A JW comments thread concerning the Breivik issue, but also devolving into copious examples of the irrationality of Kinana of Khaybar and awake
From a Jihad Watch comments thread approximately two years ago:
posted by Hesperado at 5:50 PM
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Well, this surprises me not at all. I’ve long pointed out that Breivik has already said that he *was willing to work with Jihadists*.
And yet, vicious idiots have been all to happy to not only characterize the appalling child-killer Breivik as an Anti-Jihdist, but as *the very model of Anti-Jihad*.
More:
Breivik says he was inspired by al-Qaeda. All you sick Islamic supremacists and Leftists who blamed me for him can leave your apologies in the comments field below.
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**Yes**. Of course, no one will be holding their breath here…
I have no idea what non-Muslims should do, then. When push comes to shove, what should we do to defend ourselves?
Fanatic narcissist – including paranoid features. An individual whose self-esteem was severely arrested during childhood, who usually displays major paranoid tendencies, and who holds on to an illusion of omnipotence. These people are fighting delusions of insignificance and lost value, and trying to re-establish their self-esteem through grandiose fantasies and self-reinforcement. When unable to gain recognition or support from others, they take on the role of a heroic or worshipped person with a grandiose mission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder#Millon.27s_subtypes
Here’s Breivik doing the socialist salute http://bit.ly/HIg7Yt. Typical leftist.
And the left, just like they did with their socialist comrades Hitler and Mussolini, are trying to portray Breivik as a “super ultra hiper mega arch right winger”; So, if Breivik is a leftist then why did he fought his comrades? well, even in the best families and relationships there’s bound to be trouble http://j.mp/HImwmx. Tsk, tsk, tsk…. don’t deny your comrades!.
With all due respect, Robert, I don’t believe Breivik is insane. I’m not a professional but from observations and information available I think Breivik’s wild plan was borne of desperation and a sense of impotence.
He’s smart enough to have planned and carried out this attack, he’s also smart enough to aim the cross-hairs of negative publicity during the trial at corrupt politicians and islam.
I’ve noticed that Robert sometimes makes the point that there is no credible way to distinguish between a socalled moderate muslim and a violent jihadist – hence the tragic cases from Iraq and Afghanistan where western soldiers have been killed by local soldiers who were supposed to be on their side.
I actually agree with that point, it’s just ironic that if you are against Islam, you have exactly the same problem, as the Breivik-case illustrates. I don’t blame ordinary people out there for being confused, and not really trusting anti-jihadists like us here. Nor do I blame them for being hesitant about getting personally involved; Who would want to be part of something if you aren’t sure about what kind of people you are getting in bed with?
For me it’s just too easy to say that Breivik “got his inspiration from Al-Quaida and militants Islamists”. Off course he will say that, he is doing what ever he can to damage Islam. But lets not forget he wrote a CRUSADER MANIFESTO, filled with citations from many sources that are well know to us here in the, shall we say, sane part of the anti-jihadist camp.
So let’s be honest about this; Yeah, he’s a nutcase, but one that got inspired by much of what we have been saying here.
For a long time I considered joining this “movement” (for lack of a better word), but I ended up deciding not to do it. It’s a real problem that exactly the same words and rhetoric is both being used by sensible people – like f.ex. Robert Spencer – and by people with an agenda that in some ways is the total opposite.
It completely obfuscates what this struggle is all about. And – I hate to say this but I feel compelled to – it threatens to destroy our possibilities for succes.
Indeed, they have already won – the Republican Party of today has the same political program as Kennedy’s Democrats. Give it a couple of decades of left-wing indoctrination, and Obama will suddenly appear as a conservative in retrospect.
Indeed, Robert …but I wouldn’t count on it; since they are too proud to do the right thing.
Nobody at the CBC has ever called Klein to the carpet for Ander’s letter that named her as an inspiration, but NOOOOOO….the CBC and MSM jumps on Robert and Pam to paint them as the villians and muslims as victims of islamophobia.
But , no muslims die and yet Hooper tied it to the USA and issued his usual “Secruity” alert for mosques for fear of backlash that never seems to come.
http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/2792-shamanism-approved-as-a-religion-in-norway
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It was clearly twisted – right from the start.
For Breivik to state the obvious – that it was an Al Qaeda style attack. Clears the air ~
Almost makes you feel sorry for the Muslims – because even the guy who is supposedly acting against – Islam – was inspired by Islamic radicals!!
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If you take a universal look at it – it is just not Islam’s time.
Like Robert said, the “counter-jihad struggle [is] for equal justice and the human rights of all people.”
And Islam doesn’t stand for this – it wants to see a world where justice and rights are determined by and/or dependant upon respect for Islam.
Simply put the river is flowing in the other direction. The energy needed to hold Islam in place – in that order – is counter-productive.
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Every time there is an effort to go after those who dare speak out on Islam – it backfires. The Breivik case would have set the ground for a malicious assault – which is already coming unravelled.
There are two main problems with this line.
1. There is no evidence–except perhaps a tiny number of apparently unhinged internet commenters here or there–that anyone in the counter-jihad movement actually came to that violent conclusion. There are of course violent fanatics around the fringes of many groups, but there is no evidence that there are higher percentages of such violent fringe characters among right-wingers. Indeed, in Europe, most of the violent fanatics are Muslims or are on the far left.
2. The ideology that Breivik advocated, to the extent that we can glean it from the small percentage of text in his “manifesto” “compendium” that actually consists of his own words (in addition to subsequent statements made in court appearances, etc.), is contrary to mainstream counter-jihad views in major respects. Breivik’s goal was not to create, maintain, or defend a free western society as most of us would envision it. Rather, Breivik’s goal was simply to impose a different kind of brutal totalitarian society, with an official state religion (Christianity) and in which members would be forced to convert to Christianity. (I’ve been following various counter-jihad sites for several years, and I’ve never come across anyone who has advocated forcing all Westerners to convert to Christianity; Breivik’s statement in his manifesto is the only example of this I’ve seen). He also advocated the execution or killing of huge numbers of various people he called traitors, and basically “traitors” were in his view those who disagreed with him on his major plans and goals, not just leftists or pro-Islamic types. He advocated a civil war that would be massively destructive to western society. It was clear to me from reading his views in his manifesto that Breivik does not support freedom of expression or freedom of conscience–two of the cornerstones of free Western civilizations, not to mention key values championed by the counter-jihad movement. He was inspired by various sources, including Al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorist groups, which focus on targeting and killing innocent civilians. Again, this runs contrary to the counter-jihad/ anti-Islamization movements, which are focused on defending the safety and security of civilians.
In short, Breivik’s ideology is not the same as the ideology of most of the counter-jihad/ anti-Islamization movement.
As I posted before, which was studiously ignored by the so-called thinking elite, is Ahmedinejad a madman for threatening to eliminate Israel? This is what he believes and he is proud to share it. Are the Palestinians insane for targetting children. What about the tens of thousands of Jihadists that eagerly follow the rightly guided course to martyrdom? Are they all mad, because if they are then we must assume we are sane. Well then, let’s examine that egotistical hypothesis…
We, the West, our media and leaders, our freedoms, values and principles, are under siege by the Jihad and ultimately Sharia. Muslims from all walks of life tell us time and again in sincere, unminced words, what we should expect for our future generations, and what we should expect along the path to that illumination. And each time our best response is the collective consolation of calling them mad, which allows us to sleep easy at night.
Try again, who is it that’s really mad?
Is Robert being sarcastic? Anyway, I think that all muslims are “insane” for choosing to follow a hard-core criminal like muhammad. I mean who in their right mind would follow such an evil man? Yeah all muslims are insane, as far as I’m concerned.
Read them all carefully, and demonstrate that you have read them carefully with a cogent counter-argument — then you may emotionally browbeat me to your heart’s content.
Yes Champ, it’s likely that’s the thread KK was referring to. Re-reading it brought on the sensation not unlike the vague distaste of reflux from heartburn, so thanks a lot…
You are correct, I already told KK in that old thread that his allegation against me was false as far as my memory went; so apparently, he just forges ahead with his unfounded convictions, unfazed by actual facts and arguments.
I also found quite interesting something I’d completely forgotten — actually two closely related things:
1) After Spirit Wolf typed and published her remarks which KK found unacceptable and deserving of deletion (and perhaps of a banning of Spirit Wolf), the very well-known commenter dumbledoresarmy greeted Spirit Wolf warmly, then lectured me (while ignoring KK’s confrontation of Spirit Wolf) on how great Spirit Wolf is — meanwhile KK fixates largely on me, though at one point he addresses his concerns to both me and dumbledoresarmy. Furthermore, dubmeldores army, after greeting Spirit Wolf warmly, proceeds to elaborate a very good point about how the medieval Christians treated the Mohammedan hordes with no quarter — obviously an oblique reference (if not justification) of Spirit Wolf’s excessive language. I can find nothing on that thread by me endorsing Spirit Wolf. It’s odd that KK chose to copy/paste Spirit Wolf but not my comment upon which he spent (and continues to spend) so much energy. I’d love to know what I wrote. Unfortunately, it was apparently deleted (which doesn’t necessarily mean it deserved to be deleted).
2) I notice that, as seems usual under similar circumstances, dumbledoresarmy just fell silent after KK challenged her (and me, together) and remained silent while KK went on and on for the remainder of the very long thread.
It was, however, refreshing to read another poster I’d forgotten about (and don’t really remember at all, frankly), one “dalaran” and see his smart and incisive responses to KK’s thwacktwiddle.
And on that note I can also thank Allah for small favors…
So it comes as quite a surprise to learn that Spirit Wolf is, as we must conclude by our JW Arbiter on What is Permissible and What is Not (KK) a genocidal maniac unfit for polite society. Who woulda thunk?
And whatever happened to dalaran, who manned the KK bastions so well on that thread? Seems like so many good posters disappear, and one wonders how many of them have been mangled unceremoniously underfoot by the banning gears, ratted out behind the scenes by those who are ever “awake” to what’s not good for Ze Party?
“If a Westerner is beheaded by Muslims, then the country whose citizen it was should scoop up 100 Muslims living within its borders, and send their heads back to the offending country or group.
If a Muslim even damages a building in the West, or owned by Western interests, one of their cities gets firebombed so that it is obliviated, completely. Ensure no survivors.”
Additional recommendations along the same lines were included in the comment.
Here is Hesperado’s endorsement:
“I think Spirit Wolf is on the right track; and I must say I am a bit surprised his or her comment was not deleted.”
Hesperado knew what he endorsed.
After that, Spirit Wolf and Hesperado’s comments in question were deleted by Jihadwatch following my complaint. However, later, when I took Spirit Wolf to task over this, she reaffirmed her view that she was clearly intending that Muslim civilians be killed, mocked the idea of Muslim civilians, and so on. I then brought this to the attention of Jihadwatch, and they saw fit to ban Spirit Wolf. I suspect Hesperado escaped being banned on that particular occasion because he denied remembering or knowing what he’d endorsed.
In a later incident, he was banned for claiming that Muslims were not human.
Here is what Champ wrote:
“Genocidal comments should be deleted, along with anything promoting vigilantism — or that encourage returning evil for evil. The last thing we want to become is like our enemy: islam & company.
I’m not taking sides, I’m just sayin’ … :)”
Anyways, enough time has been spent on this. I am going to be contacting Jihadwatch about the fact that Hesperado has been posting again after being banned for saying Muslims are not human.
Irony of ironies! Here is a man who took one exchange from one comment thread six or seven years ago and represented it repeatedly and persistently in a wide variety of forums as the guiding philosophy of all my work, persistently misrepresenting it in the middle of the fiercest ad hominem attacks.
Hoisted by his own petard, is Hesperado.
RS
Thanks for taking the time to read my essays.
“You seem to be criticizing those in the West who consider PC/MC a threat…”
Not at all. I am in those essays criticizing not those concerned with the problem of PC/MC, but rather those who magnify and distort the problem of PC/MC into a threat of “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” who are on an emergency level “destroying” our civilization.
“… and posit that this position leads “logically” to actions such as those of Breivik.”
The latter can lead logically to Breivik’s actions, insofar as he took the lurid hyperbole of an emergency of the destruction of the West by certain Westerners seriously; the former not.
“And yet, you have certainly made such criticisms yourself, often quite emphatically.”
a) I criticize PC/MC as a long slow process of shift in worldview
b) I have repeatedly remarked that part of what makes PC/MC problematic is that it has a lot of good in it, that it reflects an excess of our Western virtues: it does not reflect a “desruction” of Western values, but a curious morphing of them in a phase that is part of its ongoing progress.
c) I’ve never couched the problem of PC/MC in terms of an emergency — in fact, I have often said it will take a slow stillicide to wear down, and that like fashions change over time, it too will go out of fashion. My main concern has been that the slower the rate of change is, the more likely there will be more successful terror attacks in the meantime, while we take our sweet time waking up. Sure, it would be nice to speed it up, but going around massascring Leftists is not the way to do that. What I have advocated repeatedly and copiously is simply the communication and repetition of certain memes, in the hopes that they grow in our society — just as it took nearly a century for the Abolition movement or the Women’s Suffragette movement to really see concrete results in sociopolitical change, through the long process of people calling for change, communicating change, writing and in the marketplace of free ideas agitating for change. But such a process of a shift in sociiopolitical cultural climate is not going to happen if nobody even begins to think its seminal ideas, and rather actually persists in resisting it (viz., the idea of the management of the problem of Islam by deporting Muslims).
“Indeed, when faced with the spectre of kids on Utøya Island walking up to Breivik and attempting to “reason” with him—or assuming the massacre was some sort of piece of street theatre ‘commenting on the state of things in Gaza’—while Breivik was *gunning them down* presents the grimmest possible example of a credo which is quite literally suicidal.”
Those kids walking up to Breivik are kids who believe Muslims are good and need to be respected and embraced and dialogued with — precisely the types of people that infuriates most in the anti-Islam movement. Those kids were not merely PC/MC — they and the entire project on Utoya were flaming Leftists — precisely the agents of the “destruction” of Western civilization which so exercises the people I mention in my essays (Fjordman, Auster, et al.). If Breivik were really pro-Muslim, he would have mass-murdered an anti-Jihad rally or a pro-Israel organization.
“I know that when you first began posting here again as LemonLime, that you often assumed the position of a Jihadist or a wishy-washy leftist to make a point.”
It’s called dry sarcasm. I guess I made the mistake of assuming a certain level of education and worldliness among the readership here, who don’t need a /sarc tag in case some bit of sarcasm or satire is a tad too subtle.
“It might provide a boost for the ego to assume that the people you are corresponding with are simply too dense to grasp your position, but it certainly doesn’t help you get your message out.
There’s something to be said for clarity.”
There’s also something to be said for a variety of flavors, rather than one monolithic style. This is a broad, long-lasting process we are involved in; it’s good to have all types. Bring on the direct no-nonsense guys; and bring on the subtler craftier types. The wider pallette catches the early goose — or whatever that old saw was.
“I have absolutely no desire to “emotionally browbeat” you, and even less to commit calumny against you.”
I appreciate that. I was just saying, if one does, then have at it with my full support — as long as one a) reads carefully my source whence I derive my position and b) uses that careful reading for a counter-argument.
“It would greatly help if you made your position here clear, though.”
I’m sorry my exhaustive essays which you read didn’t accomplish that for you. You still have not indicated precisely how, and where, in those essays you came to be confused and to draw the tentative conclusions you did about me (e.g., “You seem to be criticizing those in the West who consider PC/MC a threat…” — it would be nice if you could supply quotes to substantiate this seeming impression you got).
you wrote:
“…then, that you would consider what you wrote publically about me and LL disgusting, as well? If so, then I would appreciate a public apology.”
That comment was deleted by the adminstrators and I was warned as I publicly stated, and as you already know. A public apology will not come, so don’t wait for it.
That said, that comment and my argument, albeit crudely put forth, still stands in sentiment, but that is completely different from a threat to post private email exchanges, which I maintain will inevitably hurt you far more than me, so knock it off.
Of course I do not want to discuss them. No one wants to read them, they have no place here, and you are out of line for persisting in a discussion in that vein.
By the way, “Kinana” has an unanswered question still posed to you.
“Hey I don’t want to fight with you; in fact, I would prefer it if you never addressed me ever again. I think it would be best for all if you could agree to those terms. Can you?”
Fair enough, but there is a caveat. When you put a public comment up at JW, it is suspect and subject to public scrutiny, not just by me, but by anyone and everyone here.
Why would I grant you public immunity here at JW, when I have afforded none, and none has been afforded to me by anyone else?
You have lied with dogs and now you have fleas. That’s not anyone’s fault but you own. You have publicly aligned yourself with the definitive anti-Spencer on Spencer’s own site, and you do so routinely. Did Robert ever get back to you on your request on this thread? I doubt it.
If you can adequately answer that question, why a special deal between us, is warranted, I will agree, but ONLY if you answer “Kinans’s” direct question on this thread.
That’s the best I can do…
If not, my answer is no.
“It is understandable then that Hesperado thinks Spirit Wolf/ Dalaran is “on the right track.” All Spirit Wolf/ Dalaran would have to do now, to meet Hesperado’s full approval (if that’s possible), is graduate fully to Hesperado’s “epiphany” position that Muslims are “not human”.”
Nicely done again “Kinana”. Hesperado’s genocidal tendencies against any and all Muslims is well-documeted. There really is no reason to continue to put forth Hesperado’s position, nor that of the sole, other person who support him on this thread.
Hesperado has adequately proven himself as unworthy to be taken seriously to date.
So, if I’m to review what’s transpired, I’ll either have to take a couple of valiums or, better yet, put on Chansons douces by Henri Salvador, to calm my nerves.
Right! Over the hill!
So, now for another Henri Salvador album, Salvador s’amuse (“Salvador amuses himself”). Particularly apropos, somehow, of the crap flying high above my head in this thread like brown snow flurries as I type here, threatening to sink and settle down on my lapels before I get the hell outta here, is the very first song: Faut rigoler (loose translation: “You just gotta laugh”).
I’ll try to fall asleep now, counting deported Muslims….
We begin with an apparent Auster supporter “John Dempsey”, who writes:
“It seems that he puts you and others (Fjordman, El Ingles, Conservative Swede, Baron Bodissey) that speak truth about Leftism into the same category as Breivik.”
No, I don’t put them into “the same” category. Have these people no sense of distinctions for God’s sake?
His cherrypicked quote of me –
“The only difference is that Breivik actually wanted to do something concrete against this dire emergency; rather than sit around and blog about it.�
– conveniently leaves out what followed that I wrote:
“When these bloggers I named use language recklessly about an emergency-level threat of civilizational destruction from “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” not only making us dangerously vulnerable to the invasion of Islam but also rotting us from within culturally, they can hardly be exculpated just because they failed to put their irresponsibly lurid hyperbole into the action which logically flows from their feverish rhetoric.”
When action “logically flows” from rhetoric, it does not necessarily mean that the rhetoricians in question a) approve of the action; nor that they are b) “the same” in every respect as the one who did the action. What the phrase does mean is that there is a discernible continuity which should be acknowledged, and not swept under the rug with childish denial. Once it is acknowledged, a rational distinction can be made (if one wants to do so, that is) between the ideology of the rhetoric on the one hand, and the ideology of the one who did the action (if Breivik even actually has an ideology, which is dubious). But such a distinction rings hollow as long as that initial acknowledgement is persistently, and childishly, denied, as though the Emperor Has No Clothes.
Now we get to Auster.
First, he simplifies my argument as an Either/Or, which implies the same “sameness” John Dempsey assumed I maintained between Breivik and these Emergency Bloggers.
“This is the liberal vision. These are the two moral alternatives liberalism gives us. Either you believe that all people are the equal, the same, and to be merged in the same society, or you want to mass-murder all groups different from your own. Either you’re a liberal, or you’re a Nazi.”
Nope, Auster. There are more choices. Such as the gradation you (and the other Emergency Bloggers I named) exemplify (not including Spencer and Geller, who exemplify yet another gradation: see, life isn’t Black and White) — which should be clear from my argument.
Auster also wrote:
“I didn’t realize that his [my] refutation of Spencer’s statement …was actually part of his larger argument that Breivik represents a coherent philosophy…”
I never argued that Breivik represents a coherent philosophy. In fact, if one actually reads me, I do not discuss Breivik’s philosophy at all, and actually refer to the philosophy of the Emergency Bloggers as incoherent, not coherent.
“We Islam critics are different from Breivik only in that he is a consistent believer in the Islam-critical belief system, which he carries out to its logical conclusion…”
Carrying a belief out to its logical conclusion does not mean that belief is coherent; nor does it mean that the one carrying it to the logical conclusion understands it as a philosopher (how could he, if it’s incoherent?). It’s simply a matter of someone shouting “House on fire!” and someone else taking an axe to destroy the walls of the house and douse it in water. When it’s concluded that the house wasn’t quite on fire, the one who shouted “House on fire!” says “I had nothing to do with that maniac who took an axe and water to the house and in effect tried to destroy it!” That would be the disingenuous response.
The Emergency Bloggers (Auster, Fjordman, El Ingles, Baron Bodissey, Dymphna, et al.) are shouting “House on fire!” — and Breivik took an axe and water to the house. Now all the Emergency Bloggers are saying — “Well, I didn’t mean it was on fire in that way, silly!”
And Auster calls me a fool.
Hesperado has failed to provide–and indeed has not yet attempted–an actual argument to support his allegations that Spencer, Bat Ye’or, Fjordman, Auster, Baron Bodissey, et al., are culpable for Breivik’s attacks.
Meanwhile, Hesperado’s own fevered rhetoric far exceeds anything stated by his accused.
Kinana in his answer to you continues to make assumptions about what I say and mean, without consulting what I have written, then without demonstrating, with quotes from what I have written, in the context of an actual argument, that his assumptions are cogent. Absent this, he is just making claims out of thin air.
And the assumptions and claims he makes about me are not harmless matters of intellectual disagreement: they are hostile and inflammatory and slanderous and repeated over and over many times throughout this thread. And on top of that, he refuses to answer my challenges to frame his charges in a rational manner.
gravenimage, you have nothing to say about Kinana’s manner in this thread? I have shown this thread to an intelligent reader who has read JW for years and has participated in comments now and then, and she finds Kinana’s behavior outrageous. Other than her, and Champ, I may think I’m in some Orwellian Alice in Wonderland.
Why are you being so hostile to me? Did I piss on your mother’s grave or something? I demand an answer from you. We were once friends of a sort. Now you treat me like shit — worse than shit.
Kinana has failed to answer my challenge which I posted above on April 19 at 3:57 PM:
1) Show me where on my blog I “blamed Bat Ye’or for Breivik”.
2)
a) Describe what it means to “blame X for Breivik”
b) Demonstrate how on my blog I did 2a.
(Note: #1 includes #2 for anyone versed in elementary counter-argument; but I adverted to it explicitly, just to give you a refresher, as apparently it seems you need one.)
______________________
I misspoke when I implied that what Kinana needed to do was supply a “counter-argument”. My challenge is not referring to an “argument” at all. It is referring to Kinana’s claim of what is contained in my essay. He claims I “blame Bat Ye’or for Breivik”. He needs to substantiate that claim, by doing at the very least what I describe above in #1 and #2 of my challenge. In doing so, he would have to construct an argument — for any substantiation of a claim requires at least that.
He won’t do this, of course. But the record should be set straight and the truth of the matter clarified for posterity, if nothing else.
Thanks again for reading me, and commenting thoroughly. I’m not yet finished reading your comment, but wanted to respond to this part:
Again, I’m afraid I cannot speak authoritatively on this point, since I’m not sure how ‘luridly hyperbolic’ these comments actually get. I cannot imagine the actions of Breivik were something they were actually calling for, though, from what I *do* know of their work.
First, the point is, they do use lurid hyperbole, and their use of it in juxtaposition to their attempts to distance themselves from Breivik’s murderousness in my estimation reveals them to be incoherent. They should either dial down their hyperbolic rhetoric, or they should avow an ideological kinship with Breivik. But they can’t have it both ways, it seems to me. I’d love to see an argument defending how someone can have it both ways.
An example of the lurid hyperbole from Auster: He writes of the “Western suicide… that has us in a death grip”. On the same day Auster wrote that, in another of his articles in the comments section, an Auster reader (“Dean Ericson”) whom Auster does nothing to correct (and Auster is always sure to correct a reader if he thinks he or she is wrong about something), expands on this idea in relation to Breivik:
“They [i.e., the evil liberals in the form of the mainstream media through one of its many tentacles, in this case, the Daily Mail] have to paint [Breivik] as insane because if he isn’t insane then they would have to take seriously the reasons Breivik gives in his manifesto: that the treasonous Norwegian leftist elite is implementing a program of genocide against its own people. It’s unthinkable for the leftist establishment to countenance such a claim, so Breivik must be insane. Just like the old Soviet Union, where opposition to socialism was prima facie evidence of insanity.”
Thus we have a description of the current West as in the “death grip” of an evil elite bent on its destruction and “implementing a program of genocide against [our] own people”. You can’t get much more urgently alarming than that, for God’s sake.
Either Auster and his approving reader are murdering the English language, or they support the murder of those Leftists whom Breivik literally murdered — but they can’t have it both ways.
As I said on my blog,
Auster’s attempt to dissociate himself from ostensible conspirary theory about the currvent West’s evil (viz., he writes that “[i]t is not some sinister external force (e.g., Cultural Relativism, Multiculturalism, the Frankfurt School…”) is not only disingenuous, it is incoherent when in another recent post he makes inflammatory and hyperbolic statements like the following: “…the Norwegian Labour Party are active supporters and allies of terrorists…”
If we are supposed to defend our societies with deadly force against Muslim terrorists, then surely we need to do the same against those in our society who, according to Auster “…are active supporters and allies of terrorists…”
As for Fjordman, I wrote:
in June of this year, Fjordman in a piece published at Gates of Vienna described the UK as:
…a Western government virtually launching a full-front attack to crush its own people ….[whose] acts could be construed as a policy of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing targeting the white majority population. .
I mean, come on. This isn’t lurid hyperbole!?
More from Fjordman:
…the authorities in all Western countries without exception themselves follow similar, deliberate policies of dispossessing Europeans and therefore see nothing wrong in what the British government did.
Fjordman goes on to note the kinds of atrocities this “policy of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing” by Western governments against their own people includes:
Also in Britain, immigrant gangs, especially Muslims, of sexual predators have exploited and abused hundreds of girls as young as 12 — usually white — who are plied with drink and drugs and then raped, abused and degraded.
And, of course, that is only one of many atrocities against Western people which the modern Western “Elites” are willfully, consciously and wickedly enabling (which the title of his essay boldly describes as “treason”) while colluding with Muslims. What is most peculiar, then, is Fjordman’s baffled, bewildered and beleaguered reaction to those who connect him to Breivik in terms of a shared ideology. There’s no mystery here: both he and Breivik believed the Western intelligentsia are destroying the West.
Fjordman apparently believed the only thing to do about this Red Alert Emergency was to sit back and blog about the central representatives of that evil intelligentsia who are wickedly fomenting this Red Alert Emergency and who, indeed, are described in the title of his essay — “When Treason Becomes The Norm: Why The Proposition Nation, Not Islam, Is Our Primary Enemy” — as the real enemy worse than Muslims; Breivik simply went further and believed, putting Fjordman’s implicit logical conclusion into unremarkably logical practice, that he had to go out and fight and kill this most wicked and dire enemy of the West.
Again, I maintain that such “Emergency Bloggers” either need to dial down their rhetoric, or stop acting so surprised at Breivik.
Breivik’s Law in Action
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-post.html
I’ve finished reading your long post, and I appreciate you taking the time to do so. I hope your headache’s better
I’m in agreement with pretty much everything else you wrote. I just finally wanted to comment on one thing you said:
If your essays are not clear to me on these points, the fault may indeed lie in myself as a reader. On the other hand—with respect—I believe you are at times too clever by half, and then rather revel in the role of being misunderstood. As I noted, there really is something to be said for clarity.
I may be mistaken about this sometimes, but it seems to me some of these issues are inherently complex, and nothing short of complex articulation does them justice, which simply requires a whole lot of ink and reading to comprehend.
An example of the lurid hyperbole from Auster: He writes of the “Western suicide… that has us in a death grip”.
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It occurred to me yesterday, LemomLime, after I generally agreed with you about the nature of PC/MC, that I had only addressed one aspect of it.
A couple of years ago I went into some depth on the subject—alas, I haven’t been able to find that comment in the archives.
Broadly speaking, though, from my observations there are at least three levels of leftist “political correctness”. The first is the one we were discussing, above—that of those who are basically well-meaning if frequently naïve people, who believe in equality and fairness and have convinced themselves that everyone else in the world is essentially like themselves, and that Islam is not really a serious threat, because most Muslims are just like them.
The second group—much smaller than the first—believes that the main evil in the world is the West—these are the people who are constantly screaming about “colonialism” and endlessly harping on the shortcomings—real and imagined—of the West. Curiously, despite their claims of “multiculturalism”, these people are myopically focused on the West, and believe that nothing else, really, could possibly be worse. So—Islam cannot really be worse than, say, the Republicans.
The third group is much smaller yet. They actually do understand that ideologies such as Islam present a real danger to the West, but their hatred of the West is so pervasive that they *don’t care* if the West falls—in fact, they seek it out.
I believe the beliefs and aims of this last group is what draws what you deem “lurid hyperbole”. As I see it, this group *does* exist, and *does* represent a threat to the West—but given its small size, probably not overall a very serious threat. Even most leftists don’t agree with them.
More:
If we are supposed to defend our societies with deadly force against Muslim terrorists, then surely we need to do the same against those in our society who, according to Auster “…are active supporters and allies of terrorists…”
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True. Again, I believe what I wrote above explains some of this. It is easy for some critics to conflate foolish policies of, say, immigration which might lead to problems for the West with an intentional, deliberate, and carefully planned policy *intended* to harm or even destroy the West.
I believe this explains the examples you noted of Fjordman’s, as well.
But yes—assuming that every misstep made by the frequently clueless West is an active evil creates problems of its own. Not only is it inaccurate, but attributing active evil to the naïve means you consider them uneducable, and they become enemies rather than potential allies.
Thank you for your lengthy replies, LemomLime. You have certainly clarified a lot of points for me—thanks for taking the time to do so.
Please let me know what you think of my analysis.
I pretty much concur with Gravenimage’s assessment of this thread – wading through it gave *me* a headache, too.
Three things for Hesperado to bear in mind.
First: one poster’s praising another poster does not necessarily mean that the poster endorses and agrees with *every last detail* of what someone says on that occasion, or with everything that the poster has said on every other occasion.
Every regular in this thread who has made postings which I have liked, sometimes kept copies of, and sometimes explicitly praised in a posting. Does that mean I think exactly the same way as those posters on every other topic that may come up, or that I agree with or approve of *everything* they have ever said anywhere? No. Probably the person with whom I have the closest affinity and least disagreement, on an ordinary level, is Gravenimage, because we correspond outside of jihadwatch and I am familiar with (and admire) what she does outside of her consistently illuminating analyses and commentary here. And she knows the world of things I’m interested in that have nothing to do with the counter-jihad movement.
The flip side of this is that there are few posters here with whom I have not, at some point or another, *disagreed* about something. Again, that doesn’t mean I disagree with them about everything.
Note: if I (or anyone else) doesn’t post in a thread, no conclusions can or should be drawn. There is no rule that says everybody has to comment on everything, or that everyone has to state their agreement or disagreement with every single posting made in a thread. Even in the intensedebate days, you couldn’t know *which posters* had clicked a comment ‘up’ or ‘down’.
Second point: Hesperado over-analyses poster behaviour at times. The fact that I ‘fall silent’ in a given thread and don’t reappear there after a given point may not mean that I have been ‘silenced’ by being refuted, or confused, or triumphantly driven away, or whatever.
The explanation may be much more mundane: I may in a given thread make a posting, simply feel I have said all I wanted to say in that discussion, and not be all that concerned with going back to it. I may choose to go on to newer threads, dismissing the ‘old’ discussion/s from my mind and perhaps even – shock, horror! these things happen, FORGETTING about it altogether; or else get up and go catch up with the housework or read a book or do something with the family (such as going shopping or going to church) and then, on coming back to the computer desk, take up the ‘leading edge’ of the newest news items rather than go back to an old thread.
I do quite often stroll back through the archives, but this is not usually to revisit and participate in ‘old’ discussions unless there is a particularly egregious mohammedtroll trying to get in the last word so as to confuse or mislead new readers; I find it entertaining to thwart such creatures by seeing whether I can give the Counter-Jihad the last word instead. Once or twice, wandering back through the labyrinth has enabled me to flag and bring about the removal of comment ‘stink-bombs’ that had been carefully laid at the ends of long-dead threads by obvious agents provocateurs. And once or twice I’ve come across interesting *new* postings – not part of any side discussion or spat that happened in the thread when it was first getting going, but in direct response to the main news story – by new readers or regulars who had simply come in late. It’s the possibility of coming across *that* sort of ‘late’ posting that makes me go back into the archives regularly, more so than the ‘security’ or ‘thwart the trolls’ motive.
Third point: people make mistakes (and don’t always realize it) and people change and grow. What a poster said five years ago may not necessarily reflect where that poster is now (I am speaking generally).
Let’s all try to cut each other a bit of slack. We are not testifying in a court of law, nor are we writing essays for submission to the University examiner. The schooling in this virtual Hedge School/ pub/ club/ coffee shop of the Resistance to Jihad is ad hoc and largely informal and proceeds in fits and starts. All of us could do with remembering the unfashionable virtues of patience, humility and charity.
And now I am going to go cook dinner. I may come back to this thread; or again, I may not.
Breivik is a fascist, fascism is a socialist ideology, socialism is a leftist dogmata.
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Yeah…to a point. But remember, “Nazi” is short for “National Socialist”. Fascism and hard-core Communism are virtually one and the same—both brutal totalitarian creeds.
I don’t think we need to spend a lot of time on how to characterize murderous creeps like Anders Breivik.
And, as this article shows, Islam is not much different. The term “Islamo-Fascist” has not been used much for the last couple of years—but it is hardly inaccurate.
I think Breivik is to some extent insane, but I’m not in a position, nor do I have the specialized clinical training, to evaluate him properly.* Those professionals who were in such a position, initially, found him to be insane. The Norwegian authorities didn’t like this outcome, so they ordered another evaluation, which found him to be sane.
*I got the impression he was at least somewhat crazy, not only by his actions (e.g., reportedly, laughing while killing the youths at the political retreat), but by aspects of his manifesto (i.e., the small percentage of it that was apparently in his own words and not simply paste-in and/or modified texts written by others). The writings that appear to be Breivik’s are incoherent in many respects. There is some pretty clearly crazy stuff in there, such as where he recommends that “Templar Knights” should in some circumstances castrate themselves. Of course, it is difficult to make of what he wrote in the manifesto. One would have to interview him and get additional evidence (e.g., testimony from others who knew him) to try to piece together his actual views.
“He’s smart enough to have planned and carried out this attack, he’s also smart enough to aim the cross-hairs of negative publicity during the trial at corrupt politicians and islam.”
1. Someone can be smart but insane.
2. Breivik appears to have been quite stupid in some respects, if we take his stated rationale for the attacks at face value. His anticipation of the effect of negative publicity of the attack itself was quite erroneous and stupid. If he didn’t foresee that the mainstream media, leftist academics and activists, Islamic propagandists, and politicians would use these attacks and his paste-up manifesto in order to attack the counter-jihad, anti-sharia, anti-Islamization movements, then he was either foolish and deluded on this most critical point.
“Breivik’s plan, misguided as it may be, was borne out of the realization that our common goals can only be achieved through non-democratic means.”
1. What common goals? Breivik’s goals were a lot different from mine. Breivik for one thing, in his manifesto, wanted to force everyone to convert to Christianity or to be cultural Christians at minimum.
2. The goals of minimizing the power of Islam and sharia in Western societies can be achieved through democratic means.
“We in defense of Western civilization know instinctively that we will never convince enough people to be able to meet our goals democratically”
I disagree; but it depends on your goals and means to achieve them.
“- just like the Muslims know that they will never obtain 50%+1 consent from ANY population so as to declare Sharia the law of the land.”
What? Majorities of Muslims have voted for sharia and Islamic parties in every major opportunity in recent years. Indeed, when have Muslim majorities ever freely voted to remove sharia rule?
Breivik’s plan, misguided as it may be, was borne out of the realization that our common goals can only be achieved through non-democratic means.
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I’m sorry—this is utter crap. what do you think sites like Jihad Watch are for? To educate free people about the Jihad threat.
And why do you think that Breivik—who bombed his own government offices and then *murdered a bunch of Norwegian children*—shares any “common goals” with yourself?
I sure as hell don’t share any “common goals” with *him*.
I doubt many other people here believe that they share “common goals” with him, either.
More:
We in defense of Western civilization know instinctively that we will never convince enough people to be able to meet our goals democratically – just like the Muslims know that they will never obtain 50%+1 consent from ANY population so as to declare Sharia the law of the land.
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More crap. How are you going to “defend Western civilization” if you have to force people into it, unless your idea of “Western civilization” is Fascism or some similar totalitarian creed?
As to the second part of your claim, this is also false. Huge swaths of the Muslim world have either instituted Shari’ah, or are moving in that direction. Certainly, there are some decent people in Dar-al-Islam who are disturbed by the bloody spectre of Shari’ah, but many more in places like Iran, and Somalia, and Afghanistan, and Sudan, and northern Nigeria who fully embrace its tenets. And there seems to be a disturbingly large majority in places like Pakistan, Egypt, and even Indonesia who feel just the same.
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Leftists control the Media (the means of indoctrination and the manufacturies of consent), which means that they will always win – most people are superficial and easy to manipulate, so they will always have a democratic majority.
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Jihad Watch is part of the media. So is Atlas Shrugs and Daniel Pipes’ site and many others. The internet has done a great deal to democratize media.
And then there are enterprises like publishing—books like “The Truth About Muhammad: The Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion”, “Islam Unveiled, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance”, Mark Steyn’s “America Alone”, Melanie Phillips’ “Londonistan”, and many others.
Then there are speeches and media appearances by Anti-Jihadists.
These all have an influence.
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Indeed, they have already won – the Republican Party of today has the same political program as Kennedy’s Democrats.
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There is some truth to this. But things must have looked pretty hopeless to Anti-Fascists at one point, putting together their “Bundles for Britain” and trying to get the word out about the threat of Hitler and the Nazis.
These “premature Anti-Fascists” made it, though—and did so without stooping to any of the ugliness you so slyly hint at.
There will be more breiviks, because Islam’s violent ideology will create more merhans and others.
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Um…what? I always respect you comments, Buraq, but I’m really not sure what you’re positing here. That more nuts will go on murderous rampages against Infidel children because of Mohammed Merah?
Actually, that’s exactly what Merah did, himself, in his killing of three little Jewish children.
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But such a situation suits Islam, because it has no rational arguments to justify the imposition of its theocratic dictatorship across the globe.
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Muslims don’t need “rational arguments” to impose the horror of Shari’ah and the Caliphate. They just claim it is the will of Allah, and that’s enough.
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I have no idea what non-Muslims should do, then. When push comes to shove, what should we do to defend ourselves?
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Dear Buraq, it’s not as though Breivik’s actions were some sort of reasonable response to Jihad savagery. In fact, his actions were almost indistinguishable from Jihad terror itself—which is hardly surprising, given that it was inspired by just those barbaric actions, as he himself has claimed, above.
In fact, the children (really mostly young adults) on the Utoya island in Norway whom Breivik mass-murdered in calmly collected cold blood were participants in a project of, among other things, Leftist “dialogue” with youth members of Fatah where the latter actually lived on the island and held seminars with the Leftists who created the project, and who doubtless were anti-Israel. Breivik planned his massacre long in advance and obviously chose his target on purpose: He massacred the very same Leftists who — according to people like Lawrence Auster, Fjordman, El Ingles, Baron Bodissey, David Horowitz, Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and quite a few others — are at best undermining the West in the face of its worst enemy; and at worst are actively, through their Leftist multiculturalism, trying to destroy the West.
This Leftist project on the island of Utoya described its embrace of Fatah Youth:
“Fatah Youth has participated for almost 15 years in the same summer camp and our youth has benefited by learning and sharing experiences on democracy and advocacy for peace and justice.”
The ability to make distinctions — to notice them and articulate them — is the hallmark of Reason. This ability becomes particularly important when it is assailed, or tempted, by concerns to subvert it in the name of simplistic anxieties which, though perhaps motivated by the good intentions of protecting a good principle, end up betraying it.
The distinction being botched by certain individuals within the ragged and porous edges of the Anti-Islam Movement who over-simplify Breivik is that between
1) the Fascist supporter of Islamic jihad (whether that Fascist is “Leftist” or “ultra-right”)
and
2) a new type which has evolved and which political science behooves us to recognize in its singularity: the seemingly ultra-right Fascist opponent of Islamic jihad.
What distinguishes the type in #2 are the following:
a) an opposition to Islam
b) a belief that behind the danger of Islam, there looms a larger, more insidious and ultimately more evil danger — that of “Leftism” and/or some Leftist cabal that is pulling all the strings of a globalist New World Order that is inimical to all that is good for the West
c) closely related to b), a belief in some kind of “Traditional West” that is being destroyed by “Leftists” (and/or some Leftist cabal) and which has to be revived in order to survive
d) a belief that the revival of the “Traditional West” — beset both by Muslims and by “Leftists” (and/or some Leftist cabal) — is currently a dire emergency that requires opposing force in the form of physical violence
e) a belief that most if not all Western governments and political and media and academic elites are controlled by the “Leftists” (and/or some Leftist cabal) and that therefore the West’s emergency survival — and revival — cannot depend on them, but in fact has to fight against them, not only with words but with physical force that perforce must take on the form of a nascent and growing pan-Western insurrection: nothing short of a civil war throughout the West.
Now, this new type of anti-Islamic Fascist is not merely the creation of my imagination: I have noticed in the Blogosphere quite a few who fit a)-e) — subdivided into those who boldly avow it, and those who shrink back from the logical implications and conclusions their fevered language otherwise compel. Related to this latter subdivision are those within the ragged and porous edges of the Anti-Islam Movement who are not even “seemingly” ultra-right, much less Fascist — but who, nevertheless, have been sounding the emergency alarm upon which individuals identified by the former subdivision feed in order to give credence and cogency to their radical solution.
Breivik simply took the logic of this new type to its concrete conclusion; and it is simplistic and misleading, if not blatantly inaccurate, to describe Breivik as a supporter of Islamic jihad. What he recognized was that “we have to become like them” in order to defeat them, where — unlike those who glibly misuse this phrase in order to supposedly oppose its principle even where it does not pertain — he really meant it.
Actually, Breivik’s obsession with how “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” are, and have been for some time, destroying the West fits quite snugly with — just to take a few examples — copious analyses bearing on this by Fjordman, El Ingles and Conservative Swede, and, less copiously but substantively the same, Lawrence Auster and Baron Bodissey.
The only difference is that Breivik actually wanted to do something concrete against this dire emergency; rather than sit around and blog about it. He and all the others named apparently saw the same emergency-level threat of civilizational destruction. When these bloggers I named use language recklessly about an emergency-level threat of civilizational destruction from “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” not only making us dangerously vulnerable to the invasion of Islam but also rotting us from within culturally, they can hardly be exculpated just because they failed to put their irresponsibly lurid hyperbole into the action which logically flows from their feverish rhetoric.
You obviously haven’t understood (have you even read?) Breivik’s manifesto, and you certainly don’t understand the works and writings of Spencer, Geller, Fjordman, et al. if you think the assessments of the latter logically lead a defender of the West to killing youths at a political meeting or bombing civilians. That’s what you’ve claimed on your blog, and you have thinly veiled/ slightly obscured that claim here.
We don’t need lectures about “fevered language” from you, of all people.
You perhaps don’t know, or don’t care, what you are talking about. Evidently, you haven’t actually read Breivik’s own arguments, as distinguished from all the stuff he pasted in and/or modified. And again, I doubt that, after all these years purportedly reading Spencer, you have really absorbed anything.
“The only difference is that Breivik actually wanted to do something concrete against this dire emergency; rather than sit around and blog about it.”
Utter nonsense.
1. Breivik’s ideology is not the same as Spencer’s ideology; nor is it even the same as Fjordman’s.
2. Spencer, Geller, and others aren’t just blogging about it.
3. Blogging about it, writing and reporting about it, writing analyses and assessments, in a responsible way, is an important part of the anti-jihad anti-sharia movement.
LemonLime, earlier, wrote:
“When these bloggers I named use language recklessly about an emergency-level threat of civilizational destruction from “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” not only making us dangerously vulnerable to the invasion of Islam but also rotting us from within culturally, they can hardly be exculpated just because they failed to put their irresponsibly lurid hyperbole into the action which logically flows from their feverish rhetoric.”
Exculpate them of what?
From reading posts on this thread and the next, there are quite a few posters saying than Breivik is ‘crazy’ ‘insane’ etc.. However, some posters say he is not.
So, we need to define ‘crazy’, I think. If we say that a way to assess Breivik’s insanity is to measure how far his actions are from generally accepted human norms of behavior, then he is indeed ‘crazy’. Why?
Because accepted universal norms of respect for life mean that it is highly unusual for anyone to shoot 77 teenagers in cold blood. By the same criterion, Islam’s daily, brutal assault on innocent citizens the world over places Islam’s violent ideology in the ‘crazy’ bracket, too.
My main point was simply that ‘crazy’ behavior will generate the same behavior in others. Just as the scientific theory every schoolboy learns that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, this kind of equalising effect of one atrocity being met by another atrocity, will happen. And that is exactly what Islam wants.
Islam thrives on blood and mayhem. Why? Because of a lack of rational arguments to justify its claim to supremacy.
So, finally, I believe that Breivik’s crazy crime is not the last of this kind of behavior as a reaction to Islam’s violent ideology. There will be more breiviks because there will be more merhans.
Personally, I believe Breivik to be clinically insane, like Hitler was.
Regards.
I didn’t say it was.
“…nor is it even the same as Fjordman’s.”
I didn’t say it was; though with Fjordman we have copious analyses saturated with rhetoric describing a civilizational disaster of emergency proportions which is literally destroying the West. When someone rings a fire alarm 100 times, it is irresponsible, not to mention absurd, of him to be surprised when some less hinged person starts taking an ax to a house not yet on fire and dousing it with water. Though, frankly, Fjordman still does think it’s actually on fire; whereas I don’t — in the terms I analyzed in my previous post (cf. supra).
“2. Spencer, Geller, and others aren’t just blogging about it.”
I never said they were.
“3. Blogging about it, writing and reporting about it, writing analyses and assessments, in a responsible way, is an important part of the anti-jihad anti-sharia movement.”
I never said it isn’t.
Calm down, Kinana.
Shamanism – which is a Mongolian based Animist religion – is a perfectly innocuous religion. Chengiz Khan was a Shaman, but he never made it the religion that all Mongols and their vassals had to follow, or else, today, the entire continent from Syria to Siberia would have been Shaman. Norway is definitely screwed up for indulging Muslims, but they’re not to blame for recognizing Shamanism.
But frankly, Norwegians, or Scandinavians who don’t like Christianity could find their roots in the ancient Nordic religion – that too was a great religion.
Your entire argument against Spencer, Bat Ye’or (yes, you even accused her on your blog), and others, in blaming them for Breivik, is that their ideology is the same as Breivik’s. And in this thread you confirmed your view that Breivik simply took the logical conclusion of that ideology and acted upon it by a mass killing of civilians.
“Calm down, Kinana.”
Nice distraction. Substantiate your allegations, which you can’t, or get lost. Would you like me to reproduce here all the libelous crap you wrote on your blog? You are not a friend of this site. You are hostile toward this site and its main author, and you have been that way as long as I’ve been commenting here (over six years).
Instead, your pattern indicates that you will simply continue to repeat your allegations over and over, and engage in more distractions, denials, deflections.
“A mass murderer of children in the West is labeled criminally insane, but in dar-el-Islam he would be a hero, provided the victims were living in dar-el-Harb. If they had been Israelis, Ramallah would soon have a Breivik Street.”
In fact, the children (really mostly young adults) on the Utoya island in Norway whom Breivik mass-murdered in calmly collected cold blood were participants in a project of, among other things, Leftist “dialogue” with youth members of Fatah where the latter actually lived on the island and held seminars with the Leftists who created the project, and who doubtless were anti-Israel.
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This is true, LemonLime—and it is dispicable. But you do not respond to children being indoctrinated by *killing the children*.
What if an Anti-Fascist in late 1930s America had decided to strike at Nazism by attacking one of the Hitler Youth Camps in the United States—there were at least five; including Camp Siegfried in upstate New York and Camp Hindenburg in Grafton, Wisconsin—and killing the kids there?
Would this have been a rational response to the savagery of Fascism? I *think not*.
In fact, the Allies hated the Fascists for their brutal indoctrination of youth and use of child soldiers.
As for the victims at Utøya really being “young adults”, *fifty* of the victims were eighteen or younger, nine under the age of sixteen, and two just fourteen years old. These *sound like children* to me.
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Breivik planned his massacre long in advance and obviously chose his target on purpose: He massacred the very same Leftists who — according to people like Lawrence Auster, Fjordman, El Ingles, Baron Bodissey, David Horowitz, Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and quite a few others — are at best undermining the West in the face of its worst enemy; and at worst are actively, through their Leftist multiculturalism, trying to destroy the West.
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This is true. I find much of what was being taught at Utøya reprehensible. But Anders Breivik’s horrific actions does not represent any reasoned response to this, to put it mildly.
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The ability to make distinctions — to notice them and articulate them — is the hallmark of Reason. This ability becomes particularly important when it is assailed, or tempted, by concerns to subvert it in the name of simplistic anxieties which, though perhaps motivated by the good intentions of protecting a good principle, end up betraying it.
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Conflating the virtues of reason with the actions of Anders Breivik is profoundly perverse.
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Breivik simply took the logic of this new type to its concrete conclusion; and it is simplistic and misleading, if not blatantly inaccurate, to describe Breivik as a supporter of Islamic jihad. What he recognized was that “we have to become like them” in order to defeat them, where — unlike those who glibly misuse this phrase in order to supposedly oppose its principle even where it does not pertain — he really meant it.
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Breivik didn’t merely embrace the tactics of Al Qaeda and “militant Islamists”—horrific enough, God knows—he also declared his willingness to *work with Jihadists*. This doesn’t sound like any sort of true Anti-Jihadist to me, whatever his ultimate goals.
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Actually, Breivik’s obsession with how “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” are, and have been for some time, destroying the West fits quite snugly with — just to take a few examples — copious analyses bearing on this by Fjordman, El Ingles and Conservative Swede, and, less copiously but substantively the same, Lawrence Auster and Baron Bodissey.
The only difference is that Breivik actually wanted to do something concrete against this dire emergency…
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The idea that recognizing leftist multiculturalism as a threat—especially vis-a-vis enabling Jihad—logically leads to shooting up a gathering of children if one wants to actually to “do something” is madness.
If anything, Breivik’s sickening actions have set back the fight against Jihad.
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He and all the others named apparently saw the same emergency-level threat of civilizational destruction. When these bloggers I named use language recklessly about an emergency-level threat of civilizational destruction from “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” not only making us dangerously vulnerable to the invasion of Islam but also rotting us from within culturally, they can hardly be exculpated just because they failed to put their irresponsibly lurid hyperbole into the action which logically flows from their feverish rhetoric.
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I’m not even sure what you are positing here—that Breivik reacted logically to the threat of Islam, or that his actions were the fault of the “overreactions” of certain Anti-Jihad bloggers?
In any case, this is all rot. Breivik is no hero. His actions were not the “logical response” to *anything*. He was not inspired by the words of Anti-Jihad bloggers, save in his own fevered imagination—and even there, he was inspired as much by Jihadists themselves.
The homicidal Breivik is no model. Let’s move on.
Shamanism was probably honored officially there in Norway for cultural heritage purposes as this was the type of religion practiced by the Sami people. Shamanism was a main type of religion among many aboriginal tribes in the Americas, Africa, and in Australia; it’s not specific to Mongolia. And of course, since the 1960′s, it has been picked up by New Agers of various sorts.
As for New Agers, I don’t think much of them, but if they are going to turn to Shamanism or Buddhism or Confucianism or Taoism, I certainly prefer that to them turning to Islam.
Having followed Hesperado’s writings in the wake of the shootings by Brevik, I clearly recall that his criticisms were exclusively directed at several Gates of Vienna posters, as well as Lawrence Auster. But he never criticized Spencer or Geller on this particular issue, even though he had been relentlessly been critical of them in the past. Neither in his blog nor here did he say that Brevik followed Spencer’s arguments to their logical end.
He can bat for himself, but reading him, what I understood is that unlike Auster and the GoV posters, Spencer & Geller do not follow the logical implications about the data that they gather about Muslims, and so the statement that he made about Brevik following the writings of Auster and GoV to their logical ends didn’t apply to Sepncer or Geller.
You might do yourself a favor and take a page from David Wood, re: his unremarkably sound prescriptions for an actual counter-argument (which, by definition, avails itself of evidence). Among dozens of things you need to do, let’s just take one pair to make it easy:
1) Show me where on my blog I “blamed Bat Ye’or for Breivik”.
2)
a) Describe what it means to “blame X for Breivik”
b) Demonstrate how on my blog I did 2a.
(Note: #1 includes #2 for anyone versed in elementary counter-argument; but I adverted to it explicitly, just to give you a refresher, as apparently it seems you need one.)
Re Hesperado:
Including what he’s said above here, and on his blog, he has listed all kinds of people, and altogether this includes Spencer, Bat Ye’or, Fjordman, and numerous bloggers such as those he mentioned above. I was surprised at the time, because here was Hesperado, who has advocated and endorsed more extreme views than any of the people he was accusing, and he was basically taking what he called the “PC MC mainstream” view on this in blaming the counter-jihadists for Breivik.
On shamanism, I was simply pointing out some facts relevant to skevins’ and your comments on it. The Sami are indigenous to Norway, Finland, and Sweden; I’m not really interested in an argument over who is “more native.”
Here’s Hesperado’s accused list in this thread:
“Lawrence Auster, Fjordman, El Ingles, Baron Bodissey, David Horowitz, Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and quite a few others”
(The list varied from time to time on his blog)
Add Bat Ye’or, who he mentioned in the various lists of the accused he’s mentioned on his blog.
My main point was simply that ‘crazy’ behavior will generate the same behavior in others. Just as the scientific theory every schoolboy learns that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, this kind of equalising effect of one atrocity being met by another atrocity, will happen. And that is exactly what Islam wants.
Islam thrives on blood and mayhem. Why? Because of a lack of rational arguments to justify its claim to supremacy.
So, finally, I believe that Breivik’s crazy crime is not the last of this kind of behavior as a reaction to Islam’s violent ideology. There will be more breiviks because there will be more merhans.
………………………….
I’m sorry, Buraq—I just don’t believe this.
This is the same argument Jihadists use—that they are simply not responsible for their own actions.
This is not true of the free West. We haven’t been driving airplanes into buildings in Dar-al-Islam, or taking over and bombing Madrasses, or strapping on explosives and taking out buses in Lahore in response to Jihad terror.
Infidels—broadly speaking—follow a rational and humane creed; Muslims do not.
Breivik was a lunatic, with largely incoherent aims. He doesn’t represent any sort of understandable reaction to Jihad.
And no—I *don’t* believe there are going to be a lot more Brieviks. We are not puppets who react blindly to Muslim savagery with barbarism of our own.
That doesn’t mean we have to react passively to Muslim aggression, nor that we should.
Despite my disagreements with you here, I thank you for your reply, Buraq.
Indeed, Gravenimage, just as muhammad was not a ‘PERFECT MAN’ ..and it’s completely ludicrous and revolting that muslims think so.
You misunderstand me on several points.
You quote me:
The ability to make distinctions — to notice them and articulate them — is the hallmark of Reason. This ability becomes particularly important when it is assailed, or tempted, by concerns to subvert it in the name of simplistic anxieties which, though perhaps motivated by the good intentions of protecting a good principle, end up betraying it.
Then you comment:
“Conflating the virtues of reason with the actions of Anders Breivik is profoundly perverse.”
In my words you quoted, I wasn’t conflating the virtues of reason with the actions of Breivik. Where did you get that idea from? You’d have to continue reading what I wrote, which continued the thread of the argument I was making, to know what I was talking about. I specifically followed the words you quoted above with this:
“The distinction being botched by certain individuals within the ragged and porous edges of the Anti-Islam Movement who over-simplify Breivik is that between
1) the Fascist supporter of Islamic jihad (whether that Fascist is “Leftist” or “ultra-right”)
and
2) a new type which has evolved and which political science behooves us to recognize in its singularity: the seemingly ultra-right Fascist opponent of Islamic jihad.”
The many more words that unpack this are also important, but for now I’ll stop there. I was talking about an important distinction of two types of explanation for Breivik, and how that distinction tends to be botched by otherwise well-meaning people in the Anti-Islam movement. Where in my entire comment from which you quoted one isolated excerpt do I support Breivik? Why would I simultaneously take certain people to task for their hyperventilating rhetoric about how the West is destroying itself through “Cultural Marxism” (etc.) — taking them to task precisely because their rhetoric of an Emergency Situation “threatening” the very existence of our entire civilization logically leads to doing something aggressive about it — like taking up arms, for example; why would I articulate all this in critical terms, then also turn around and support Breivik? So why did you insinuate I do support Breivik (for I surely support the virtues of reason)?
After my description of the people of Utoya, you wrote:
“I find much of what was being taught at Utøya reprehensible. But Anders Breivik’s horrific actions does not represent any reasoned response to this, to put it mildly.”
Well, of course! Where did I imply otherwise!? Why do you find it necessary to tell me this!?
“You might do yourself a favor and take a page from David Wood, re: his unremarkably sound prescriptions for an actual counter-argument (which, by definition, avails itself of evidence).”
In that case, you would first have to present an actual argument. I had already read what you wrote, here and at your blog, and it is a bunch of barely-obscured, loose, and unsubstantiated accusations against Bat Ye’or, Fjordman, Spencer, Geller, and Baron Bodissey.
Your rhetoric is far more extreme than that of any of the people you’ve named. I personally witnessed your endorsement of random killing of Muslim civilians and entire cities full of Muslim civilians. (Remember your endorsement of Spirit Wolf’s comments, followed by your denials? You can fool some people, but I know what I saw in that case, and you blatantly dishonestly engaged in an extended “Who are you going to believe, me or your own two lying eyes?” smokescreen). You are playing games, pretending to deny all this and banking on the fact that most people aren’t going to waste their time reading all your nonsense.
I may have located the thread that KofK is referring to, here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/christopher-hitchens-discovers-that-the-ground-zero-mosque-imam-is-not-as-moderate-as-he-is-cracked.html
And KofK wrote this above claim against you:
“I personally witnessed your endorsement of random killing of Muslim civilians and entire cities full of Muslim civilians. (Remember your endorsement of Spirit Wolf’s comments, followed by your denials? You can fool some people, but I know what I saw in that case, and you blatantly dishonestly engaged in an extended “Who are you going to believe, me or your own two lying eyes?” smokescreen).”
If this is the thread in question–and I think that it is–then readers will find your position quite different than the one hes alleged against you. Most notably a comment by “Hesperado” from above thread @12:39AM on August 28, 2010, here …
Hesperado wrote:
“Kinana, as I said before, I didn’t copy Spirit Wolf’s original comment, and only read it once. In my memory of it, I didn’t recall a justification of bombing a whole city of people merely in response to Muslims “damaging a building” of ours.
When I first told you all this, you failed to reproduce the copy of Spirit Wolf’s actual comment verbatim. Now finally you did. If that was indeed Spirit Wolf’s comment, I agree with you: we should not retaliate against the “damage of one of our buildings” by firebombing a Muslim city. I still suspect, however, that Spirit Wolf was not thinking literally in terms of a Muslim merely “damaging a building” — but was thinking of the 911 attack. If my suspicion is correct, I would not be so hasty to condemn her. If we knew that Muslims were culpable for 911, I don’t think such a reprisal out of the question: the only difficulty is the plausible deniability Muslims get away with, by being so “un-monolithic”.
The story of the juramentado attacks in the Spanish Philippines area in the 17th century is emblematic of this: Muslims were going around suicidally attacking crowds with knives, killing as many innocent people as possible and hoping they in turn would be killed, in order to achieve their Islamic Paradise. This was becoming a major problem, so the Spanish sent a message to the most influential Muslim leader at the time, a Sultan of some nearby SE Asian region. He responded by saying, “Those are just extremist fanatics; we have no control over them.”
The Spanish, not being diseased by PC MC as we are in our time, did not believe him, and they came up with a clever ploy: They sent ships to the coast near the Sultans palace and surrounding town and began assaulting it with cannon fire. The Sultan sent an urgent message to them, “What are you doing!?”
The Spanish sent a message to the Sultan, saying, “those are just some fanatical extremists, we have no control over them” — and continued the bombardment.
From then on, the suicide knife attacks by Muslims supposedly unrelated to the Sultan ceased.”
~~~~~~~
In reading through that old thread I find KofK’s above claim against you to be FALSE. Do you agree?
And is this the thread in question? Thank you …
Kinana,
That may very well be, but those whom you may want to persuade of it will never know until you demonstrate it — though that wouldn’t stop them from agreeing with you without actually being persuaded through rational means (or they could actually read it and see for themselves). You have simply claimed I don’t have an argument, which conveniently lets you off the hook of having to counter it with your own argument. Again, anyone who reads my essay can judge for themselves, and I’m confident they will in fact see a reasoned argument. They may disagree with my conclusion and perhaps also some of my premises; which would be fine. And if they want to persuade others of the cogency of their disagreement, thus demonstrating the holes in my argument, they would, again, have to present an actual argument demonstrating same. Or they could go the lazy route and simply claim I don’t have an argument, and that rather I only have something inferior which should be denigrated as, for example, “a bunch of barely-obscured, loose, and unsubstantiated accusations”. This is no better than the ad hominem evasion.
Thanks for writing back; and I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of posting your comment and that old thread, but I just couldn’t let KofK get away with his false accusation. It really chaps my hide when people do that. Also, I apologize for the thread causing you heartburn, lol …
And I noticed the same thing regarding the 2 points that you made …yeah it’s anyone’s guess why dda gave Spirit’s comment a pass, while JW saw fit to delete it. I mean, go figure!
Take care, my friend
I know, talk about foreeeever ago! Jeez …
Do you even have any clue what Spirit Wolf wrote, which Hesperado endorsed? On what basis do you claim I made a false accusation against Hesperado, if you did not see Spirit Wolf’s comment, nor Hesperado’s endorsement?
P.S. Dalaran was Spirit Wolf under a different moniker.
When Hesperado says Muslims are not human, do you agree with him?
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/christopher-hitchens-discovers-that-the-ground-zero-mosque-imam-is-not-as-moderate-as-he-is-cracked.html#comment-702535
Is Hesperado trying to re-invent his public image again, in spite of all the written ammunition that is available against him? Well, knoock me down with a feather.
My last exchanges with him, in which the end result was him falling silent on the particular matter being discussed, clearly show it is becoming impossible for him to be as dishonest as he is and maintain any semblance of sincerity.
If I read correctly, Hesperado is condoning Breivik’s actions as a logical and correct conclusion for one who was presented the empirical evidence of those in the anti-jihad movement, coupled with the fact that corrupt politicians destroying their country’s culture and identity are culpable, and by extension, their children, and deserving of Beivik’s singlularly decided summary execution?
As KoK has demonstrated above, this extreme position of Hesperado is not a new evolution, but rather quite consistent in his mindset. What is different is Champ’s apparent change of heart to embrace the very same sentiment in Hesperado’s defense by not castigating him for his comment here, compared to her referenced disdain for such sentiments as was quoted above. On the contrary, she came to Hesperado’s aid against the claims that were also provided above by KoK.
Yes, and it’s very obvious to me what is going on here; that KofK is attempting to smear you, and now awake is attemting to do the same thing–and now he’s attempting to smear me as well, which is completely shameful.
In summary …
KofK throws out a false accusation about you that is nearly two years old–then I jump in to defend you, and I even provide written *proof* of what you actually wrote back in 2010 with regards to the second PART of Spirit’s comment (only NOW does KofK actually come forth with the first part of Spirit’s comment). And then awake lowers himself by capitalizing on this situation and uses this as an opportunity to try and smear both of us, simply because I think he’s jealous of our friendship, LemonLime, as nothing else makes sense to me. I tell you, it doesn’t get any more wrongheaded and unproductive than this; when 2 members on the anti-jihad team get their jollies out of Friendly-Fire! What has the world come to when supposed allies behave like this? Their jabs are demented and sick, especially since you and I are not the enemy. Seems these two needs reminding of who the REAL enemy is: islam and company.
Take care
P.S.: I just spent a few minutes adding to the end of my essay linked above links to a few other essays I have written revolving around the same issue. All of these need to be read — carefully (which ordinarily needn’t be specified, but we don’t live in ordinary times when people actually carefully read anymore, apparently)…
……………………………….
LemonLime, I read you essays “The Thin Blue Line”, “Breivik’s Law”, and the rest you linked to. I have to admit, I’m *still* not sure where you stand.
You seem to be criticizing those in the West who consider PC/MC a threat, and posit that this position leads “logically” to actions such as those of Breivik. And yet, you have certainly made such criticisms yourself, often quite emphatically.
Indeed, when faced with the spectre of kids on Utøya Island walking up to Breivik and attempting to “reason” with him—or assuming the massacre was some sort of piece of street theatre ‘commenting on the state of things in Gaza’—while Breivik was *gunning them down* presents the grimmest possible example of a credo which is quite literally suicidal.
As for your exact take on Anders Breivik himself, I have no idea.
I know that when you first began posting here again as LemonLime, that you often assumed the position of a Jihadist or a wishy-washy leftist to make a point. Unfortunately, you did so without recourse to “sarc” tags or any explanatory notes, such as “that’s what a Muslim apologist would say, any way”.
You then often responded with withering disdain when anyone failed to understand that you were adopting a pose to make a point.
It might provide a boost for the ego to assume that the people you are corresponding with are simply too dense to grasp your position, but it certainly doesn’t help you get your message out.
There’s something to be said for clarity.
More:
…before one emotionally spills one’s water all over one’s desk in calumny against me…
Read them all carefully, and demonstrate that you have read them carefully with a cogent counter-argument — then you may emotionally browbeat me to your heart’s content.
……………………………….
I have absolutely no desire to “emotionally browbeat” you, and even less to commit calumny against you.
It would greatly help if you made your position here clear, though. Best to you in any case, LemonLime.
Dear Robert, please be more specific; what exchange are you referring to? And how did he misrepresent you? Of course we would all agree that it is always wrong to misrepresent anyone, and at any time. No one appreciates being lied against. Take care …
LemonLime says regarding his controversy with Kinana:
Apparently one thread nearly a year ago — out of all the scores of others he surely has read and participated in during the meantime — is still vividly fresh in his mind, and he expects the same laser-like memory from me.
“Irony of ironies! Here is a man who took one exchange from one comment thread six or seven years ago and represented it repeatedly and persistently in a wide variety of forums as the guiding philosophy of all my work, persistently misrepresenting it in the middle of the fiercest ad hominem attacks.
“Hoisted by his own petard, is Hesperado.”
Much that is misleading or plain inaccurate here:
1) It wasn’t “one exchange from one comment thread” which I cited several times — it was several different exchanges from different comments threads.
2) I don’t recall representing one or more of these exchanges in “a wide variety of forums” to make my various points about it — but mainly either here, or on my two blogs The Hesperado and (mostly) Jihad Watch Watch. I may have adverted to them — in passing — in a comment or two on the Gates of Vienna website (though I can’t recall, and will have to kindly ask the House Committee on Un-American Activities to await the testimony of my lawyer, who along with my secretary, Helga Beaumarchaise, will have the requisite paperwork). I don’t know what other “wide variety” of forums Spencer is thinking of where I represented this “one exchange” “repeatedly and persistently”. Somehow, I doubt I will ever be apprised. But all that matters is that the charge be made; not that evidence is supplied.
3) Whenever I cited these certain quotes from Spencer I always cited sources and context. Kinana, on the contrary, merely blurted his out parenthentically in the middle of a hostile sentence that had no substance other than hostility (bold emphasis added by me):
Your rhetoric is far more extreme than that of any of the people you’ve named. I personally witnessed your endorsement of random killing of Muslim civilians and entire cities full of Muslim civilians. (Remember your endorsement of Spirit Wolf’s comments, followed by your denials? You can fool some people, but I know what I saw in that case, and you blatantly dishonestly engaged in an extended “Who are you going to believe, me or your own two lying eyes?” smokescreen). You are playing games, pretending to deny all this and banking on the fact that most people aren’t going to waste their time reading all your nonsense.
Kinana suddenly refers to a non-famous Jihad Watch civilian reader and commenter who as far as I know hasn’t been around in nearly three years (I certainly haven’t seen the name), thus referring with hostile pointedness to some exchange that took place nearly three years ago. I haven’t given one single thought to “Spirit Wolf” in these past 28 months! In fact, as can be seen by going back to that thread and re-reading it, I didn’t even know “Spirit Wolf” at the time, and had to be schooled by dumbledoresarmy on her identity and positive contributions to Jihad Watch! Kinana here, nearly three years later, giving no citations (as I always did when fitting those quotes of the famous Spencer into my analyses) to jog my memory suddenly accuses me with a hostile rhetorical question “Remember Spirit Wolf and etc?” Um, no, I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. It was only after Champ helpfully supplied the link, and I read through that it began to be pieced together.
So I’m afraid the petard just doesn’t fit the loops on the back seat of my overalls.
“P.S. Dalaran was Spirit Wolf under a different moniker.”
Oh? Care to supply proof of that claim?
“And then awake lowers himself by capitalizing on this situation and uses this as an opportunity to try and smear both of us, simply because I think he’s jealous of our friendship, LemonLime, as nothing else makes sense to me.”
That was priceless, though I am surprised that you could actually write that supposition and hit the publish button. Jealous of your freindship. Thanks, I needed a good laugh this evening.
More to the point, just how did I smear or misrepresent you in this thread?
KoK provided your words about genocidal comments, those which were espoused here in this thread by Hesperado and I must have missed your objection to them. Can you point it out to me?
When hesperado wrote:
“In fact, the children (really mostly young adults) on the Utoya island in Norway whom Breivik mass-murdered in calmly collected cold blood were participants in a project of, among other things, Leftist “dialogue” with youth members of Fatah where the latter actually lived on the island and held seminars with the Leftists who created the project, and who doubtless were anti-Israel.”
…It was a tacit rationalization for support of Breivik’s actions. Kbnowing what he knows, as we all should know the murderous act was just reaching a concrete, logical conclusion according to Hesperado.
Your silence on the sentiment, Champ, implies an agreement of sorts.
Hesperado goes on, again, to yoyur abject silence to state:
“Those kids walking up to Breivik are kids who believe Muslims are good and need to be respected and embraced and dialogued with — precisely the types of people that infuriates most in the anti-Islam movement. Those kids were not merely PC/MC — they and the entire project on Utoya were flaming Leftists — precisely the agents of the “destruction” of Western civilization which so exercises the people I mention in my essays (Fjordman, Auster, et al.).”
Again. Hesperado is approving of the act as a necessary result. He has summarily judged the mindset of every victim on that island and to Hesperado, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few of 70-ish eggs.
I assume that you support that position as well, Champ? If not, you have certainly not stated as such.
You wrote: “KofK throws out a false accusation about you”
I already showed the accusation wasn’t false. I presented the evidence in the original thread. Another commenter also quoted from Spirit Wolf’s comment and Hesperado’s endorsement, and that quote of them also is there in the original thread.
“then I jump in to defend you, and I even provide written *proof* of what you actually wrote back in 2010″
What Hesperado wrote in what you quoted here was merely Hesperado denials in the face of the evidence presented in that thread which clearly incriminated him. His denial simply isn’t plausible in light of the evidence in that thread.
“…with regards to the second PART of Spirit’s comment (only NOW does KofK actually come forth with the first part of Spirit’s comment).”
False. I presented it in the original thread for everyone to see. Did you miss it?
~~~~~~~~~~
And my hope is that we ALL stop lieing about one another and/or misreprenting each other, and that we actually get on the same team! Lets all commit to moving forward by sticking to the truth about what each of us has written now, and in the past. We all agree that lieing is wrong, so why do we do it? What’s to be gained by lieing? Nothing. We should all be asking ourselves: what can I do to be more of a team player with those on the anti-jihad team, and then do it by supporting one another, not tearing each other down through lies and smear campaigns. I want to do that ..any other takers?
Didn’t Marisol always remind us that in-fighting played into the hands of our enemies: islam & co?
With Marisol gone I guess WE have to be that voice of reason!
“It’s called dry sarcasm. I guess I made the mistake of assuming a certain level of education and worldliness among the readership here, who don’t need a /sarc tag in case some bit of sarcasm or satire is a tad too subtle.”
To translate, everyone who interacted with Hesperado on his intentionally provocative comments are obviously just too dense to realize that in spite of the regular appearance of leftist and Muslim trolls at this site, that somehow, everyone should have realized it was him and immediately understood is subtle dry sarcasm?
For now, I would just like to thank you for your considered response, LemonLime. I hope I will have more time tomorrow to give your comments the attention they deserve.
“More to the point, just how did I smear or misrepresent you in this thread?”
Here …
“Nicely done, KoK. Using both Hesperado and Champ’s explicit words in direct contradiction to their purported reputations here.”
Statements like this are manipulative, and are misleading to the reader. What “purported reputation”? Making this statement is underhanded, and you know it, or at least you should know this.
And here …
“What is different is Champ’s apparent change of heart to embrace the very same sentiment in Hesperado’s defense by not castigating him for his comment here, compared to her referenced disdain for such sentiments as was quoted above.”
Again, this is manipulative and misleading to the reader to state that I’ve had a “change of heart”. No I have not. You are taking liberties concerning what I’m thinking, and this is wrong. You are of course free to ask me what I’m thinking, but never to assume such things about me.
Okay now I’m laughing that you would have the nerve to ask me this question …”just how did I smear or misrepresent you in this thread?”
Really? Why it’s pretty obvious how you misreprented me as I’ve explained: you are attempting to mislead the reader by ascribing things to me that I never wrote, and you are also assuming too much by my silence. You are not at liberty to think for me or ascribe motives. I am choosing to remain silent for a reason, so you’ll simply have to respect my decision. But I will say that NOT trusting you in any way plays a major role in why I won’t address your queries.
And don’t attempt to intimidate me into breaking my silence by ascribing what my motives might be. It won’t work, and it’s a shameful tactic from someone that used to be a close friend, and who used to send me very loving and sweet private messages. Really, you ought to know better than to treat your friends like that; even ex friends, as you’ve chosen to be.
a) evidence of his obtuseness
or
b) actionable slander of my reputation.
I tend to think (a) is the correct explanation. But does the law say that obtuseness is a legal excuse for what is ostensibly slander?
I meant private emails.
PS to awake …
He wrote:
“That was priceless, though I am surprised that you could actually write that supposition and hit the publish button. Jealous of your freindship.”
Yes, I base my opinion that you’re jealous upon the emails that you used to send me. Make sense now? I will elaborate if you’re still confused …
This is your first and last warning. Discussing the details of private correspondences here on JW between you and I in the past, is wholly inappropriate. I also had courteous and not-so-courteous private email exchanges with other former and current posters, including Hesperado, that even we both would never share or threaten to share here in the public JW forum, regardless of our differences.
That said, the exchanges that you are labeling as “sweet and loving” is disgusting. It implies that there was an intimate relationship between us, which we both know is simply not true and we both know the details of the end of that correspondence, so do yourself a favor and cease and desist immediately, for I promise you that if you continue, it will not end well for you. You tried this once before, so let me remind you that I have every single exchange between us at the ready.
Now, to move past that nonsense, I asked you if you support Hesperado’s statements here on this thread and have asserted that in the absence of your public objection, that you do indeed support them. You are of course, entitled not to respond and I maintain that your silence belies that approval. I am entitled to that opinion as you are to choose not to respond.
What I do want to make clear, is that on this thread, it was you who injected yourself into the discussion between KoK and Hesperado in the latter’s defense. Even after Robert’s comment to Hesperado, again, on this very thread, you continue to show support for the biggest intentional detractor of Robert and this site, the very same which the owner still affords you the privilage to comment on.
And you speak of a cessation of in-fighting?
In summary, for one who has egregiously purported a true kinship with myself, albeit formerly, your several public calls for my banning here at JW, and private pleas to the JW adminstrators as well I assume, seems a bit inconsistent from where I stand.
Do you agree with Hesperado that Muslims are not human?
Champ, same question.
Disgusting? Hold on. You are not getting off THAT easy …
You pretend not to be jealous, and yet just recently you wrote some very vulgar things about me and LemonLime on one of the other threads that Robert had to delete! Remember? I’m sure some here remember what you wrote.
Okay so you don’t want to discuss any of our private emails. Fine. Yet you went PUBLIC with some rather revolting comments about LemonLime and me. That public comment *alone* demonstrated jealousy. I mean Hello.
But okay, you aren’t jealous. My bad …I apologize for assuming that you are.
Hmm, so you think that my “sweet and loving” comment is “disgusting”? Well, it stands to reason, then, that you would consider what you wrote publically about me and LL disgusting, as well? If so, then I would appreciate a public apology.
Really? You wish to move past this nonsense? Hey, me, too. But do you understand the importance of trust, awake? I already explained in another post that I do not TRUST you, and with good reason–especially after the vulgar things you wrote about me and LL publically. So a good place to start is with you–by apologizing for the vulgar remark that YOU made public.
Otherwise there is no place to go, and I have nothing to say in response to your above queries.
example # 1
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/04/bill-maher-on-quran-burning-and-riots-its-like-if-dad-is-a-violent-drunk-and-beats-his-kids-you-dont.html#comment-776658
Dumbledoresarmy: “…Our own regular commenter ‘dalaran’, formerly ‘Spirit wolf’,…”
Same thread as above, “dalaran” in reply to Dumbledoresarmy: “[...] Thank you, Dumbledore. Really, I can’t thank you enough [...]”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/04/bill-maher-on-quran-burning-and-riots-its-like-if-dad-is-a-violent-drunk-and-beats-his-kids-you-dont.html#comment-776711
———————
example #2
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/03/nigeria-cleric-who-was-vocal-critic-of-boko-haram-sect-shot-and-killed.html#comment-768075
gravenimage: “Dalaran, I didn’t realize you were Spirit Wolf and Chick Cartoonist! (Duh).[...]”
———————-
example # 3
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/04/missouri-house-votes-to-ban-sharia.html#comment-780919
Dumbledoresarmy:
“Traeh
I can vouch for one thing- I’m familiar with the posting history of ‘dalaran’… She used to post as ‘chickcartoonist’ back in the intensedebate days, and then as ‘spirit wolf’. I’ve read, I think, every posting she’s ever made.”[...]“
“Do you agree with Hesperado that Muslims are not human?”
I have already numerous times explained that my statement is philosophical, not ontological. But those who care not for reason, like Nazis or fascists, just trample over distinctions on their way to accuse and vilify those they want to exclude.
Before Kinana has a right to accuse me of that, he has the obligation to engage my argument on it. That is only fair in a civilized society; which, apparently, he doesn’t care to respect.
gravenimage,
Do you agree with Hesperado that Muslims are not human?
…………………………………..
Hi, Kinana.
The short answer is *of course not*.
But then, I don’t believe Hesperado meant this in the literal sense, either—nor in the sense that when you come to regard a group as subhuman that you need not treat them as human.
But I *do* believe that truly devout Muslims—those who take the tenets of their barbaric creed to heart—the murder of Infidels, the genocide of Jews, child “marriage”, the rape of young boys, the condoning of “Honor Killing”—do render themselves “inhuman” in the moral sense.
Certainly, while I have in the broad sense a very positive view of humans as a species, and as I regard our long-term prospects, I also am all too well aware of the evil of which humans are capable.
The horrors of sending slaves to the arena in Rome, of Aztecs sacrificing those they captured to their bloody gods, of torture and unjust war, of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot. The practitioners of the terrible savagery of Fascism and hard-core Communism and Islam are still “human”, but present a side of humanity few in the civilized world would condone or embrace.
So, while embracing the barbarity of Islam does not strip one of one’s humanness in the literal sense, it certainly strips them of their humanity, as does the embrace of any inhumane creed.
Hope you are well, Kinana.
Well, my esteem for dalaran just shot up. Thanks for the info.
Now, what do you think of dumbledoresarmy praising Spirit Wolf to the skies — not only elsewhere, but on the very same thread — and after the point — where Spirit Wolf made the impermissible statement you have been hounding me about?
Amazing what dda gets away with.
There are many more such examples of your rhetoric being more extreme than those you accuse.
I express it again, more explicitly: Dumbledoresarmy has committed a moral failing by failing to condemn Spirit Wolf’s remarks.
Dumbledoresarmy’s moral failing on this, however, is not nearly as bad as Hesperado’s positive evil in (a) endorsing those remarks, and even implying that they did not go far enough (Spirit Wolf was merely “on the right track”), and then (b) deflecting blame and lying about (a) when he got caught.
“[...] By this reality, then your concerns about “civilians” in the Muslim world. There simply is no such animal.[...]”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/christopher-hitchens-discovers-that-the-ground-zero-mosque-imam-is-not-as-moderate-as-he-is-cracked.html#comment-705287
“[...] And that’s the point – they’re NOT civilians, so your argument and your question is invalid.[...]”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/christopher-hitchens-discovers-that-the-ground-zero-mosque-imam-is-not-as-moderate-as-he-is-cracked.html#comment-705597
——————
That’s consistent with Spirit Wolf’s claim that Muslims are all members of “the army of Allah” and are thus are all “not civilians”. It is understandable then that Hesperado thinks Spirit Wolf/ Dalaran is “on the right track.” All Spirit Wolf/ Dalaran would have to do now, to meet Hesperado’s full approval (if that’s possible), is graduate fully to Hesperado’s “epiphany” position that Muslims are “not human”.
“Kinana” asked “gravenimage”,
“Do you agree with Hesperado that Muslims are not human?”
Actually, that question was posed to “Champ” as well, not just “gravenimage”, though I fail to have ever seen commentary that “graven” would ever subscribe to that summary judgement that Muslims are not human, but then again, who is keeping score in this mindless game of trying to justify Hesperado’s simplistic, reductionist mantra against all Muslims, Islam, Robert Spencer, and all the obvious dolts in the JW community who fail beyond reason, to recognize Hesperado’s “dry sarcasm” at its onset?
Enlighten the class as to why you seem obsessed with me and LL, then?
Something is going on, so what is it?
You hardly ever comment, yet suddenly you show up most often after LemonLime have had a few exchanges, and with long exhaustive complaints. Aw, but one time you and I were close friends, even here for all to see.
Fine, deny the jealousy–if you must–but there’s no denying your apparent obsession with comments between he and I. That much is obvious.
C’mon, awake, what’s the real issue then?
Do you miss me? …and fighting with me is better than nothing? What?
Hey I don’t want to fight with you; in fact, I would prefer it if you never addressed me ever again. I think it would be best for all if you could agree to those terms. Can you?
Not likely.
Regards.
“Intelligent and positive regular contributors like gravenimage and dda need to be asked to take a stand in regards to Hesperado.”
Though I agree in sentiment, I would rarely ask for such a declarance by the aforementioned. I have done just that in the past only to be greeted with an auditorium full of crickets.
It is indeed a long war, and I intend to obliterate Hesperado, one small, adobe brick at a time.
“Champ has a choice here tonight. Robert or Hesperado? She needs to make her intentions known.”
R U kidding? …
Wow, who died and made you King of JW?
Okay now you’re behaving like an islamic thug intent on subjugating me. Sorry, won’t work. And Robert would never approve of your insane request either–which is innappropriate on sooo many levels.
Fair enough. I always appreciate a reinforcement of my initial argument about someone, in this case, you Champ.
I’m glad you finally made your choice publicly, that you support Hesperado over Robert Spencer. This makes reality alot easier.
And I swear, I’m not jealous.
Hilarious! …hey whatever it takes since this thread has ‘heartburn’ written all over it, lol! Yeah I’m sipping on some camomile tea ‘n honey which helps me relax. I know, I know, tea is for sissies …
G’night, LemonLime
awake is not to be taken seriously; in fact, I’m simply going to ignore him from now on, and anyone else who is not fair minded, like him. And in response to his asinine question: I support you, and I support Robert; so I’ll just let that burn a hole in his cerebral cortex in trying to come to terms with that concept. Cheerio!
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/022231.html
EXCERPT:
John Dempsey writes:
Did you read LemonLime’s reply to another commenter that directly proceeds his comment that you linked? It seems that he puts you and others (Fjordman, El Ingles, Conservative Swede, Baron Bodissey) that speak truth about Leftism into the same category as Breivik. He states:
“The only difference is that Breivik actually wanted to do something concrete against this dire emergency; rather than sit around and blog about it.�
LA replies:
Oh, I missed that. That is bad. What a fool.
This is the liberal vision. These are the two moral alternatives liberalism gives us. Either you believe that all people are the equal, the same, and to be merged in the same society, or you want to mass-murder all groups different from your own. Either you’re a liberal, or you’re a Nazi.
LA adds (8:22 p.m.):
Here’s what I misconstrued in my too-rapid skimming of LemonLime’s comment. I didn’t realize that his refutation of Spencer’s statement that Breivik is insane, which I welcomed, was actually part of his larger argument that Breivik represents a coherent philosophy, and that this coherent philosophy is that of the Islam critics such as Spencer, Bodissey, me, etc. We Islam critics are different from Breivik only in that he is a consistent believer in the Islam-critical belief system, which he carries out to its logical conclusion, while we mere Islam-critics cowardly pull away from the logical conclusions of our beliefs. Again, this is sheer liberalism, which says that the logical conclusion of any refusal totally to embrace and include a different group is the desire to mass-murder that group. Because I would not want Africans immigrating to America, that means I want to kill all Africans. and if I don’t take that position, that is only because I am being weak and inconsistent. Of course, we never say that my refusal to let strangers move into my apartment means that I want to kill them. We only say this when the refusal involves non-whites and non-Westerners.
LA continues:
Also I see that many commenters are taking LemonLime apart for his equation of Islam critics with mass murderers. It seems he has a reputation for this kind of thing. So there is much more to this thread than I initially thought. Who has the interest or patience to read threads with scores or hundreds of comments? Not I.
END OF EXCERPT
—————————————
LOL!!!! …good one!
anyway, Its’s time to “soldier on” until Hesp’s next presentation of his standard two trick-pony.
You have a lot of friends and supporters on Jihad Watch–and by my count, many more supporters, than not. And asking ALL of them to drop their support is ridiculous; not just on the face of it, but in the implementation of this plan, as well.
Do you agree with Hesperado when he says Muslims are not human?
http://www.mojvideo.com/video-don-henley-the-heart-of-the-matter/2e64c64dc8c8f38318a7
This is as good a place as any to make a summary statement:
Hesperado has failed to provide–and indeed has not yet attempted–an actual argument to support his allegations that Spencer, Bat Ye’or, Fjordman, Auster, Baron Bodissey, et al., are culpable for Breivik’s attacks.
And Kinana has failed to answer my challenge which I posted above on April 19 at 3:57 PM:
1) Show me where on my blog I “blamed Bat Ye’or for Breivik”.
2)
a) Describe what it means to “blame X for Breivik”
b) Demonstrate how on my blog I did 2a.
(Note: #1 includes #2 for anyone versed in elementary counter-argument; but I adverted to it explicitly, just to give you a refresher, as apparently it seems you need one.)
[note to sophomores and junior sophists: "culpable" means "to blame for"]
I don’t think he meant it literally (biologically) either. But I do think he meant it in terms of making assumptions about the non-human status of “all Muslims,” assumptions that would nullify any inhibitions we might have about doing various things to “all Muslims”. He says we need to act against all Muslims with “extreme prejudice,” and so forth. In whatever sense he means “not human” (and these would obviously be psychological, moral, and legal senses), he means it precisely in a way that would give us the green light to do things to them that we could not justifiably do to humans.
Anyways, hope you are doing well too.
Still waiting for you to assemble that argument.
LemonLime wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to read my essays.
…………………………………..
Of course. I always find your work thought provoking.
More:
“You seem to be criticizing those in the West who consider PC/MC a threat…”
Not at all. I am in those essays criticizing not those concerned with the problem of PC/MC, but rather those who magnify and distort the problem of PC/MC into a threat of “Leftists” and “Cultural Marxists” who are on an emergency level “destroying” our civilization.
…………………………………..
I realized at some point that I stand at a disadvantage here. While I have certainly read the work of Auster, Fjordman, and Gates of Vienna, I have not read them widely enough to have discerned a strong distinction between their views and those commonly expressed here at JW vis-a-vis the left.
More:
“… and posit that this position leads “logically” to actions such as those of Breivik.
The latter can lead logically to Breivik’s actions, insofar as he took the lurid hyperbole of an emergency of the destruction of the West by certain Westerners seriously; the former not.
…………………………………..
Again, I’m afraid I cannot speak authoritatively on this point, since I’m not sure how ‘luridly hyperbolic’ these comments actually get. I cannot imagine the actions of Breivik were something they were actually calling for, though, from what I *do* know of their work.
Whether his actions could be seen as some sort of “logical” but unintended consequence—it seems unlikely to me, but I can’t make a strong case for the reasons I stated above.
More:
“And yet, you have certainly made such criticisms yourself, often quite emphatically.”
a) I criticize PC/MC as a long slow process of shift in worldview
b) I have repeatedly remarked that part of what makes PC/MC problematic is that it has a lot of good in it, that it reflects an excess of our Western virtues: it does not reflect a “desruction” of Western values, but a curious morphing of them in a phase that is part of its ongoing progress.
c) I’ve never couched the problem of PC/MC in terms of an emergency — in fact, I have often said it will take a slow stillicide to wear down, and that like fashions change over time, it too will go out of fashion. My main concern has been that the slower the rate of change is, the more likely there will be more successful terror attacks in the meantime, while we take our sweet time waking up. Sure, it would be nice to speed it up, but going around massascring Leftists is not the way to do that. What I have advocated repeatedly and copiously is simply the communication and repetition of certain memes, in the hopes that they grow in our society — just as it took nearly a century for the Abolition movement or the Women’s Suffragette movement to really see concrete results in sociopolitical change, through the long process of people calling for change, communicating change, writing and in the marketplace of free ideas agitating for change. But such a process of a shift in sociiopolitical cultural climate is not going to happen if nobody even begins to think its seminal ideas, and rather actually persists in resisting it (viz., the idea of the management of the problem of Islam by deporting Muslims).
…………………………………..
Well, I largely agree.
My own position is that while some aspects of leftism and PC/MC *are* serious problems in and of themselves, that the main issue is the—largely unintentional—enabling of Jihad that these present, rather than any intrinsic evil.
I also agree with you that PC/MC does have some decent values at its root—fairness and equality—but that it in many cases distorts those values by refusing to consider moral distinctions. The most obvious problem here is that of “being tolerant of the intolerant”.
More:
“Indeed, when faced with the spectre of kids on Utøya Island walking up to Breivik and attempting to “reason” with him—or assuming the massacre was some sort of piece of street theatre ‘commenting on the state of things in Gaza’—while Breivik was *gunning them down* presents the grimmest possible example of a credo which is quite literally suicidal.”
Those kids walking up to Breivik are kids who believe Muslims are good and need to be respected and embraced and dialogued with — precisely the types of people that infuriates most in the anti-Islam movement. Those kids were not merely PC/MC — they and the entire project on Utoya were flaming Leftists — precisely the agents of the “destruction” of Western civilization which so exercises the people I mention in my essays (Fjordman, Auster, et al.). If Breivik were really pro-Muslim, he would have mass-murdered an anti-Jihad rally or a pro-Israel organization.
…………………………………..
I never said that Breivik was “pro-Muslim”.
I just made the point that his is not a true Anti-Jihadist. For one thing, he was targeting leftists, not Muslims. But more than that, he has publicly stated his willingness to work with Jihadists at times to realize his vision for Norway, as well as his admiration for the tactics of Al Qaida.
Breivik is a classic Fascist in this aspect—that of admiring brutality in others, even if his vision didn’t ultimately include those *specific* barbarians.
More:
“I know that when you first began posting here again as LemonLime, that you often assumed the position of a Jihadist or a wishy-washy leftist to make a point.”
It’s called dry sarcasm. I guess I made the mistake of assuming a certain level of education and worldliness among the readership here, who don’t need a /sarc tag in case some bit of sarcasm or satire is a tad too subtle.
…………………………………..
I realize that. But unless you glory more in the role of agent provocateur than cogent commentator, this is always going to be an issue. I only recognized what you were doing myself because Dumbledore’s Army had sussed out your former username here, and I was aware of your previous posting history.
More:
“It might provide a boost for the ego to assume that the people you are corresponding with are simply too dense to grasp your position, but it certainly doesn’t help you get your message out.
There’s something to be said for clarity.”
There’s also something to be said for a variety of flavors, rather than one monolithic style. This is a broad, long-lasting process we are involved in; it’s good to have all types. Bring on the direct no-nonsense guys; and bring on the subtler craftier types. The wider pallette catches the early goose — or whatever that old saw was.
…………………………………..
Sure—even those mired in moral equivalence, clueless apologists, and the occasional out-and-out Jihadist posting here may spark interesting and useful debate. But if you want to present a consistent position yourself, this is hardly the way to do it.
More:
“It would greatly help if you made your position here clear, though.”
I’m sorry my exhaustive essays which you read didn’t accomplish that for you. You still have not indicated precisely how, and where, in those essays you came to be confused and to draw the tentative conclusions you did about me (e.g., “You seem to be criticizing those in the West who consider PC/MC a threat…” — it would be nice if you could supply quotes to substantiate this seeming impression you got).
…………………………………..
Ah—I’m afraid I simply don’t have the time right now to comb back through all five—six?—of your essays to give them such a close reading. I will do so in future if time allows.
I do consider myself both a reasonably intelligent person, and one not generally given to jump to negative conclusions without reason. If your essays are not clear to me on these points, the fault may indeed lie in myself as a reader. On the other hand—with respect—I believe you are at times too clever by half, and then rather revel in the role of being misunderstood. As I noted, there really is something to be said for clarity.
More:
You misunderstand me on several points…
Then you comment:
“Conflating the virtues of reason with the actions of Anders Breivik is profoundly perverse.”
…Where in my entire comment from which you quoted one isolated excerpt do I support Breivik? Why would I simultaneously take certain people to task for their hyperventilating rhetoric about how the West is destroying itself through “Cultural Marxism” (etc.) — taking them to task precisely because their rhetoric of an Emergency Situation “threatening” the very existence of our entire civilization logically leads to doing something aggressive about it — like taking up arms, for example; why would I articulate all this in critical terms, then also turn around and support Breivik? So why did you insinuate I do support Breivik (for I surely support the virtues of reason)?
…………………………………..
Well, I did read this wrong, and very egregiously so. My apologies. It seemed to me that you were making the point that Breivik’s actions were the logical response to being against Jihad—rather than your actual point that it was the “logical” response to certain overreactions by some Anti-Jihadists vis-a-vis PC/MC. I’m still not sure I agree with your point here, but at least I now understand where you are coming from.
Incidentally, I *have* heard some—thankfully, *very few*—Anti-Jihadists who seem to believe that Breivik’s actions actually were justified in some manner. *This* is what I was refuting—but I’m sorry I ascribed such ugly views to yourself.
More:
After my description of the people of Utoya, you wrote:
“I find much of what was being taught at Utøya reprehensible. But Anders Breivik’s horrific actions does not represent any reasoned response to this, to put it mildly.”
Well, of course! Where did I imply otherwise!? Why do you find it necessary to tell me this!?
…………………………………..
Again, see above. Just glad to know these are not your views.
More, re Kinana of Khaybar’s comments:
And the assumptions and claims he makes about me are not harmless matters of intellectual disagreement: they are hostile and inflammatory and slanderous and repeated over and over many times throughout this thread. And on top of that, he refuses to answer my challenges to frame his charges in a rational manner.
gravenimage, you have nothing to say about Kinana’s manner in this thread? I have shown this thread to an intelligent reader who has read JW for years and has participated in comments now and then, and she finds Kinana’s behavior outrageous. Other than her, and Champ, I may think I’m in some Orwellian Alice in Wonderland.
…………………………………..
LemonLime, I believe Kinana believes that you are making a case for genocide. If I believed that of you—which I do not— my manner would not be very civil, either.
I actually greatly respect all of the posters above—LemonLime, Champ, Kinana of Khaybar, and Awake.
I think I’ll go and take care of that headache now…
“You will first have to invest the time, effort, and research in assembling an actual argument, before I can provide a counter-argument.”
Now it is up to him to demonstrate with an argument that my lengthy argument (the essay he claims to substantiate his claim that I “blame Bat Ye’or for Breivik”) is not an argument. It is impermissible in civil discourse to simply label something a “non-argument” without actually demonstrating that is the case; just as it is impermissible to claim something its so, without providing an argument that it is so. Kinana has done this repeatedly on this thread — and now he has the temerity and incivility to do so in the very same context of labeling my argument a “non-argument” without providing a shred of evidence or argument defending that label.
You repeat your demand that I provide a proper and disciplined counter-argument in response to your argument. I had already read your blog materials on this subject, and your above comments in this thread. I find loose and vague allegations, fire alarm analogies, shuffling and sleight-of-hand with the lists of the accused, and so forth. I do not find a proper and disciplined argument that I can counter. Thus, anything I claim you are saying, you will simply deny because of the looseness and vagueness you have afforded yourself in making these claims. I am simply giving my honest opinion of the upshot of what you wrote on your blog and here.
As I said, put together a clear argument of your views on the relation between the Breivik attacks and the rhetoric and claims of the counter-jihad figures you’ve mentioned, and with clarification of the above-disputed aspects, and then I will provide a counter-argument if I disagree with it, or if it departs significantly with what you’ve already claimed and to which I objected.
But I’m not making any such investment of time and energy in a counter-argument until I see a proper and clear argument.
With feigned innocence, or possibly genuine cluelessness, you asked me:
“Why are you being so hostile to me? Did I piss on your mother’s grave or something? I demand an answer from you. We were once friends of a sort. Now you treat me like shit — worse than shit.”
I haven’t treated you unduly badly at all. In this thread, I have simply responded honestly, straightforwardly, to your absurd and baseless accusations against the counter-jihadists you named, your endorsement of atrocious comments that damage the site, your lying about those endorsements, your making of atrocious comments that damage the site (I can provide many more examples, but I am limited by time), your preoccupation with attacking counter-jihadists, your misrepresentations of Spencer and others, and your seemingly misrepresentations of my comments.
You demand that others treat you with respect and extra-gentle kid-gloves care, whereas you regularly treat other people like a bunch of morons and clowns who are merely here for your amusement–at least as far as I can judge from your internet behaviour.
In response to some comments by Lawrence Auster (see the link), you wrote:
http://hesperado.blogspot.ca/2011/07/thin-blue-line.html
“[...] Isn’t this proving Breivik right? Were Breivik in his right mind (which is questionable), he would ask Auster: Are you content to do nothing and merely continue trying to persuade people with words, while the mad modern West continues to careen down the path of self- (and our) destruction? In opting to pursue your method of rhetorical persuasion in the face of this colossally mad and self-destructive force, the modern Leftist West, aren’t you behaving like the Utoya youths who tried to dialogue with me even as I was lethally destroying them one by one?
But for Auster (or Baron Bodissey, or Fjordman, or El Ingles, or I dare say Bat Ye’or too, along with a few others) to see this, they’d have to work out the tangle of kinks of their incoherence. [...]”
—————————————-
My first question to you is Why did you include Bat Ye’or on the list in relation to Breivik?
(I will not respond or address anything else until you commit to a clear and complete explanation in answering this question).
I completely agree …
“I actually greatly respect all of the posters above—LemonLime, Champ” …
Thank you, dear Gravenimage.
“LemonLime, I believe Kinana believes that you are making a case for genocide. If I believed that of you—which I do not— my manner would not be very civil, either.”
I didn’t accuse him of making a case for genocide, though his statements over the years might lead one to suspect he advocates far more severe measures than what he has advocated explicitly. Here, I’m not taking him to task over the suggestion to eventually deport all Muslims from the West, even though I disagree with it.
I’m taking him to task over his insistence on using extreme rhetoric and recommending or endorsing atrocious or outrageous actions. For example, I witnessed the original full comment by Spirit Wolf and I witnessed Hesperado’s endorsement of it, as well as his chastising me for reporting this to Jihadwatch, followed by his denials once his and Spirit Wolf’s comments were deleted. I have quoted enough of that material above, and it can still be seen in the original thread to which I have linked above. Jihadwatch would not have deleted those comments, and would not have banned Spirit Wolf once it became clear that she wasn’t merely venting but was serious in her proposals.
There is no question that he has said that he thinks all Muslims are “not human.” It is classic dehumanization, and would be widely, and rightly, understood as such. He insists on this point, and he insists on trying to hide behind dubious distinctions that will convince no one except those who already think Muslims are not human or subhuman. He seems to either (a) have no clue as to why posting that Muslims are “not human” might pose a problem for Jihadwatch and thus would not be a good idea as it would send the wrong message and play into the hands of site’s detractors, or (b) he is aware that this will cause a problem for the site and that is in fact what he intends. If he wants to say it, and engage in lengthy and convoluted apologetics about it without being challenged by other commenters, then he is making a mistake if he thinks that’s going to happen here.
There is much more I could say about Hesperado’s rhetoric. Whatever his true intentions toward Spencer and the counterjihad people and their sites, the bottom line is that, due to his statements and conduct over the years, he is detrimental to the comment section.
I explain, briefly, what happened in this incident here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/04/norway-mass-murderer-breivik-reveals-his-true-inspiration-we-have-drawn-from-al-qaida-and-militant-i.html#comment-873948
Gravenimage,
“LemonLime, I believe Kinana believes that you are making a case for genocide. If I believed that of you—which I do not— my manner would not be very civil, either.”
I didn’t accuse him of making a case for genocide, though his statements over the years might lead one to suspect he advocates far more severe measures than what he has advocated explicitly…
…………………………………..
Sorry to have overstated things, Kinana.
More:
Here, I’m not taking him to task over the suggestion to eventually deport all Muslims from the West, even though I disagree with it.
I’m taking him to task over his insistence on using extreme rhetoric and recommending or endorsing atrocious or outrageous actions. For example, I witnessed the original full comment by Spirit Wolf and I witnessed Hesperado’s endorsement of it…
…………………………………..
I have never agreed with “collective punishment”. Indeed, I believe this distinction is something that separates the civilized world from the barbarism of Islam.
I do believe that we need strong, decisive reactions to Jihad whenever it occurs, but that it should be directed specifically at the perpetrators, and always through legal means.
I do believe that those Muslims who support Jihad—tacitly or more directly—should be taken to task, but verbally and morally, and not through any sort of violence.
I like many things about Chick Cartoonist/Spirit Wolf/Dalaran, and I respect her artwork, but I have *never* agreed with her here.
More:
There is no question that he has said that he thinks all Muslims are “not human.” It is classic dehumanization, and would be widely, and rightly, understood as such.
…………………………………..
Re Muslims “not being human”, I have addressed that above. I do believe that the actions of Jihadists are “inhuman” in the ethical sense. Of course, Hesperado/LemonLime has always been very critical of the “hate the sin, love the sinner” approach, and I certainly understand some of his objections—after all, the actions of Jihadists do not somehow stand outside their moral agency.
But certainly, such rhetoric can be taken as license to regard the object as less than human. This is certainly what Islam itself does—regard the Infidel as less than human, and incapable of being regarded as innocent.
I also don’t believe such rhetoric helps the Anti-Jihad movement, and I have said so before.
More:
There is much more I could say about Hesperado’s rhetoric. Whatever his true intentions toward Spencer and the counterjihad people and their sites, the bottom line is that, due to his statements and conduct over the years, he is detrimental to the comment section.
…………………………………..
Kinana, I believe he regards such Anti-Jihadists as Robert Spencer as not being “tough enough”, or to follow anti-Jihad to what he considers its logical conclusions.
I do not necessarily agree, and have noted that I believe he often spends more time criticizing what he considers the shortcomings of various Anti-Jihadists than he does on Jihad itself.
And in this thread, I have, sadly, perhaps done the same. I believe that some of his analysis is excellent, but I disagree sharply on some of the same issues you have addressed above.
Unless my recent comments are directly addressed, I’m probably done with this thread, which has now well and truly fallen into the archives. Still, a thought provoking comments stream.
My main point on this thread was that Anders Breivik was not inspired by the Anti-Jihad movement, and I believe this latest revelation from his trial as noted by Robert Spencer makes this case clear.
I’m not the one not cutting anyone slack. I don’t hound anyone here with an eye to getting them banned, as Kinana and awake have been doing against me. I simply am concerned with debating ideas, which includes critiquing them. Critiquing ideas, and finding flaws and trying to make persuasive arguments that the flaws are there has nothing to do with “cutting slack”, except for lily-complexioned thin skins.