Was Anders Behring Breivik Almost Just Like Me In His Worldview?

Provocative title, huh?

From Jeppo:

Check out this article about Anders Breivik. The astonishing thing about him, at least judging by his writings, is his apparent moderation.

He is not a Nazi, he's pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. He's not a white supremacist, he opposes racism. He's not a Christian fundamentalist, he's pro-gay.

He opposes the BNP and Front National because of their ethnocentrism. He's not even opposed to Islam per se, only Islamism. He's not a member of any extremist political group, but the thoroughly mainstream and centre-right Norwegian Progress Party.

He supports most of the same anti-jihadist blogs as many of us, Gates of Vienna, Jihad Watch, Brussels Journal, Religion of Peace, Atlas Shrugs, New English Review, pre-2008 LGF. Other writers he likes include Fjordman, Bruce Bawer, Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or.

He supports non-racial politicians and groups like Geert Wilders, SIOE, EDL. He admires Jesus and Edmund Burke. Authors he reads include Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Orwell, Kafka, Homer, Dante, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Tolstoy, Plato.

He's a fan of Winston Churchill and Norwegian anti-fascist hero Max Manus.

In short, he shares the same political views and intellectual tastes as tens of millions of ordinary people, certainly almost everyone who reads this website. Which makes his well-planned and utterly evil attacks all the more inexplicable.

I have read many articles and posts about Anders the Murderer since yesterday. I have not read his "Manifesto". In his comments, he does, indeed, seem to share many of my opinions.

However, I detect a kind of strategic entryism in his approach. Some of his writings seem very heavily influenced by Fjordman's racialist ideas, which I absolutely do not agree with. It seems that, perhaps, Anders Breivik believed that the "New World Order" was attempting to destroy white hegemony by importing immigrants from around the world to replace what he thought of as the native population.

It seems, perhaps, this led him to a deep-seated anger towards those who he believed controlled the "New World Order" which he termed Internationalism, and I believe he probably equated with the United Nations, and in particular, the European Union.

I will attempt to be more specific in these assertions in coming days, and provide you with links to his various musings. I am just assimilating this whole thing, at this point.

It does, indeed, sound as if Anders Breivik shared my world view on many things. I do oppose internationalism, when international bodies can make laws which interfere with the national sovereignty of the United States of America, the nation in which I live. I do believe the American and European culture is vastly superior to the cultures of the various sectors of the Islamic world. I do believe the United Nations is a very dangerous institution in that, too often, the Islamic bloc determines policy.

But, I am not concerned with a racialist agenda. I do not believe that race determines world view. I believe ideas determine world view. I believe immigration is only a problem when it overwhelms the nations states who are choosing to allow the immigrants to come in.

I believe there is some unknown factor of culture-type X number of immigrants (as a percentage of population) which is assimilatable (made up a word here) over a certain period of time. I believe that, though there have never, to my knowledge, been any studies to support that idea. I find it downright bizarre that there have been no studies on this subject, given the fact that it is, actually, one of the most important issues facing Western Civilization.

I am married to a dark brown-skinned first generation immigrant. My family looks like the United Nations. My in-laws are more traditionally "American" and "Conservative" than I am myself. By that I mean, they love Ronald Reagan, and they are convinced that America is an exceptional nation with a blessing laid on us by God Himself. They believe these ideas down to their very soul. I am more of a Postmodernist Christian who only half believes anything, other than those things which are demonstrably true as they stand before my very eyes.

For instance, I believe that stoning apostates and gays to death is downright evil. I also believe that no human being has the right to determine the choices of another adult human being, and when they attempt to do so it is called slavery. Therefore, it is clear to me that Islam, in general, advocates the enslavement of women. I believe these things because my own experience tells me that

1) individual human beings ought to have autonomy in determining what kind of life they want to lead, as long as their choices do not end up violating the property or bodies of other individual human beings

2) individual human beings are born with various inborn tendencies, among them being various predispositions with regard to sexuality. Somehow, it seems that sexuality is intimately tied with our individual wills as human beings. I do not profess to have an extensive Philosophy on this idea, but it seems self-evident to me. I believe adult human beings ought to be able to freely choose how they express themselves sexually with other adult human beings, as long as they do not harm the bodies or choices of other adult human beings. 

Because I believe these things, I believe Islam, as a body of ideas, is evil. That does not mean that I believe that all Muslims believe these things, nor does it mean that I believe most Muslims are evil. I believe Muslims, as individual human beings capable of making their own choices, are evil to the extent that they believe these fundamental Islamic ideas (that gays and apostates should be stoned to death, and that women are the property of men) and are willing to live by these ideas to the point where they are willing to deny the individual choices of their fellow human beings.

I also believe that all these things I am writing are so self-evident that it is absurd that I should even have to write them. However, it seems we live in a world of people who are so scared to have conflict with other people that they have become unwilling to stand up for very fundamental Freedoms.

I find that pathetic.

Anyway, the point here is, it does seem like Anders Behrins Breivik did, according to those things I have read (so far) which he wrote, share a world view with me, and many of us here at IBA, and it seems to me, he shared a world view with many of the other people I know in the "Counter-Jihad" movement.

However, no other counter-Jihad person of whom I am aware has advocated doing anything like what he chose to do, and certainly no one else has ever done anything like that before.

Anders Behrins Breivik is a murderer. That's what he is. By his choices, he not only impeded on the choices of other humans beings, he took away their right to make any choices ever again, because he murdered them. There is no greater violation of individual human sovereignty.

He is a monster, and he will go down in history as a monster, whatever ideas he expressed.

UPDATED THOUGHTS - I have read it stated that Breivik's Manifesto promoted terrorism as a solution. I wouldn't know. I haven't read it.

But, having thought about this more, my differences with Breivik, Fjordman, or any other Counter-Jihad blogger, seem to have nothing to do with what motivated Breivik to pick up a gun and murder children, nor with what caused him to fill a truck with fertilizer and bomb a building.

Earlier in this post I stated that I believe "ideas determine world view". From what I have read of the ideas Breivik stated on fellow counter-Jihad blogs, it seems that there is nothing inherent in those ideas which would lead to his decision to use terror as a means to accomplish his goals.

I'm sure we will learn more. But whatever we learn about him will not have nearly the impact of the malevolent actions he has already taken.