how configured.  The notion that public policy should be calibrated in response to these kinds of pathologies is not one I accept.

[Grallon]

...

The notion that public policy should be calibrated in response to these kinds of pathologies is not one I accept.

Ignore or dismiss - not the loons - but the silent majority that is *not* acting out... At least not yet.

I reject the notion that everything is peachy and there's no problem at all.  This guy's is symptomatic of something besides his apparent personal mental illness.




G.

[Razgovory]

What mental illness is that?

[Bluebook]

Mental pathology will always out one way or another.  A person whose emotional fulfillment depends on belonging to a long defunct medieval knightly order is going to have serious problems in any modern society, no matter how configured.  The notion that public policy should be calibrated in response to these kinds of pathologies is not one I accept.

Dont you think you are making this rather easy for yourself? This guy has opinions about immigration and islam that are shared by a not insignificant part of the population. His ideas are really not that far from the extreme-right/populist-political parties that hover around 5-20% of the votes, depending on which scandinavian country we are talking about.

To simply say that this is a result of a mental pathology, and that public policy should ignore it alltogether is rather...naive. I would even venture to say that such reasoning borders on the dangerously naive.

I know the trouble we have in Sweden, trying to combat these opinions and preventing the far-right party in parliament from getting any influence over policy. How easy it would be if we could just dismiss them as lunatics and pretend they dont exist. But alas, real life is not like that at all.

[Tamas]

Mental pathology will always out one way or another.  A person whose emotional fulfillment depends on belonging to a long defunct medieval knightly order is going to have serious problems in any modern society, no matter how configured.  The notion that public policy should be calibrated in response to these kinds of pathologies is not one I accept.

Dont you think you are making this rather easy for yourself? This guy has opinions about immigration and islam that are shared by a not insignificant part of the population. His ideas are really not that far from the extreme-right/populist-political parties that hover around 5-20% of the votes, depending on which scandinavian country we are talking about.

To simply say that this is a result of a mental pathology, and that public policy should ignore it alltogether is rather...naive. I would even venture to say that such reasoning borders on the dangerously naive.

I know the trouble we have in Sweden, trying to combat these opinions and preventing the far-right party in parliament from getting any influence over policy. How easy it would be if we could just dismiss them as lunatics and pretend they dont exist. But alas, real life is not like that at all.

You really don't get it, do you, Hortlund?

[The Minsky Moment]

Dont you think you are making this rather easy for yourself? This guy has opinions about immigration and islam that are shared by a not insignificant part of the population. His ideas are really not that far from the extreme-right/populist-political parties that hover around 5-20% of the votes, depending on which scandinavian country we are talking about.

Well let's say that about 10% of Europeans support far right tendencies and parties.  That gives us about 40 million people.  I don't think there is much risk that 40 million people, if not dealt with either by chastisement and finger-wagging (the Pat solution) or appeasement (the Grallon/slargos solution) are likely to pick up rifles and start murdering their fellow citizens en masse.

What sets apart Breivik is not his general hostility to Islam or opposition to immigration, neither of which are that unusual, but rather the particular way he conceived of combatting these problems.  Obviously I am not a fan of the European far right, but that doesn't mean I am prepared to say that inherent in their political stance is a commitment to horrific violence.   the logic that says otherwise is the same logic that attacks environmentalism when the unabomber strikes, or socialism when the Red Brigades murder someone, or the concept of regional autonomy when ETA commits some atrocity.

[Norgy]

There are plenty of controversial issues that seem to lead to no extreme solutions at all. Tax policy creates a lot of debate but very few deaths. That may have to do with the lack of bloggers painting tax policy change as the salvation of Europe and that anyone who is opposed to tax cuts or tax hikes is a traitor.

[Jacob]

For the record, after 9/11, most of us spent an outrageous amount of time trying to find out what the hell Al-Qaeda and bin-Laden were for and against, and new, interesting phrases like "islamofascism" came out of it. Some of us tried to find explanations in models used to explain other types of behaviour, like economic marginalisation. It did help us increase our understanding of how Islamic extremism has come into existence. Most of us, at least I, had no idea who Sayeed Qutb was before 9/11. We knew very little about the politics of the Mujahedin. From this came an understanding that not all Moslems were jihadists. And I would strongly suggest we extend the same courtesy to immigration sceptics as well, maybe even the counterjihadists. Sharing some common ground with the terrorist does not make you a terrorist. It may, on the other hand, make you a moron. The least we can do is not to fall into the same trap as the counterjihadist community and start imagining "an enemy within" ourselves. These invisible enemies have a way of manifesting themselves that makes societies collectively do rather terrible things, be it murdering Kulaks, Jews or your Serb or Bosniak neighbour.

You know I think that's quite reasonable.

If after 9/11 you thought it worthwhile to examine the stated agenda of the terrorists as well as the cultural, economical and political pressures that brought the attack about; and you wanted to use that examination to help form your response - then it's very reasonable to use the same approach to ABB's actions.

Same with the inverse argument - if you wanted to dismiss any kind of analysis of motives beyond "they're the enemy and they hate us", there is no need to understand the roots of terror for 9/11 then I can understand a similar response to ABB.

It's the ones who have one response to one of the incident, but the opposite to the other I'm somewhat sceptical of.

So in view of that, I'll revise my position to saying that yes it is worthwhile to understand what ABB's complaints are and to understand the various pressures that caused him to act. That does mean examining what he said, though it doesn't mean taking it at face value. At the same time, it also means being vigilant against further attacks and putting the necessary resources into monitoring and controlling this threat vector that has proven itself more serious than previously thought. It also means not compromising on our basic values no matter how they may offend ABB or any other terrorist.

As for the whole "he's just a crazy guy, that was his motive so we don't need to consider anything else" - I'm not sure I buy it.

I expect that the 9/11 highjackers and other terrorists were crazy in similar ways. That does not mean that they, nor ABB, didn't have some complaints that were legitimately rooted in reality. Now, I think it's fair to choose to examine or choose not examine the merits of those complaints, but I don't think "they're just crazy" is an adequate explanation.

Similarly, while some of what caused these terrorists to act may in fact be a response to real issues, a fair bit of it is also a result of profound misunderstandings and thoroughly broken analytical framework. I can understand wanting to ignore the whole toxic thing, but I can also understand why someone might want to tease out what is actually based on actual issues - and whether it's possible to address them in a way that alleviates some of the pressure - and what is simply fantasy.

Personally, from what I can see ABB's framework is utterly perverse and I struggle to see where he points to anything that could be done better - but then, I'm not overly familiar with the situation in Norway.

[Jacob]

Nome is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petter_Nome

he among other things compared Bush to Hitler and is the far left multiculturalist that ABB hates.

Nome wrote

http://www.nyemeninger.no/alle_meninger/cat1003/subcat1040/thread162876/#post_162876

Sounds like a better comparison for Nome is someone like Glen Beck (who's already come out and called the murdered Norwegians "Hitler Jugend") than Bush.

A more fair comparison would be Bush to Stoltenberg.

[Malthus]

You know I think that's quite reasonable.

If after 9/11 you thought it worthwhile to examine the stated agenda of the terrorists as well as the cultural, economical and political pressures that brought the attack about; and you wanted to use that examination to help form your response - then it's very reasonable to use the same approach to ABB's actions.

Same with the inverse argument - if you wanted to dismiss any kind of analysis of motives beyond "they're the enemy and they hate us", there is no need to understand the roots of terror for 9/11 then I can understand a similar response to ABB.

It's the ones who have one response to one of the incident, but the opposite to the other I'm somewhat sceptical of.

The obvious difference between this guy and the 9/11 hijackers is that this guy, as far as anyone knows, acted alone like his hero the Unabomber and merely *fantasized* he was part of some mystic knights templar and the 9/11 hijackers *were*, in actuality, part of a group or movement.   

To the extent that mass murderers are motivated or directed by some organization, it is worthwhile to understand the hallmarks of that organization - as it enables their detection, and hopefully, arrest. If a mass murderer is motivated or directed by a fantasy organization that he invented himself, knowing the details of that fantasy - such as the exact degrees of initiation into that (non existant) knighthood - are simply fodder for the morbidly curious, or possibly psychiatrists.

One would hope that knowing more about lone-wolf killers would lead to their detection, but sadly this appears not to be the case - no-one knows what creates such people. Certainly it isn't the mere issues that they latch on to, since different ones choose completely different issues even when they are (as in this case) apparently inspired by each other - the Unibomber was "all about" neo-luddism and environmentalism, and could not, as far as I know, have cared less about immigration.

[Admiral Yi]

On a somewhat related note, interesting article in the last Atlantic about brain function and crime. 

The University of Texas gunman (the one mentioned in Full Metal Jacket) had a tumor in his frontal lobes and spoke and wrote repeatedly about his inability to control his own actions.

[The Minsky Moment]

There are plenty of controversial issues that seem to lead to no extreme solutions at all. Tax policy creates a lot of debate but very few deaths.

Cornwallis begs to differ.

[Norgy]

There are plenty of controversial issues that seem to lead to no extreme solutions at all. Tax policy creates a lot of debate but very few deaths.

Cornwallis begs to differ.

I was about to say "apart from the American revolution", but it seemed somewhat demeaning to compare it to terrorism. I am not Neil.

There are certainly issues that are hot and emotionally laden that do tend to lead to extreme measures. Ecology and environmentalism, abortion. Probably more.

[Malthus]

There are plenty of controversial issues that seem to lead to no extreme solutions at all. Tax policy creates a lot of debate but very few deaths.

Cornwallis begs to differ.

I was about to say "apart from the American revolution", but it seemed somewhat demeaning to compare it to terrorism. I am not Neil.

There are certainly issues that are hot and emotionally laden that do tend to lead to extreme measures. Ecology and environmentalism, abortion. Probably more.

In the US, taxes are a hot and emotional topic - see for example the "Tea Party".

[citizen k]

AP Exclusive: 'Knight Templar' says no Norway link

LONDON (AP) — A British right-wing blogger linked to the Norway gunman has confirmed the existence of an anti-Muslim group inspired by ancient crusaders that the killer claims he was a member of.

But in an interview with The Associated Press, the Briton denied Anders Behring Breivik belonged to his Knights Templar group and said he'd never heard of the Norwegian before the attacks.

Breivik said in his 1,500-page manifesto that he was mentored by a British man known as "Richard (the Lionhearted)" — and the leader of the far-right English Defense League has told AP that "Richard" is Paul Ray, author of the blog "Lionheart."

But Ray, who split with the EDL years ago, denied any connection to Breivik.

In a telephone interview from his home in Malta, Ray said he was not at a 2002 meeting in London which Breivik claims gave birth to a group called the Knights Templar of Europe, whose founders included himself and "Richard."

However, the 35-year-old Ray said he shares Breivik's views and has several apparent similarities with the "mentor" in the killer's manifesto, chiefly that he leads an anti-Muslim group called The Ancient Order of the Templar Knights. But Ray denied knowing Breivik and suggested the group had no formal structure. He refused to name any members or indicate how many it has.

"It's an idea," Ray said. "It's not like it's a massive organization. It's a belief."

But he denies he approved of Breivik's methods, which include killing innocents to draw attention to his philosophy.

"I'd like to express my deepest sympathy to the people of Norway and to the families who have lost children," Ray said. "It's a horrendous crime that has been committed by someone what goes beyond the realm of human understanding."

Breivik, 32, claims he committed Friday's massacre as the order's first blow in an apocalyptic war against Muslims, immigrants and leftists to prevent what he believes is an Islamic attempt to take over western Europe.

Ray said he fled England two years ago after being arrested for stirring up racial hatred, and settled in Malta. He plans to return next week to see his family even though he doesn't know if he will be arrested on outstanding charges.

"I'm willing to speak to anyone in authority and to be open about everything," he said.

Breivik has said the PCCTS, a Latin acronym for the Knights Templar, has several cells in Western countries and two more in Norway. In his manifesto, he claimed he sets the group's agenda.

"We have the right and a duty to temporarily seize political and military control of our country until all ... traitors have been hunted down and executed and all Muslims have been deported," he writes.

He also sought to detect links between the Knights Templar and the EDL: "I wonder sometimes if one of the EDL founders was one of the co-founders of PCCTS, I guess I'll never know for sure. EDL is a nonviolent protest organization though but I noticed they have copied a lot from the PCCTS."

The leader of the EDL, Stephen Lennon, said Tuesday he doesn't know Breivik and kicked Ray out shortly after the EDL was formed, on grounds he was bent on taking over the group with his own agenda.

Ray, who says he was born Paul Sonato but took his mother's maiden name, denied ever having heard of the Norwegian before Friday's massacres.

"Being implicated in this, I just want the truth to come out and it proven that I'm nothing whatever to do with this," Ray said.

Ray said the confessed killer appeared to have taken some of his ideas and used them as justification for his killing spree.

"This is getting bad. It's really pointing at us. All these things he's been talking about are linked to us," he said. "It's like he's created this whole thing around us."

Ray often shares views similar to Breivik's on his anti-Muslim blog, whose title is a reference to King Richard I of England, who led Christian crusades in the 12th century.

"My thoughts are the same as that Anders, that there is a threat to our way of life from Islam. I'm not going to say I don't think there is because I do," Ray said. "Me being a Christian, I do look towards the Templars throughout history and how they've defended us from the jihad."

The order, Ray said, was set up in response to "Muslims in our country (England) trying to take over our country. Let's not pretend it's not happening. They are actively declaring their vision to take our country over."

Ray's blog discussed establishing a Knights Templar order as far back as 2007: "Where are the 'original' Knights Templar's, Gods Army on Earth now, it is time you came out of the shadows and helped your fellow country men, the time of peace and security has passed."


Paisley Dodds contributed to this report from Luton, England.