Earlier today I wrote about some Men’s Rights Redditors who endorsed the views of Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik – without knowing that the views they were endorsing were his. But others in the manosphere have stepped up to defend Breivik’s manifesto (if not his actions) plainly and explicitly, in full knowledge of just whose ideas they are endorsing.
On In Mala Fide, blogger Ferdinand Bardamu praises Breivik’s “lucidity,” and blames his murderous actions on the evils of a too-liberal society:
[A]nother madman with a sensible manifesto. Another completely rational, intelligent man driven to murderous insanity. And once again, society has zero introspection in regards to its profound ability to turn thoughtful men into lunatic butchers. …
He’s not being sarcastic here. He continues:
That makes HOW many rage killers in the past five years alone? And not just transparent headcases like Jared Loughner or George Sodini, but ordinary men like Pekka-Eric Auvinen or Joe Stack who simply weren’t going to take it anymore. No one bothers to ask WHY all these men suddenly decide to pick up a gun and start shooting people – they’re all written off as crazies. Or the rage killings are blamed on overly permissive gun laws …
Here’s an idea – sick societies produce sick individuals who do sick things. Anders Breivin [sic] murdered nearly a hundred teens (not children, TEENS – they were at a summer camp for young adults) and must pay the price, but the blood of those teens is ultimately on the hands of the society that spat him forth. He is the bastard son of a masochistic, degenerate, rootless world that pisses on its traditions and heritage to elevate perversity, mindless consumerism and ethnic self-hatred to the highest of virtues.
(Bolded text in original.) That final reference to “ethnic self-hatred” seems to be Bardamu’s euphemistic way of complaining that not enough white people are white supremacists.
Then he adds this repulsive final thought on Breivik’s victims:
[S]top acting so fucking shocked that Breivin murdered “children.” As William Rome pointed out, it’s been de rigeur for all of human history for political revolutionaries to kill the heirs of their enemies alongside the enemies themselves, to ensure that the old system would stay dead and buried. … That doesn’t make what he did excusable, but it does make it understandable.
Meanwhile, Chuck of Gucci Little Piggy offers what appears to be a somewhat more restrained, if ultimately more puzzling, defense of Breivik’s manifesto – or at least that portion of the manifesto that Breivik borrowed from the writings of far-right blogger Fjordman.
Chuck complains that Hugo Schwyzer and I are “try[ing] to blame Breivik on MRAs” in our recent posts showing the similarities between Breivik’s ideas and those of many MRAs. Never mind that neither Hugo nor I referred to Breivik as an MRA. I described him as an antifeminist, which is an undeniable fact, whose views are “strikingly similar to many MRAs.” (Emphasis added.) Hugo stated explicitly that he didn’t blame the MRM directly for Breivik’s actions, noting that “[m]ost MRAs – perhaps almost all – reject violence and mass murder as a political tactic.”
Evidently Chuck feels that to even mention the MRM in conjunction with Breivik is some sort of egregious smear, especially since the shooter spent “only” 23 pages of his manifesto writing explicitly about feminism.
Weirdly, after trying to draw a sharp line between Breivik and the MRM, Chuck goes on to apparently endorse Breivik’s (and Fjordman’s) notions about the ways in which feminism “greased the wheels to allow Islam into his country.” The rest of Chuck’s post elaborates on, and seems to fully endorse, Breivik’s/Fjordman’s argument that feminism’s “emasculation of Western men has taken the organic policing mechanism out of the hands of men in society” and thus rendered Western society helpless before the Islamic cultural invaders.
I’ve asked Chuck to clarify if this is indeed what he means to convey in his post. If so, I can only say: If you’re trying to draw a distinction between your ideas and the ideas of a murderous terrorist, you don’t really advance your case by agreeing with the central thrust of these ideas pretty much wholeheartedly.
Shora: I think it was a classic case of the “loaded question” That piece of film was right there for him to whip out as soon as we said we weren’t bothered by immigrants. If you plug “Norway Rape” into Google it’s pretty much all you get (don’t read the comments… they are murderous).
If, however, one plugs in, “Norwegian Rape Statistics” one gets a slightly better mix. Given that I have to use English websites to study Norway I am hampered by all the racists using this report to start their wankffests.
Precunium, you are my favorite <3
Rutee, there was white terrorists in northern Ireland, they didn’t acheive much (anything?) with violence.
Thank you Pecunium for going straight to get real data (and so quickly)
Also, bless you for slogging through that. I certainly don’t have the mental energy to do that, especially at 3 am.
The statistics are certainly not flattering, but it’s disingenuous to look at them and conclude that “Immigration of Muslims will cause more rape and probably a lot of other bad things too because they suck.” Men are more likely to commit violent crimes (and be victims of violent crimes) but I don’t go around saying all (or even most) men are violent or that societies ills are the fault of men.
shora:
“Yes I am outraged now. No I’m not kidding you. What VoiP said to you was actually not meant to be taken personally at all. He was parroting a common example of a loaded question to draw attention to the fact that the question that you asked was indeed loaded. It was a rhetorical question which you met with an extremely offensive bigoted “joke”. So yes, you are in fact being a fucking baby like that.”
I initially asked what everyone thought about Muslims eventually becoming the majority of any of these countries. It will happen eventually due to their high birth rates (is that bigoted to point out too?). I wondered if secular liberals are cool with that. I mean many of you don’t like Christianity so I wonder how you’ll feel when Islam becomes the prevailing religion. I think that is a pretty legitimate point – and it is underscored by the fact that we are always talking about Muslims coming to Western countries rather than the reverse.
After I make that point, VoiP throws in me beating my hypothetical wife. Where did that come from? I don’t care if it was a loaded question. If he wants to jab or joke or play around or whatever, I’ll give him a little bit of what he’s looking for. If he wants me to be the designated bigot here then I’ll give him his bigot. Don’t come crying to me now because I’m playing the role that he so desperately sought for me.
Percunium:
VoiP asked if I beat my wife and I responded with a joke about Muslims. If I was offended I would have started crying like the other commenter, but I didn’t. I mean, by her logic, I should have been offended, but I’m not. Sorry.
VoiP used a classic example of a loaded question on you in response to your own intentionally loaded questions. You were just too thick to get the gag. The point wasn’t to offend you, it was to point out your shoddy arguments. At least that was the point. Now I think the point is to laugh at you, since you seem to think of yourself as some sort of brilliant debater while simultaneously being so fucking dense.
After I make that point, VoiP throws in me beating my hypothetical wife. Where did that come from?
I’m not sure how you are missing this; It came from a well known and oft used example of a loaded question (also, as precunium pointed out, an example of a many questions fallacy). I can say with much certainty (although he will have to come back to confirm this) that he does not actually think you beat your wife, or that you ever did beat your wife. He didn’t even assume you had a wife.
As to why your question was considered loaded, it’s because it implied the presupposition that Muslim people becoming a majority would be a bad thing. This presupposition does not come from nowhere in a country where building a mosque is a huge controversial issue and where there are people who think that burning a holy book is an appropriate response to such controversies. For you to look at me with wide-eyed innocence and ask me how I could ever think such an innocent question was loaded insults my intelligence and your own.
Also, I want to clarify; Calling you out for saying offensive shit = me crying over me hurt feewings, right?
Just so we’re on the same page. I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike bigotry AND can make rational arguments AT THE SAME TIME or anything. That would be silly.
Water is wet.
Sky is blue.
MRA is offensive and stupid.
Everything seems normal here.
How eventually are we talking about? o_O Also how do we know what their culture (must less the culture of any ethnicity) will look like in the future… or if their children will continue their “high birthrates” o:
I personally have no problem w/ it b/c they aren’t a monolith nor are they all (or many) religious extremists… and cultures change and adapt :] There was much fear where I live about the exploding Chinese population and how so many stores are selling Chinese stuff and it’s gonna lead to us taking over and we’re gonna be backwards and traditional and etc… but so far we’re just living like nebody else (also you can get all sorts of awesome stuff b/c of the diversity in stores ) :3
On another note!
I need everybody’s help here! Do you know an MRA blogger (or commenter) who specifically is interested in sexbots or the future technological replacement of women? :3
@ Ami
Last month, David cited a blog called Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology on that very topic. Sounds like what you’re looking for.
No. No I don’t. G.L. Piggy, are you a Turing machine or something.
Nice rebuttal, but has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
I don’t care. I’m already a member of a minority religion, and I don’t really give a damn that not everyone in this country agrees with me. Are you so weak-hearted that it causes you pain that your opinion is not the majority one? I thought Men were Going Their Own Way?
Incidentally, I’m Orthodox, and not only do I not appreciate you sneaking in your bigoted opinions about liberals and Christianity, but a lot of us actually did live in majority Muslim areas for a while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
Some of this history was bad, but most of it was OK. As far as religious violence goes, the Ottomans, with their calmly-sorted spheres of religious tolerance, ain’t got nothing on the Wars of Religion or the Thirty Years’ War. Christians were more OK under the Ottomans than minority faiths were in Europe at the time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Ottoman_Empire#Civil_status
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet_(Ottoman_Empire)
(In before the Fall of Byzantium. Not a religious war: there were Christians and Muslims on each side, and Mehmed II read the Iliad at night and thought of himself as another Alexander the Great. I think Mehmed II is a pretty cool guy. eh allows for religious freedom of minorities and doesn’t afraid of anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_II#Freedom_of_the_Bosnian_Franciscans)
Anyway, I know too much about my own religion’s past to froth and moan about the Big Scary Muslims. Sorry to mess with your fearmongering.
Also, immigrants from areas with high birth rates tend to have high birth rates in the first generation and then normalize to the prevailing societal norms of their adopted country. My great-grandmother (not a member of the Islamic Horde Trying to Kill Us All, nor the Hispanic Horde (Ditto), nor the Asian Horde (Ditto), but the one before that) had 15 children; my grandmother had three; my father had two.
Mert, Shora:
I think it is a forgone conclusion that Islam is a more hostile religion than any other that currently exists – both in principle and in deed. I shouldn’t have to mention 9/11, London, Madrid. So you can complain about a guy burning the Koran, but you won’t get much sympathy from me.
Thus, the loadedness of my question actually has merit whereas the loadedness of VoiP’s question does not. That’s where the difference lies.
To Shora specifically: what is offensive about me stating plain facts? Is it not true that Muslims in European countries tend to commit higher rates of crime, on average, than native Europeans?
Either that or you’re mad that it took you a page and a half to get a really old joke.
What is this fuckery. Are you aware of the topic of this thread? Have you read the OP?
*Sorry, when I said that the last siege of Constantinople wasn’t “a religious war” and used, as evidence, the fact that Mehmet II was into classical Greek literature, what I should have said was that it wasn’t “a Clash of Civilizations.” (It wasn’t primarily a religious war either, but classical literature has nothing to do with that.)
Historically, Muslims have a better record of tolerating other religions than Christians. Historically, both have committed so many religiously-motivated atrocities that it’s basically a wash.
I think the psychological differences between Brevik and the average MRA are more important than the ideological similarities. It’s pretty much always personal psychology that is decisive in triggering spree killing, not ideology.
We can obviously debate how particular psychologies gravitate toward particular ideologies. I think we’d ultimately end up at somewhere very self evident: that many people embrace the same political ideology for very similar reasons, but act on them in different ways and in doing so always put their own personal inflection on them.
Incidentally, I’m not willing to discount Brevik’s political ideas simply because he went bananas. I’ve read the Unabomber’s manifesto and it was cogent enough, in essence not much far removed from your generic (?!) anarcho-primitivist. An idea doesn’t become madder when articulated by a madman or saner when spoke by a rational person.
I’m not an MRA, I’m sympathetic to some of what they say, hostile to other bits. I do think it’s something of a smear on MRAs to connect Brevik to them in some ways that have been going on – for instance some people implying that he’s basically the logical conclusion of MRAdom. There’s a lot of frustration in MRAs, but that doesn’t mean there are a lot of Breviks among them or that the natural avenue for these frustrations is the Brevik one.
I think the fact that Brevik is SO remarkable helps bear that out – at this point he’s either just one guy or part of a very tiny group. Presumably if he was so representative of a wider movement he would have had no shortage of collaborators, given the internet.
Let me count the fallacies.
1) Unchecked immigration – doesn’t happen. Name a single European country that doesn’t impose restrictions on immigrant numbers.
2) Muslim birth rates – nobody is “born Muslim”, despite what people may like to believe. Islam is a religion. People change religions, leave religions, religions reform, and despite what the hysterics claim a 3% minority religion is not about to consume secular European society.
3) “Is it not true that Muslims in European countries tend to commit higher rates of crime, on average, than native Europeans?” I suspect not, but you’d have to properly gather and analyse the statistics, not just link to propagandist videos. What may be true is that the poorest members of society commit higher rates of crime.
GL Piggy, this is for you:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/western-culture-still-very-much-there%2c-say-experts-201107264118/
Yeah, if there’s anything that MRAs tend to excel at, it’s talking out of both sides of their mouths.
Thought undoubtedly more PUA than MRA, Roissy did a few postings on his blog regarding Sexbots and the “Sexbot Apocalypse”, though I don’t know if there’s been anything really recent on his blog in regard to that subject. LOL, in one of his postings, he even delineated the effect that access to sexbots would have on the various Greek alphabet strata of men.
As far as religious violence goes, the Ottomans, with their calmly-sorted spheres of religious tolerance, ain’t got nothing on the Wars of Religion or the Thirty Years’ War.
An objectively false statement. Ask the Armenians about how The Ottoman Empire “tolerated” them.
That being said, the larger point that you and a few others were making about Islam being historically tolerant has a solid basis in fact. During the Middle Ages, Islam was the epicenter of civilization, whereas the West was a bit of a backwater.
But the key word here is “historically”. History isn’t really relevant to this debate, only the present is. Compare the rights of women and religious minorities in Western countries with Muslim countries today, and you’ll see that the West is better. Not different, better.
So why feminists such as yourselves would want to endanger that totally baffles me. Unless, of course, you really do think that all the problems in the world are caused by cocky upper middle-class white boys. I always thought that was a bit of an ad hominem slur thrown at you by some of your less creative intellectual opponents, but maybe there’s some truth to it!
And, as a cocky upper middle-class white boy, I am very offended.
@Kave
“You should be ashamed, and are a disgusting human being. If I could even call you that. After 911 did you post on blogs that the U.S deserved what it got? I’d bet you did.”
The only two issues I brought up in my post were; a fathers right to parenthood and a mans right to not be evicted from his home without even a trial. And look at your comment. So I’m the bad MRA for daring to propose these things?
@Jill the Spinster
“NWO this will change nothing for father’s rights, western govermnents no longer negotiate with terrorists.”
[comment suggesting that terrorism is the only option open for MRAs deleted –DF]
Guilt by association.