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The NYT reports on the recent third-place election finish of the Norwegian Progress Party:
LONDON — A little more than two years after a far-right, anti-immigrant militant killed 77 people . . .
Anders Breivik, remember? Of course, Breivik quit Progress in disgust with democracy in general. But like the Oklahoma City bombing is the fault of Rush Limbaugh, Matthew Shepard was the fault of Focus on the Family, Gabrielle Giffords was the fault of Sarah Palin, and the FRC shooter was the fault of . . . OOPS, scratch that, Floyd Lee Corkins II was just a random gunman proving we need more gun control and had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the $PLC defamation, never mind the testimony of Corkins himself. The NYT rule is: the killers of favored classes are always products of un-favored classes, never the other way around.
Continuing . . .
The campaign had been centered largely on economic issues, like extending already generous welfare payments (Labor) versus cutting taxes and privatizing hospitals (Conservatives). But the massacre on the island of Utoya, where Anders Behring Breivik attacked youth members of the Labor Party on July 22, 2011, was never far from the surface.
In support of which assertion, the NYT musters exactly zero evidence.
Contrast this with this Financial Times article (warning: free subscription required), which quotes multiple Labor Party members disavowing any connection between Breivik and Progress. Apparently, the Norwegians haven’t read the NYT playbook, and prefer, you know, honesty.
Which is somewhat ironic. I can’t speak for Progress, which in any case is run by timid incrementalists. But amid all the bogus connections asserted by the NYT, Breivik is the one monster who more-or-less reflects my view of the world.
Don’t misunderstand me: Breivik is evil. Indeed, pound for pound, he might be as evil as his intended victims, the would-be murderers of the Norwegian nation. And for the $PLC stooges looking to expand their blacklist: no, I won’t be following in his footsteps. I’m too old. And too married, too Christian, too comfortable in my little bourgeois life. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand the appeal of hoisting the Jolly Roger.
In summary, I guess I’d put Breivik in the same moral category with lesbians: wrong. But I kind of get it.
3 comments:
I'm curious, why would you call him "evil"? Unless you are willing to call ALL soldiers evil? According to his own framework, he was just a soldier. I mean, literally, he even created his own army, down to banners, slogans, ranks, and such.
Because he shot 77 defenseless people without quarter.
Eh, I guess I'm kind of jaded. The US firebombed entire cities of defenseless people, multiple times. I guess 77 defenseless people is a tragedy, hundreds of thousands of defenseless people is just a statistic. I'd say he was ruthlessly efficient in his targeting of enemy combatants. No more evil than any other military planner.
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