The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.
Concerning the Shrink Jihadist in the USA, I’d like to remind people of a quote by the Norwegian blogger Bjørn Stærk, who is not a Leftist by my country’s standards.
Please be aware that no irony was intended in this quote. He meant every word of what he wrote. I personally asked him about this and the views expressed here are consistent with his beliefs.
Essentially he says that non-discrimination is the only thing worth dying for. If my plane gets blown up because non-discrimination allowed a Muslim terrorist to get on board that’s OK; I will die with the knowledge that although my body parts will be scattered across the North Atlantic accompanied by chants of “Allahu akhbar”, they will be ideologically pure body parts.
If this sounds insane, let’s be honest enough to give Mr. Stærk credit for having articulated the belief system of the entire Western world today:
- - - - - - - - -
Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there’s a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip. Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane.
47 comments:
Ok, Fjordman, I believe you when you tell us this person is not considered a Leftist in your country.
So, just for our edification, who would be considered truly Left? Maybe someone who offered to light the fuse on the bomb that was about to blow him and his family to Kingdom Come? Would *that* be Leftist behavior?
This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm really curious as to what one has to do or say to be considered to the left of this specimen you present. Would it be perhaps someone who started a politcal party devoted to the preservation of plant life to protect it from the depradations of humans who perform massacres every time they cut the grass?
Another thing. Have you seen Alice or the Mad Hatter recently? They would make admirable citizens of your fine polity.
Liberalism is indeed a suicide pact and a genocide pact all rolled into one. Sounds a little like a certain "Religion" I know of.
I think we need a new McCarthy now...
I just received my copy of The Flying Inn, which is rumoured to explain the current political climate quite well. Alice and Mad Hatter relevant figures as well.
A real leftie would be anti-Israel, anti-private property, and covering for the blackhoods...
Mr Staerk confuses Arabs,Moslems and "race",which doesn't inspire much confidence in his stated principles. According to Staerk,perhaps the police shouldn't discriminate against drunk drivers because driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs doesn't always cause injuries or a fatal crash( of course, flying with Moslems as fellow passengers usually isn't fatal either)However, if there is a car crash, there's a high probability that at least one of the drivers will be juiced up on something. So,if indeed, your loved ones are blown to pieces at 30,000ft, or slaughtered in the street,there's an excellent chance a Moslem pressed the button or squeezed the trigger. If I were a peaceful, law-abiding Moslem I would take a philosophical attitude to discrimination given the psychopathic nature of some of my co-religionists.
Dymphna: Hillary Clinton could probably pass for a conservative politician in my country and The New York Times would be one of the most right-wing newspapers. That wasn't a joke, it was a factual statement. Perhaps that explains Obama's Peace Prize. Norway is a kibbutz with a national flag, at least it used to be. How do I fit into this landscape? They don't even have a scale for me here. I'm off the charted map, sharing space with mermaids and various sea monsters.
Conservative Swede has the theory that Norwegians have a special talent for articulating stupidity. Maybe's he's right. Scandinavian Leftists are the most clueless people on Earth, with the possible exception of Jewish Leftists. But it really is true that the above quote sums up the entire Western world today.
Fjordman, I still believe the Brits, with Common Purpose, have worse idiots than we do...
This is cultural relativism an act of terror as nothing more than an isolated event void of any meaning and free from retribution.
Dumb witnesses of our own destruction.
@Fjordman
I've just written a post about Norway's stupid electoral system that has just allowed socialists to stay in power although most Norwegians voted for right and centre-right parties in the recent elections. What did you think of the election?
Also, to illustrate how people think in a country I love and visit often - a Norwegian friend told me yesterday the 45% tax she pays is "fair". wtf?
The Norwegian concept of "fairness" probably derives from Swedens, and drives everything they think and do. How many more of their daughters will they allow to be raped before they do something about it?
FJ,
I believed it when i read it that you were talking about a real person. Over here they'd be in a group like Code Pink...yes, we have lemmings, too.
The concept of "fairness" as a moral idea usually begins at the age of four or so. In normal human development, it is discarded, by the very latest, in late adolescence.Except in the West,that is.
Fairness is about as useful as having an appendix. Doesn't actually serve a function anymore, but you have to keep an eye on it because some day it could explode unexpectedly and kill you.
Fjordman I would really appreciate it if you could ask that fellow how often he actually flies.
To me, his statement is typical of someone who rarely if ever sees the inside of a 727.
He needs to read up on Jacksonian Americans. It is a different culture over here.
And remind him that tif for tat with the OCCASIONAL forgiveness is an optimum strategy for a minimum friction.
As long as there is a dar-al-hab there is going to be war.
When there is no one left who wants to fight we will stop fighting. Seems fair enough.
They give up on jihad and we give up pounding them. It seems really fair and just to me.
If they don't think that is a good idea we can fight about it. What could be more fair?
Thanks for reviving my old article. I've commented this here.
Btw, the key of the quote you posted is the word irrational. If it is irrational to fear passengers just because they look "suspicious", then it's cowardly to act on that fear. If it is not irrational, because, say, 10% of all suspicious passengers are actually terrorists, then it's just common sense to act on that fear.
I think it's safe to say that the percentage of suspicious-looking passengers who actually are terrorists is microscopic. You should be more afraid for a regular airplane accident than that the strange person next to you will blow it up.
I hate to be that one who has to pour cold water down your pants folks, but being a Norwegian myself, I can guarantee that 99.9 percent of the ethnic Norwegian population considers such statements to be an utterly and completely insane. I don’t know what Mr. Staerk was smoking at the time he wrote this, but I definitely don’t think it was tobacco. If Mr Staerk were to argued for such a policy at let’s say a Norwegian Labour Party conference, he would more than likely be laughed out of the premises, and severely ridiculed in the national newspapers in the following days for making such a stupid and moronic comment.
It might be worth mentioning that an Algerian asylum seeker indeed tried to crash a Norwegian airplane in 2004, by attacking the pilot and the co-pilot with an axe. Two of the passengers understood what was going on, and managed to disarm and incapacitate the lunatic. One of those passengers was a Norwegian Labour party politician, and therefore undoubtable a ‘lefty’. What this particular Labour politician did, by bravely taking on the hijacker and in the process help save dozens of lives, is by any decent standard a very heroic act.
The brave passengers onboard the doomed US flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11 2001, attempted to do the very same thing, to disarm the hijackers, but they unfortunately failed. The brave passengers who did try to stop the hijackers are today considered to be heroes by the American public, and rightly so.
I also think there is a big difference between Norwegian lefties and American lefties (The Democrats). There is a big group within the Democratic Party in the US that wants to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, and allow them to remain in the country as legal immigrants. I don’t know how many illegal immigrants there are in the US at the moment, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to estimate that that figure is at least 15 million.
In Norway that same number is probably close to 20 -30 000 individuals. Apart from a handful of lefties from various communistic parties, I haven’t seen any Labour politicians arguing for a similar policy in Norway. Several leading Labour Party politician have in fact argued for a much stricter immigration policy in the last 6 months.
I also seriously doubt that Hillary Clinton would be considered a right wing politician on par with Carl I Hagen, Vidar Kleppe and several other Norwegian Frp (progress party) politicians. Per Willy Amundsen, Frp spokesperson for matters relating to immigration, has on several occasions suggested stripping criminal immigrants of their Norwegian citizenship and deporting them. He has also suggested sending Mullah Krekar to Guantanomo, and so has several other Frp politicians. I don’t believe that Mrs Clinton is in favour of such a policy; as a matter of fact I believe that she is in favour of closing down that particular prison.
And yes, the majority in Norway believes that they are being overtaxed, by unscrupulous politicians. There are numerous articles in the Norwegian National newspapers every week confirming this. Yes there might be some that are happy to pay 45 percent of their income to the authorities, but the majority don’t, nor are the majority paying a 45 percent income tax.
kritisk_borger: "If Mr Staerk were to argued for such a policy at let’s say a Norwegian Labour Party conference, he would more than likely be laughed out of the premises, and severely ridiculed in the national newspapers in the following days for making such a stupid and moronic comment."
Nah, it's just that you've misunderstood it. What do you say to a passenger who panics before the plane takes off because they're afraid it will crash? You enocurage them to get control of their fears. That's what I'm saying too.
Bjorn Staerk
I was referring to Fjordman’s quote;
“Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there’s a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip. Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane.”
And yes, I do find this particular quote to be insane. The only people who are actively trying to blow up planes at the moment are Muslims, thus they should be screened more thoroughly.
I personally don’t give a rat’s ass about Muslim sensitivity, regarding this issue. My personal safety is more important than their fears or displeasure of being strip searched by airport security staff.
"I was referring to Fjordman’s quote"
Of course you were, and I just explained what it meant. I should know, I wrote it.
You really should read the whole article, I'm fairly satisfied with it. And if you have any questions, I'll stick around in this thread for a while.
The article is interesting and important as it outlines the paradox of terror.
The fear should not be considered irrational as the threat is real, the reality of that fear is associated with islam. The irrational belongs to islam not to the fear of the passenger it is the irrational of islam that should be exorcised.
I've just read your entire article, Mr. Stærk.
I agree there's some truth in what you've just objected :
"What do you say to a passenger who panics before the plane takes off because they're afraid it will crash? You encourage them to get control of their fears. That's what I'm saying too."
Yes, that's what you are saying, inasmuch as your article explains that the most powerful weapon of terrorists is fear itself, and that, therefore, it's important to be brave and confront this fear. I agree on that.
It's also true that your article clearly disapproves of terrorists and of the aim of Islamic djihad. In other words, you don't seem to be oblivious of the threat.
However, your article is wrong on many other counts.
First of all, the risk of an airplane crashing because of some failure or human error has nothing to do with the risk of it crashing because of terrorism.
In the first instance, you know that everybody is doing their best in order for a crash not to happen. In the second instance, you know that a very significant number of people (and that's an absolute number, not a relative one) are doing their best in order for a crash to happen.
It's a fundamental difference.
Therefore, the way to prevent an accidental crash to happen is fundamentally different from the way to prevent a deliberate crash.
Adequate training and appropriate democratic and independant controls are the correct response to the first risk. The second risk needs to be tackled with active, aggressive police and military methods.
You obvisously disagree with this. You obviously think a "business as usual" strategy will be enough.
You write :
"The fear makes us stupid. It makes us want to throw out centuries of experience with democracy and rule of law, it makes us consider identity cards and massive surveillance, it makes us treat all Muslim immigrants as suspects."
Of course we should treat all Muslim immigrants as suspects. They are. You don't seem to realise that we are at war, whether we like it or not. War has been declared upon us by Islam.
In times of war, regular rules don't apply any more. The British introduced identity cards during the Second world war precisely because of that. Having won the war, they got rid of them.
During the Second world war, would it have made sense for the British to "not treat all German immigrants as suspects" ? Of course not ! Germans were the enemy, so they were not even suppose to immigrate at all.
What your article totally misses, is the connection between the military djihad (terrorism) and the political djihad. Just because tarrorism acts will not happen, or may be relatively few, does not mean that charia is not being implemented. On the contrary. Fear of terrorism makes Western governments accept charia.
Sitting "bravely" behind Arabs in a plane for the sake of "diversity" will neither prevent terrorism, nor the implementation of charia, and therefore the victory of Islam.
There's a difference between being brave and being foolish.
Bjørn Stærk writes online under his real identity, unlike many people here, including myself, and he's sporty enough to come here to hostile territory to defend his views. Don't beat him up too much. He's a fairly decent and well meaning chap. There are plenty of people out there who are far, far worse. We should save our energy for those who really deserve it.
That being said, Mr. Stærk, your above quote is one of the most insane things I've ever read, and I've read a lot. I had a hard time explaining to people such as Lawrence Auster's readers that you meant what you wrote and that it was not intended as irony. I'm happy you come here to confirm this.
Robert Marchenoir: "Yes, that's what you are saying, inasmuch as your article explains that the most powerful weapon of terrorists is fear itself, and that, therefore, it's important to be brave and confront this fear. I agree on that."
Thanks for reading - and understanding - the article. Obviously it reaches a conclusion that is objectionable to the readers of Gates of Vienna, but the reason it does that is not that it represents some sort of politically correct death-wish, as some argued when it was published, and Fjordman implies here. The reason is that the conclusion springs from an understanding of reality and certain basic ideals that are different from those of people here, namely:
"Of course we should treat all Muslim immigrants as suspects. They are."
I don't agree. I don't agree that Muslims in general are a threat to us, and I don't agree that we should treat a group as suspect just because a minority within it are dangerous. The first is a disagreement over facts, the second perhaps over ideals. I'm not here to debate these disagreements - I just want to point out that this is what the disagreement is about.
That's what I meant when I wrote above that the word "irrational" is the key word in the quote. Because if you agreed with me about Muslims and collective suspicion, then you might conclude that it's cowardly to act as the passengers I wrote about did. But if I agreed with you about Muslims and collective suspicion, then it would at best be foolish bravery do sit calmly behind a suspicious-looking Muslim. Everything follows from these two disagreements.
I'm sure everyone here can agree that there are situations where one has to suppress one's fears either because they're irrational, or because one believes strongly in certain ideals. War is an example of doing this because of ideals. Flying is an example of doing it because the fears are irrational. What I write about is a little of both. But the idea that is objectionable from the point of view of people here is not that it's sometimes necessary or right to suppress one's fears, but my view of what kind of threat Islam poses, and how we as democratic societies should treat collectives.
Fjordman: "I had a hard time explaining to people such as Lawrence Auster's readers that you meant what you wrote and that it was not intended as irony. I'm happy you come here to confirm this."
I meant it. But you misunderstood it. I don't expect people here to agree with it, but I expect people to be able to understand what argument I'm making, and why my conclusions are different than yours. I encourage everyone to read it in light of what I've just written here, and not conclude that every single thing about it is perverse, just because we build on different premises.
Bjørn Stærk :
"I don't agree that we should treat a group as suspect just because a minority within it are dangerous."
I wouldn't say this should be a general rule, either.
However, what do you make of the rather obvious historical and human fact that most, if not all, violent agressions committed by one large group of people (say, a nation) against another are always initiated, and even conducted, by a minority within the group ?
That's the case in wars and revolutions.
Not all Germans were Nazis. A tiny minority (*) of them were in the SS.
Would you say that the Allied powers were not justified in treating all Germans as suspects, and even enemies, just because "many" or even maybe "most" Germans were not especially eager to kill Frenchmen with their own hands, or pour the Zyklon-B themselves into the gas chambers ?
___
(*) As in : only a tiny minority of Muslims are radical Islamists.
Robert Marchenoir: "Would you say that the Allied powers were not justified in treating all Germans as suspects, and even enemies, just because "many" or even maybe "most" Germans were not especially eager to kill Frenchmen with their own hands, or pour the Zyklon-B themselves into the gas chambers ?"
I would say that they would not have been justified in treating their own citizens as suspects, merely because they or their family had a German background. I haven't heard of this happening much to Germans in the Second World War, but it did happen to Japanese-Americans, and most people seem to agree that it was a mistake.
I like to think that not only the US but all Western countries are based on a set of ideals, and that it should be possible for someone to move here and adopt those ideals, and be treated as equals. That does make it a little harder to find Muslim terrorists, but I think these are important ideals, and the threat of terrorism is far smaller than the threat once posed by the Axis powers or the Soviet Union. When the US interned Japanese-American citizens, and when the Western powers later discriminated against communist sympathizers, at least they did it in the context of a genuine threat against their very existence. We have no such excuse. Our threats are small, and so it's worth facing some risk in order to preserve the ideals we believe in.
It's the same as how some of the rights we have as citizens make it a little harder for the police to prevent and investigate crimes. But we accept that, because those are the ideals we want to base our socities on.
But again, I'm not here to convince Gates of Vienna readers to trust Muslims, and I realize that some people here probably do think of Islam as a threat on the level of Nazism and Communism. Let's not discuss that, it won't lead anywhere, (I've heard all your arguments, and you've heard all mine). I just want us to agree on what it is that we disagree about.
Bjørn Stærk: I don't agree that Muslims in general are a threat to us, and I don't agree that we should treat a group as suspect just because a minority within it are dangerous. The first is a disagreement over facts, the second perhaps over ideals.
This is where your arguments fall to the ground.
There are no "ideals" involved, only FACTS.
Fact one: Muslims, by definition and by the lights of their own guiding scripture, the qu'ran, are a definite and existential threat to every important aspect of Western culture, freedom and liberty.
NOWHERE that Muslims have attained a demographic majority is free from Shari'a law and it is one of the most barbaric and tyrannous institutions to disgrace modern humanity.
Fact two: It is not that a "minority within it are dangerous" but that all legitimate Muslims are dedicated to jihad and therefore to Islamic terrorism. Zakat, as must be contributed by all Muslims who are able to, finances global terrorism and it must do so by scriptural writ.
You ascribe moderate aspects where none are present. Muslims who do not subscribe to the foregoing are MINO (Muslims In Name Only), and represent targets for murder by properly practicing Muslims. As many of Islam's most prominent world leaders have noted:
THERE IS NO MODERATE ISLAM
Consequently, there can be no "moderate" Muslims and your entire argument is stripped of any factual basis to be revealed as the pseudo-intellectual fantasy that it rightly is.
Fjordman
OK. Point taken.
----------------------------
I visited Bjørn Stærk's blog in 2004.
Algerian tries to crash Norwegian airplane
and remember this from your own blog
Is Fjordman, and other "Islamophobes" like me, a threat to peace and stability in Europe? Bjørn Stærk seems to think so. He calls me "dangerous", a term he also uses for the person who killed Theo Van Gogh and the ones who are trying to kill Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders.
What Bjørn Stærk is bringing up is irrelevant, for it serves no useful purpose. Our job is to make sure that we save ourselves. If we had the means to differentiate the radical from the moderate Muslim, we would use it. However, no such method is available. I consider Islam to be a far greater threat then Nazism and Stalinism combined.
Therefore, safety first must be the motto.
We could end this discussion with one sharp stroke on the Gordian knot:
If everyone had El Al Airlines take over airport security and all flights, there would be a sharp reduction in fear, rational or otherwise.
There would also be a sharp reduction in flying imams. They wouldn't be permitted to board a Jewish plane so they could use, say a Syrian airline instead.
One airline for Muslims and one for everyone else. What could be fairer than that?
Dymphna said - One airline for Muslims and one for everyone else. What could be fairer than that?
What indeed? If it is successful, why not extend it to other spaces. I'm certain it will lead to a lot less friction in life for all. Muslims will also not have to continually defend their cherished customs, which excite so much hostility among others, which then gets them so enraged that they start shooting everyone, or fly planes into buildings etc etc.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Muslims lived in their own countries. They had their customs, but it was of no consequence to us. We even smiled at these practices in a haze of benign tolerance. Each to his own, live and live etc. This was a multicultural world - and it was fine. We could visit each others world, and come away satisfied with an exhilarating experience. However, a multicultural nation or community is a nightmare, as we are finding out. Law and order, common decency, good manners, and various other attributes of a community fall at the wayside. Muslims also experience this, and it sends them into a rage.
Therefore I'm all for cutting the Gordian knot.
Bjørn Stærk said: "What do you say to a passenger who panics before the plane takes off because they're afraid it will crash? You enocurage them to get control of their fears."
I usually say:
"Yes, you are absolutely right to be afraid because you (we) are four times more likely to die in this plane than we are in our cars, since the risk depends not on how many people fly everyday (which is how these statistics are usually presented), but rather it depends on how many hours we travel in each, i.e. our exposure rate to each method of travel.
"Here, have another drink 'cause that might help."
One airline for Muslims and one for everyone else. What could be fairer than that?
Then we'd have to rely exclusively on "moderate Muslims" to wrest control of hijacked planes from jihadists looking to fly them into tall buildings. No thanks.
Bjorn's blog is hosted by "New World Order Norway". This is how they describe themselves:
"About:
New World Order Norway is part of a multinational organization that works towards forming a strongly centralized global unitarian government, which can take control in a fragmented world where democracy has failed to achieve the global perspective that is necessary for a clean and orderly world society.
History:
NWO has roots in older organizations that can be traced back to the early middle ages, and it has shaped world opinion and global agenda for centuries. Today, NWO is a modern lobby organization.
Work:
NWO works through such fora as Bilderberg and the trilateral commission in order to promote its agenda on a global level. NWO Norway works to achieve regional power through local and national channels, and plays an important role in the public and private sector."
Not a Leftie? He's in deep with the fascists - you can't get much further left in my book ...
Fjordman,
Conservative Swede has the theory that Norwegians have a special talent for articulating stupidity.
Well yeah. While other Westerners act more or less perfectly upon PC though patterns, Norwegians seem to have a special talent for verbally articulating them. However, this doesn't make them more clueless, just more honest.
A prime example of this is Geir Hongrø. E.g. in this discussion thread where he provides a definition for socialism: "Socialism is to take from the rich and give to the poor."
Here's an excerpt of the exchange:
Geir Hongrø: Sosialisme er å ta fra rike og gi til fattige.
Chris Joy: "Sosialisme er å stjele fra de rike og gi til de fattige".
Geir Hongrø: Hva det vil si å "stjele" blir til enhver tid definert av det herskende flertall i et demokrati.
So Chris Joy points out that "to take from the rich and give to the poor" is better translated as "to steal..."
However, someone of the honesty and fidelity as Geir Hongrø will tell it like it really is. I.e. that the state can define "stealing" anyway it wants, such as how the ruling majority in a democracy can decide any sort of "stealing" not to mean stealing (I would mention taxes in this context).
Chris Joy: Stjele slik flertallet definerer det idag tillater meg å rappe alt hva du eier, for så å torturere deg på det mest bestialske for til slutt avslutte ditt liv.
Geir Hongrø: Nei, men hvis jeg hadde vært rik og du fattig kunne du nok brukt Staten til å ta store deler av det jeg eide, og også torturere meg med å sperre meg inne i en statlig innesperringsinstitusjon hvis jeg ikke ga det fra meg frivillig.
Og sånn bør det være også.
Chris Joy then adds that the majority could decide for torturing Geir to death in bestialic ways. Geir agrees that had he been rich then Chris could have used the state to torture him and imprison him, in case he wouldn't give away his possessions voluntarily. And Geir ends by saying: "And this is how things ought to be"!
More Geir Hongrø:
In the very beginning of the same thread Øyvind Michelsen complains about the West's self-flagellation, he mentions e.g. the deranged colonial guilt of Scandinavian countries.
As the great master of explicitly articulating PC doctrines, Geir Hongrø answers:
Du er ansvarlig så lenge du har høyere levestandard enn menneskene i de kantene av verden som ble ofre for dette. Levestandarden SKAL være den samme over ABSOLUTT hele verden, og før det har vi i Vesten ingen rett til annet enn å SKAMME OSS over at den IKKE er det!
Først den dagen det blir gjennomført en politikk der størsteparten av den rike verdens rikdommer blir betingelsesløst overført til fattige land kan Vesten slutte å skamme seg. Den dagen kommer før eller siden, forhåpentligvis før.
I.e. as long as the living standard is higher in the West we are guilty for everything that goes wrong in other places (we are bad people and they are victims). And until the day that the equality if absolutely perfect across the planet, we must continue to nurture this shame.
Someone suggests that differences in living standards could have something to do with cultural differences. To this Geir answers: "You have no right to claim that some cultures are better then others!"
Once again the brilliant Mr. Hongrø is spot on. Notice that he doesn't claim that it would be factually wrong to say that some cultures are better than others. No, he doesn't go there. Instead he goes straight to the essence of things, i.e. that under the PC doctrines you have no right to say such a thing.
All straight to the point and magnificently explicit. It's true that most Norwegians do not excel in this talent, but my point is that I have only seen this talent taken to such heights by Norwegians.
Two more dicussion threads with Geir Hongrø: here and here. He left so many gems across the Internet.
Anne-Kit: "Bjorn's blog is hosted by "New World Order Norway"."
Yup. And if you read that site and didn't get the joke, you need to reevaluate some pieces of your worldview. It's kind of a litmus test, like dihydrogen monoxide for environmentalists. I hope this isn't a general trend around here, a merger of paranoia about Muslims with more traditional conspiracy theories?
Conservative Swede: "A prime example of this is Geir Hongrø."
You're quoting some nut from Usenet to prove something about Norwegians in general? He speaks for nobody. In fact, judging from the quotes, I'd suspect him of being a troll. He definitely offers no insights into how social democrats see the world.
Bjørn Stærk: "And if you read that site and didn't get the joke, you need to reevaluate some pieces of your worldview."
Germanic humour doesn't often translate well into the Anglo-Saxon world. And, if you don't understand that peoples of different cultures might interpret things in a different manner than you, then you might want to reevaluate some pieces of your worldview.
BTW, I didn't bring up the statistics on flying just as an aside. I mentioned them to illustrate that your reasoning capabilities are, apparently, fundamentally flawed. You don't seem to understand basic statistics (in the instance of the risks of flying, for example) -- you're hardly the person anyone should trust to evaluate the risks of flying with suspicious looking Muslims.
@ “You're quoting some nut from Usenet to prove something about Norwegians in general? He speaks for nobody.” -- Bjørn Stærk
Bjørn Stærk,
I don’t claim to be able to read in Norwegian, but if Geir did indeed say: "You have no right to claim that some cultures are better than others!", keep in mind that this is pure orthodoxy in today’s Western academia: the cultural relativist school that started in the US and infected the rest of the West in the last century.
I am publishing a whole book here at GoV to thoroughly crush and debunk the idea that “no culture is better than others”.
It’s good to see that you are open to discuss these issues with us. I agree with Larry Auster that liberalism (which holds the same axiology of social democrats) is worse than Islam. As I say in my blog’s hatnote, if liberalism were to disappear, Islam would face the risk of disappearing from a newly-revived West.
From this POV, liberalism, the belief that non-discrimination is the highest value of society, is the suicidal etiology behind the Islamization of Europe and also of its demographic dilution (non-breeding, non-married feminists, etc.). In other words, all liberal values must be reversed. Don’t miss Auster’s article about Islam.
Cheers,
César (a.k.a, “Chechar”)
EileenOCnnr: "Germanic humour doesn't often translate well into the Anglo-Saxon world."
Germanic humor? What is this, the 19th century? Anyway, it's not about whether you find it funny. It's about whether you realize you're reading a fake website.
And I'm not sure how to interpret your comment about flying. Are you saying that it isn't safe to fly, and that people who are afraid of it are rational in doing so?
Cheechar: "I don’t claim to be able to read in Norwegian, but if Geir did indeed say: "You have no right to claim that some cultures are better than others!", keep in mind that this is pure orthodoxy in today’s Western academia: the cultural relativist school that started in the US and infected the rest of the West in the last century."
Genuine cultural relativism is a pretty marginal view. It doesn't have much of a life outside of academia, and is well past its golden age there as well. At least that's my limited understanding of where it stands in American society - in Norway it is definitely a marginal view. Almost nobody will admit that they believe in it, and those who believe weaker versions of it are on the defensive.
That doesn't mean that everyone believes the opposite, ie. "the West is superior in every aspect". Relativism has been influential, and I think that's a good thing. We are open to admitting mistakes in our own culture, and appreciating strenghts in other cultures. That may be as repulsive to you as genuine relativism, but they're still different. I think it's healthy to dig up negative aspects of the culture you belong to, and positive aspects of cultures that seem strange to you. It is perhaps part of these liberal ideals you want to smash, but it's far from cultural relativism.
Also, the quote you selected is one of the least extreme things this Usenet character appears to have written. It seems he also "believes" (ie. trolls gullible readers by arguing) that rich countries should give away most of their wealth to poor countries. You might find that view in tiny communist sects. It has nothing to do with the social democratic worldview.
@ I think it's healthy to dig up negative aspects of the culture you belong to… --Bjørn Stærk
Of course it is.
@ Genuine cultural relativism is a pretty marginal view. It doesn't have much of a life outside of academia… --Bjørn Stærk
I’m not so sure. It’s pretty much alive here in Latin America and when I lived in conservative Texas I exchanged arguments about it with neighborhood, non educated blacks. Also, the 1964 US immigration Act was based on non-cultural discrimination, and this is so alive that even in Yahoo you see Lottery ads that welcome Third World immigration into the US… but not from England. Today’s Zeitgeist still breathes some air of cultural relativism outside the academia. Again, in Mexico cultural relativism is such a dogma in the academia that it is taken as axiomatic.
@ Relativism has been influential, and I think that's a good thing. --Bjørn Stærk
Here we disagree. When the whole of my book is published, GoV-ers will see why…
@ I think it's healthy to dig up negative aspects of the culture you belong to, and positive aspects of cultures that seem strange to you. --Bjørn Stærk
Again yes: but there’s little if anything really superior to the West that other cultures can contribute to. The ways you phrase your sentences suggest that all cultures have simply black, white and gray areas. A more realistic picture emerges when comparing the childrearing methods of the West vis-à-vis other cultures, as well as how women are treated. This is precisely the subject of Psychohistory, which I’m trying to introduce to GoV-ers in the online book. For the moment let me quote from a discussion I was involved last year in Wikipedia:
Let me draw an analogy between the ideas of Lloyd deMause [the founder of Psychohistory] and those of Lawrence Keeley, professor of Archeology at the University of Illinois:
Keeley holds that the frequency of deaths from warfare was greater in the past than it is today, and that it has been decreasing for the past two or three millennia. This directly contradicts the commonly-held opinion, both within anthropology and the public mind, that "primitive" societies were much more peaceful than modern societies (this is the "Myth of the Peaceful Savage").
Keeley's 1996 book, "War Before Civilization" adduced an enormous amount of historical and archeological data in support of his controversial thesis.
DeMause holds that the frequency and severity of child abuse was greater in the past than it is today, and that it has been decreasing for the past two millennia or so. This directly contradicted the then commonly-held opinion, both within anthropology and the public mind, that neither "primitive" nor modern societies treat their children badly at all. DeMause's breakthrough 1978 monograph, "The Evolution of Childhood", was hugely controversial, despite the enormous amount of scholarly historical references that deMause brought to bear on this question.
Bjørn Stærk: "Germanic humor? What is this, the 19th century?"
No. It's the 21st Century.
Bjørn Stærk: Anyway, it's not about whether you find it funny. It's about whether you realize you're reading a fake website.
Of course it's about recognizing whether or not the site is funny. Understanding whether or not that site is fake is predicated by the understanding that it is a joke. Just like reading "The Onion" might confuse some non-Westerners.
Bjørn Stærk: "And I'm not sure how to interpret your comment about flying. Are you saying that it isn't safe to fly, and that people who are afraid of it are rational in doing so?"
No. I just pointed out that it is not as safe to fly as it is to drive when one looks at exposure time and, therefore, that it is rational for people to be more afraid of flying than of driving.
That was not my point, though. My point was that in your original blog post, you repeated the oft-quoted statistic that flying is safer than driving even though most of those statistics are based on questionable numbers (i.e. not based on exposure time).
Since you didn't seem to have questioned the flight safety statistics (one should always question all statistics, right?), I wondered how well you might be able to evaluate the dangers of allowing Muslims on Western airplanes (especially given our modern circumstances that, while all Muslim are not terrorists, most contemporary airplane terrorists have been Muslim).
Bjorn,
You're quoting some nut from Usenet to prove something about Norwegians in general? He speaks for nobody. In fact, judging from the quotes, I'd suspect him of being a troll. He definitely offers no insights into how social democrats see the world.
I'm was not making any generalization about Norwegians (and neither was Fjordman!). The point is in pointing out a highly interesting phenomenon, so far only observed in Norway. If it would be found also in e.g. Sweden or, let's say, Korea, it would not make it any less interesting.
And no Geir Hongrø is in no way a troll, but completely serious. It's funny how these Norwegian talents are met with disbelief in spite of their deep seriousness. But it's the very same way with you. Many people, when they hear you, think that it's not real - that it is a parody or some sort. And now you react in the same way when you hear Geir. What's the difference?
And it's funny you should say that "genuine cultural relativism is a pretty marginal view" since you adhere to that view yourself. And your whole anti-discrimination stance, as exemplified in above article, taken to the most absurd level of derangement, is 100% a symptom of that.
Regarding Geir Hongrø:
I was looking for the quote where he says that even if mass immigration leads to the collapse of our societies, of our people -- along with rampant crime and rapes -- it is mandatory and a moral obligation for us to enact it; otherwise we are evil racists, not worthy of existing (not worthy of living in either case I guess). Unfortunately I couldn't find the quote.
Chechar wrote:
but there’s little if anything really superior to the West that other cultures can contribute to.
If Geir Hongrø had been here, he might have formulated the rule of cultural relativism something like this: That you are allowed to say some positive things about the West as long as you do not say more positive things about the West than about other cultures. Stipulated equality applies again!
And as far as I can see Bjorn adheres to exactly this doctrine. For which point of view, the reality, that the West is superior in most aspects, will be seen as bigoted by people like Bjorn and Geir. That you are not "open to admitting mistakes in our own culture, and appreciating strengths in other cultures".
If it's not equal it's not true. The map is correct; reality is wrong. So "you have no right to claim that some cultures are better than others!"
Bjorn seems to think that cultural relativism is not "genuine" unless only negative things are said about the West. But there is actually room to say some positive things, as long as it does not add up to the West appearing better in total. And as far as I can see Bjorn makes sure not to be in breach of this rule.
Hi, C.S.
“Cultural relativism is crap, believed only by idiots, ignoramuses, anthropologists and historians. The Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly rejects cultural relativism... Cultural relativists are merely denying human rights. (On a moral level, they are still violating human rights.) The reason anthropology and history are f***d is because they reject psychology and *that* is the only possible explanation for both culture and history.” —Ark's flaming in a Wikipedia talk page.
You can read the whole of my Wikipedia exchanges with advocates of cultural relativism in my wiki user page, where you all GoV guys and gals can get a glimpse of why I chose the “Quetzalcoatl” title for my book that The Baron is kindly publishing in this blogsite.
This is my fourth and last allowed post in this thread. I just want to stress that Auster’s definition of liberalism as non-discrimination is the ideological principle that describes, at least phenomenically, the virus of the mind that is destroying the West. According to Auster, this liberal principle of Western destruction is utterly simple and radically extreme. “Yet very, very few people, even self-described hard-line conservatives, are aware of this principle and the hold it has over our society.” I’m afraid I would include quite a few GoV-ers in this definition.
The Ft. Hood shootings is only the most recent example of just how the overwhelming majority of people are absolutely blind about how the non-discriminatory Commandment is utterly destroying us. All people, including conservatives, seem to be plugged in The Matrix, even the filmmakers of that very film! (they also filmed “V of Vendetta”, where they depicted as the bad guys a futuristic government which expels the Muslims and the homosexuals from the UK). I’d dare to say that all Westerners, not only Bjorn, are sleeping in The Matrix of what Auster calls the non-discriminatory principle. Well, not every one of them… Daniel Pipes has just published a piece in FrontPage Magazine noting how all the elites are grotesquely blind to see the Jihad that is just in front of their noses (out of fear to break the First Commencement: Thou Shalt Not Discriminate on the basis of culture, religion, ethnicity, sexual preferences, gender, etc). Pipes wrote:
The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to kill 13 and wound 38 at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of “racism,” “harassment he had received as a Muslim,” a sense of not belonging,” “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” “mental problems,” “emotional problems,” “an inordinate amount of stress,” or being deployed to Afghanistan as his “worst nightmare.” Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads “Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery.”
Yes, everything except Jihad. Matrix! I must insist that Auster’s article A REAL ISLAM POLICY FOR A REAL AMERICA linked above, and already published in a book available from Amazon, is must reading not only for Bjorn, but for every reader of this blogsite.
It’s the only way to wake up…
rebelliousvanilla --
Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the last of these rules. We keep a PG-13 blog, and exclude foul language, explicit descriptions, and epithets. This is why I deleted your comment.
Use of asterisks is an appropriate alternative.
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rebelliousvanilla said...
Jean Francois Revel - Flight from Truth is the book that explained the best to me a lot of issues of the "liberal" ideology.
Fjordman, I'm off the charts in my country too. We are still pretty nationalist, even though we import a lot of stupid ideas from the West, so in a generation we will be where you are - my future kids will be in a s*** situation. Now, I'm always amazed by my country's politicians. Some want to cut taxes, some to increase them... Nobody wants to cut spending though, which is the real cost of a government on the economy. This is just an example. Hell, I'd abolish the retirement system, healthcare system, education system, I'd decentralize the governance, I'd propose a new Constitution in which citizenship is accorded on ethnic base(funny enough, most Muslim countries deny citizenship to Palestinians so that they stay there and fight), not civic. I'd make a bill of rights annexed to it and ban direct taxation... I'm off the charts for the US too.
Anyway, I think the Romanian presidential candidate that lost is by far more idiotic than anything you have. He proposed we should share the gas and oil resources we WON IN COURT with Ukraine... So that they will be our friends. My country fought to be unified and independent ever since we had an year that has four digits, until 1878. I couldn't really believe that he said that, my jaw literally dropped. I doubt that even a Norwegian politician would say that he wants to give a part of the Norwegian territory to Sweden.
As a summation, if what I say is considered dangerous because someone might do some damage because of it, how can you say that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful? And as a side note, I like the rule of law or having a death wish above my head for being an atheist(well, theoretically, I'm a Christian, so I guess I'd just fit as a slave girl), but that same rule of law should give preference to the things that is based on, which is European tradition and culture. The situation is simple, if you don't want to fully integrate here, you're not welcome.
I have a question for Baron. If I write an article about culture, immigration and the social cost of it and if you like it, will you publish it here? I could have published it on my blog, but I didn't post anything on it in ages and it would probably get no views.
rebelliousvanilla --
Yes, I'd be interested to look at an essay. Send it to unspiek(at)chromatism.net.
But leave out the potty-mouth language, please.
I apologize. lol. I literally have to get used to censor the word s**t when I write comments... I'm going to write it in the next couple of days then and we will see how it goes.
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