Explosion in Oslo - Car bomb?

People who think that this will automatically wipe his ideas and ideals away, because nobody wants to share ideals with a murderous loon, are painfully wrong.

Germany had a bunch of home-grown terrorists, they were the extreme left wing, no I'm not talking about Nazis, I'm talking about a group called Rote Armee Fraktion. They killed, bombed and terrorized West Germany for years... but you can still find people who share the same ideals as they did.

It's the danger of having people like that go on trial, have their say and reach an audience that might think... "This guy is obviously a loon, and he should have never killed those people... but you know, this whole Europe thing..."

The best thing is to discredit the man further. Make him a human being, not a mythical monster. Myths tend to attract attention, just plain old people with all too human foibles tend to be forgotten.

If I'm honest about this, I admire the dedication and thought this man put into the attack. I'm impressed that one lone gunman could go so far, though apparently he had some sort of support network. I also agree with alot of his ideals, his opposition to multiculturalism and Islam. But killing innocents is not the answer to the cancer of multiculturalism. And this atrocity will be used as an excuse to crack down on nationalists across Europe. His ideals were agreeable, but his methods were wrong and evil, full stop. He should be executed, but instead will get only 21 years in prison, the maximum sentence in Norway.

edited 25th Jul '11 5:25:43 AM by Shichibukai

You do know that "cancer" is a metaphor preferred by people who want to exterminate what they talk about? Breivik considered multiculturalism a canser, and decided to become the chemo.

I'm not going to write any more, because I'mm feeling the rage come in, and I might say things that could get me banned. All I say is; I don't buy for a second that you are sorry about the attack, for any other reason that it reflects badly on you and your buddies.

Yes, I do think it is a cancer. But don't go jumping to conclusions based on semantic choices. I think it says alot more about yourself, and less about myself, that you judge me completely insincere about my moral opposition to this.

edited 25th Jul '11 6:05:23 AM by Shichibukai

I will doubt your moral objection to this. If multiculturalism is a cancer, what sdo you propose as a solution, other than likvidations?

Hell, you're willing to believe a crazed gunman's view of immigrant crime as some organized ideological raiding, so I'm allowed to think that you're not exactly sheading tears at the loss of a few cultural degradors.

It wasn't just some multicultural degradors. They were innocent children, for ****** sake. This guy was a psychopath, obviously. Agreeing with the views of a psychopath does not add up to being a psychopath.

Political and social action is by far the most effective and moral course of action, except where dirty tricks are being played by the political centre, in which case they need to be exposed. There needs to be a political vanguard movement to stop the decline of Europe. More violence from all sides will only hasten its downfall.

edited 25th Jul '11 6:16:25 AM by Shichibukai

..why do you think multiculturalism is a "cancer"?

Shichi thinks that there's some sort of inherent value to a people's culture that's worth segregating them over. He also thinks that this is tied to their race and that races are genetically distinct groups, despite the clear preponderance of evidence disproving such a view. So yeah, basically no reason that can't be explained by simple, base racialism. Which is actually distinct from racism. While racism is often irrational racialism is an attempt to rationalize those beliefs into a coherent doctrine and so is far more dangerous.

edited 25th Jul '11 6:34:04 AM by Gault

Because multi-culturalism in Western Europe has resulted in fragmentation of social coherence, and segregation, which results in tension between various groups.?

edited 25th Jul '11 6:35:15 AM by Esteban009

What's social coherence? I've never even heard of a term like that before. And it's kind of funny that the movement to integrate different cultures into Western European society somehow ended up creating segregation. That's kind of contrary to the definition of multiculturalism. Sounds a lot like what a lot of right-wing anti-multiculturalists want more than anything.

Also, inb4 this turns into it's own thread about multiculturalism.

by the way, just as a side-note, segregation we're seeing these days is not the type of segregation Americans think of when they hear the term. This is a new kind, where certain groups choose not to integrate into the larger society and keep to their own on purpose.

One sign of this is the children and grandchildren of immigrants who do not speak the language of the country they grew up in as their first language. This puts a strain on their development as a group within the larger structure, since they're effectively making it harder for their children to adapt and excel in school, which results in a weaker position as part of the workforce.

To illustrate that this is a problem that isn't universal for immigrants you can actually differentiate between groups. For instance you can see how East Asian groups perform and how they adapt to their new environment and you can see how Middle Eastern groups adapt.

This shows that it's unfair to blame society as a whole. It's easy to say "but the native people of the country never gave them a chance" without taking into account the responsibilities of the groups themselves, and again you can compare one group to another and you can compare the attitudes of the larger group over the course of time.

For instance in the sixties and seventies people took a fairly lax approach to the issue. Newcomers were often seen as exotic. The eighties took a sharper turn with the economy being in the shitter attitudes changes towards minorities. The nineties saw an upswing in the economy and attitudes changed once again, with people viewing minorities once again as exotic commodities. In the new millenium the attitudes changed again.

To blame it all on the native people never being accepting of minorities is an oversimplification of the situation and shifts the blame to one single group, while absolving others from their own roles in the shaping of a social and political climate.

In other words, Self-segregation — I've heard reports that in some communities here, there have been birth defects due to inbreeding*

Obviously, this leads to alienation from mainstream society, possible hatred of that society and quite possibly terrorism or similar acts of violence.

edited 25th Jul '11 7:04:55 AM by Greenmantle

It seems dubious to me the idea that a child would both properly conceive of and care about matters of culture to a sufficient degree to make a conscious decision to stick with their native culture (which they have never been a part of as they were born to an immigrant family) over the diverse mix of cultures they spent their entire life growing up in.

Why wouldn't they speak English in a majority English speaking country? It seems like they're just handicapping themselves for no good reason. Is this something foisted on them by their parents? If so, it's simply impractical. Youth tend to be rebellious anyway, and are unlikely to listen to their parents regarding matters of tradition.

If I understand your case, you're basically saying that the circumstances of the times is in part what affects peoples' perception of other cultures and ethnicities? If that's the case then I have absolutely no disagreement. After 9/11 a lot of Americans developed the erroneous perception that Arabs were disposed to be terrorists for one example.

That's quite a jump- from in-breeding to terrorism, especially if this is self-inflicted by a choice to isolate themselves. How would they do it? It seems unfeasible to me. It's generally very hard to get along in a society with a lot of different people in it without interacting with a lot of different people.

edited 25th Jul '11 7:09:03 AM by Gault

Cultural relativism is more to blame than multiculturalism.

Culture is what unites a society. Within one culture, that spans for instance a country or some sort of sphere of influence, there will be various subcultures. People from the North of the country are different than people from the South. East differs slightly from West.

Still these various subcultures identify with the overarching culture. You're an American, and to add to that you're also someone from Texas, and not just any part of Texas, you're from Dallas, and so you narrow your own set of cultures down to the family unit, or even the individual. But when asked, you're going to say you're an American, or at least you can identify as an American.

This is an important part of your cultural identity. When you have a nation that is fractured with people who don't identify with the dominant culture you will automatically create a breeding ground for tension.

You allow people to see very distinct sides. A succesful multi-cultural society or country still has one overreaching cultural identity, only with more subcultures added to it that fit with the overlapping dominant culture.

You're an American, but you're also a muslim, from texas, from dallas, from a specific area of Dallas, from a particular family. Again, you identify as an American, as the dominant culture, from that branch you're able to add one more set of sub-cultures to your list. You can call yourself a muslim, your neighbour calls himself an atheist. You differ in that particular sub-culture, but when pressed you're both americans.

Every subculture will have to drop certain elements and traditions, especially those who do not comply with the dominant culture, or perhaps even the laws and traditions of a nation. For instance, if you live in a country where everybody is vegetarian, and the law says you can't eat meat, you will have to adapt and stop eating meat, even if eating meat was part of your cultural identity. If you continue to eat meat you will make yourself more distinct, this might not make you popular but you need to realize that. It's the choice you made. Not all traditions and rituals need to make one group stand out in a negative light. For instance if your culture tells yout that you need to stop eating between certain times, you will effortlessly be able to blend in and nobody will bat an eye. You're not going against the dominant culture, you're not going against the law, you're just following an extra set of rules. Same goes for festivities, these are usually seen as favorable by the people around you. Bonus points if you have typical food present.

Multiculturalism isn't really the problem, it's the fact that it's not implemented properly and people stick to their culture and raise that one above the dominant culture in a country. You're a Mexican first and only then you're an American, that creates tension because you're living in America, you were born in America and you work there. You set yourself aside, you imply that you think being a Mexican is more valuable to you than being an American.

Ah well. Why not just make being part of humanity our overarching identity and avoid all the fuss?

Because that's not how our brains work.

Equating the German RAF with this sicko is nothing short of malicious slander.

Because the RAF has no blood on its hands... right.

Those boundaries only exist because you put them there. Is there really any sort of truly qualitative difference between people from the East or from the West other than the fact that they call themselves Easterners or Westerners?

So what you're from Dallas? All that means is that you were born in Dallas, it doesn't necessarily inform any other attribute of you. What's so special about being from any of these places? The things that constitute culture are all inconsequential as to be completely arbitrary and meaningless in the long run. None of them are even remotely worthy of being held up as a way in which you're different from another person- at least if you're not a cultural supremacist or a narcissist. I'll use your vegetarian example. There are vegans in our society today and it is treated as just another personal attribute, not like they're their own type of person. They, for the most part, coexist perfectly with meat-eaters.

You might as well segregate people in to "distinct" groups based on what type of eating utensil they like to use at the dinner table: forks or spoons. And then they can argue over which one is better for a hundred years before finally having a big fight and killing each-other. That's culture. Transcending all of those imposed labels we are all foremost and fundamentally people, and that's the only distinction that truly matters.

@Jauce, thank you!

edited 25th Jul '11 7:23:52 AM by Gault

The RAF didn't engage in deliberate mass murder of defenseless civilians. The RAF was an urban guerrilla: That's different on many levels from a right-wing spree killer.

edited 25th Jul '11 7:22:55 AM by SavageHeathen

The Royal Air Force!?

edited 25th Jul '11 7:23:33 AM by Gault

Rote Armee Fraktion, or Red Army Faction, was a left wing terrorist group that operated in west Germany back in the seventies and on.

edited 25th Jul '11 7:27:24 AM by Sidewinder

If your killing people to get your goal across then your not "good" by any measure. Your just another villain with another take on evil.

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?

edited 25th Jul '11 7:31:34 AM by Gault

The Other Wiki article — one of number of Terrorist groups active during the 1970s*

Basically, the previous generation of terrorist organisations to the current generation. Most have retired or moved onto other roles, including becoming part of Government.

edited 25th Jul '11 7:34:13 AM by Greenmantle