Certainly we get many heart-felt emails from conservative Norwegians who fear for their children’s safety should they ever speak out. I agree with their silence: children come first, no matter how difficult that is. We also get emails from expatriates because many Norwegians who can leave often do so, finding a more peaceful life elsewhere.
Norway’s contemptible soviet-style “consensus” culture bullies those who refuse to fall into line. With Obama’s presidency we have seen a sharp uptick in similar leftist tactics here. One has only to listen to our Secretary of State loudly threatening those of us who stray beyond the lines she and the OIC have drawn for dhimmis: we are to be “shunned and shamed”. I am waiting to see this woman appear in a burqa soon.
In a similar vein here in the U.S., recent bullying episodes and ugly harassments have erupted over the death of Andrew Breitbart. I refuse to link them; such vitriol will never find room or voice here. While many conservatives mourn, the left dances like jihadists at a bomb scene, shouting derision and making obscene gestures at those who grieve. I hope his four young children can be shielded from the worst of these offenses against human decency.
Meanwhile, in spite of this administration's pressure, not to mention the leftists who hold hostage any hope of civil discussion, many thoughtful people are still able to speak out; they have the luxury and constitution to absorb the arrows for doing so. Nonetheless, note the numbers of commenters who feel forced to take the Anonymous route because of the danger they perceive (a real and present danger) in writing under their real names. This speaks volumes for the pressure they face.
When we started Gates of Vienna, the Baron was employed by a private company owned by liberals. They were lovely people, but would've been truly shocked if they'd been told what he was writing. It was an extremely good position, though the commute was grueling. I am grateful he worked there since it permitted us to pay the huge fees now demanded by public higher education. We'd never have been able to afford his education otherwise.
[The fB's subsequent limited and brief foray into graduate work quickly accumulated loans he will be a decade or more paying off. He could get a government job and earn government-level wages; in the old days before our government became a Leviathan, he might have done. But not now.]
So...because of a variety of changes in our circumstances (including the fact that he has to stay close to home most of the time because of my physical limitations), the Baron made the decision to go public with his real name. I've heard others take the credit for forcing him out, but that wasn't the case. When he did this he did it for good reasons in the same way that, for good reasons, he was anonymous in the beginning.
Hat tip: The Legal Project
16 comments:
One of the first books I purchased to study up on Islam after 9/11, was 'While Europe Slept' by Bruce Bawer. A good eye opening book from which one may gain some insight into what causes some to recognize the danger with Islam while others choose to ignore it.
Ingnorance is bliss for some, especially those 'attuned' to MC and PC rules who seem to take great delight in hiding behind such demonstrative nonsense, while lambasting those who can see right through it.
I fear that if Obama has his way we will also be afraid to criticize Islam as well. Especially if the OIC get their way and our First Amendment rights are made null and void. It really sickens me to think about how many Americans are not aware of the OIC and their threat to our First Amendment.
I have read many books on Islam and concluded only that that standard history if bunk. And that if there was anything new from the Caliphate it was done by Christians or Persians. Not provable, but..
"Norway’s contemptible soviet-style “consensus” culture bullies those who refuse to fall into line."
"Certainly we get many heart-felt emails from conservative Norwegians who fear for their children’s safety should they ever speak out. I agree with their silence: children come first, no matter how difficult that is."
I'm sympathetic to the silent Norwegians but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I agree with their silence. If people don't have the courage to stand against an oppressive government for fear of losing what's most precious to them then their oppressor will never be overthrown.
Not everyone has the strength to do it. Not everyone has to do it. But enough people do have to do it.
The Norwegians, as well as all others, get the government they deserve.
@ Steven Zoraster --
You say, "not provable" but perhaps we have moved up several notches now thanks to Emmet Scott's painstakingly detailed and REAL history.
His is the best book I've ever read about Islam's initial onslaught against so many countries. The style is superb. It is haunting. So haunting I've read it three times now. This is the first book which has managed to make me see how our whole heritage was skewed, annihilated, and buried from the very beginning.
His work is impeccable; it will be totally ignored by the consensus media.
Look on our sidebar (we don't make anything on this click thru. We put it up as a favor to the publisher):
Mohammed & Charlemagne
And now, the summary of the book- also by the author- is up at New English Review:
Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited: The Conclusion
You'll see what I mean about his style.
The Baron tried to finish it before he left - as he says, it almost reads like a novel - but couldn't do it. So his review will wait until he returns.
I think you will say with us that this is a book every Westerner should have.
@månesteiner --
If you have been a parent you would not EVER want to risk your children's welfare to the torment they would experience at the hands of their indoctrinated peers. Ppl like, say, Andrew Breitbart, could afford to publicly take on the attackers, but he had the wherewithal - lots of money - to protect his children.
Ours are grown, no problem. But young children? That would be reckless and cruel. Leave it to the childless, the old, etc., to take it on.
As for any of us deserving the govt we have, I disagree. In an era of BIG government, crony capitalism, and the amounts of money to takes to mount a campaign, we are stuck with the slim pickings on offer by both machines.
The Tea Party here has made a difference at the margins, but now they're being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service. As prominent conservatives here can tell you, that ordeal is an expensive, long-term hell. It's how Democrats shut up small people.
You can probably still google all the damage by looking for IRS attacks on conservatives. It's a long list...
NO WE DO NOT GET THE GOVERNMENT WE DESERVE. WE HAVE BEEN INFLICTED WITH THE GOVT OLIGARCHS WHO RULE US.
"If you have been a parent you would not EVER want to risk your children's welfare to the torment they would experience at the hands of their indoctrinated peers."
Certainly not. No parent wants their children to suffer. It goes against every fibre in our being. But here we are in the world, and we risk our childrens welfare, one way or another, with every decision we make. There's no choice in that.
Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has a young daughter. Mark Steyn also has children. Still they speak out and take a defiant stand knowing the consequences that may bring.
But they both want a certain kind of world for their children and grandchildren and they know they have to fight for that world. There's no safe way to fight.
@ månesteiner
Both people you give as examples are able to protect their children. They are not averaqe-Joe Norwegians living with close government oversight.
Not for nothing was Fjordman anonymous. He knew what would happen to him were he to be outed. LOOK AT THE VIDEO!
Bruce Bawer is making my exact point. He lived there - he knows first hand how difficult it is.
Your dismissive examples don't take into account what ESW or Steyn would do if they lived in Norway. Or how soon it would take them to move...
I can personally attest to the danger. I don't blame anyone who says (whether or not they have children) that they simply cannot take the risk of speaking out. I suppose, given that I spoke out despite the danger, and suffered the consequences of speaking out, I could blame those who don't. But I really don't feel that there is any point in blaming those who are "not part of the solution".
It's not like I managed to accomplish anything particularly dramatic by putting my life and freedom on the line...unless you count not being dead despite the efforts of our "benevolent public servants". Given that I could easily have managed to avoid being dead anyway (and even avoided a good bit of suffering that I was not spared) by just not speaking out, I'm not sure what my 'accomplishment' of not having died really signifies.
I can say this...there is no longer any hope of safety (for you or your children) in silence. Those who squander the right and means to defend themselves and their own to purchase a temporary respite from the tyrant's impositions gain nothing in the end. But is there really any more hope in open defiance?
The "third way" of covert resistance has never been fully available to me. But I do not therefore disparage it.
Chiu Chun-Ling.
Here is something curious:
http://www.kalamullah.com/Books/MILESTONES.pdf (first paragraphs)
I wonder what would marxists and multiculturalists say if they knew about Sayyid Qutb's opinions on them :)
I agree with you about protecting your children. When I was a young mother I took a stand, naively, against a public school teacher who was gay, who I suspected was doing something inappropriate with male students in his apartment across the street from where we lived in the rural northeast.
I suggested to the PTA (I was an officer and active volunteer) and school board (my neighbors) that if what he was doing was tutoring, he should do it in a more open location so that there was no suspicion or accusations.
I thought I was being a good citizen, a good neighbor. The school board, the teachers, the town turned out against me and came after my children, harassing them. They called me every name in the book - bigot, hater. My husband was overseas at the time, so I faced them alone.
My pastor suggested that I was hated because I carried my Bible to church on Sunday making everyone think that I was holier than all. Perhaps I should stop bringing a Bible to church. (Methodist)
I had to take my children out of public school and put them in parochial school in a town ten miles from my home for their safety and my peace of mind.
A few short months later, the police interrupted the teacher in the midst of an orgy with some young male students and arrested him. He had done the same thing in NY, it turned out, but was not reported in return for leaving the state.
The fact that I was telling the truth, that I was warning other parents and the institution that should have protected the students did not matter. What I was saying went against their narrative, and for that I was punished.
I sold my house and left the town and have never returned. Even if what you are saying is true, they will come after you and your family and when they do, it will be vicious.
Even if what you are saying is true, they will come after you and your family and when they do, it will be vicious.
That is a chilling story. You prove again that following one's intuition is the best policy. We are trained away from using intuition but it works despite "the narrative".
The best book out there on this subject is Gavin de Becker's:
The Gift of Fear
At Amazon it has 477 reviews, dating back to 1999 and right up to the present. The majority are favorable responses.
I got my copy via the city dump. My daughter was in the habit of going thru the used book section in her town; she often came up with some gems & would pass them on to me. I read and re-read that one for several years and when someone else needed it more I gave it away.
Hermes: Yes! I heard firsthand that, when the FBI was allowed to actually learn about Islam, the FBI recommended Milestones as THE book to read to learn about Islam - and the Muslim Brotherhood. In short, Milestones encourages ANARCHY with NO leaders - life in which every Muslim just naturally acts the proper Muslim way. One can only shudder as we consider what that means....
Dymphna: The Gift of Fear is an EXCELLENT book. :)
Anonymous PTA mom: It's good to know that you stood up for the children. I have done the same with the same dismaying results.
I notice that, after the fact, so many people pretend that the evil was invisible to them when they were fully aware, simply allowed it to happen, and punished those who tried to stop it. A lot of people have a lot to answer for....
Egghead
I have loaned Mr. Bawer's book, While Europe Slept to a couple of Europhiles who think themselves left of center but live their lives in conservative fashion. One at least actually read it because the author had some credibility to her just through being gay. Mr. Bawer by his own admission moved from America to Europe because he was under the illusion that they were kinder to gays. He started out in the Netherlands I believe but ended up in Norway because his partner is Norwegian. Bawer has written how that partner has been roughed up more than once in Europe for being gay. Unlike most of the Left, activist gays among them, Bawer actually changes his mind based on the evidence of his eyes and recognizes that Muslims are the biggest threat to gays, not Christians against gay marriage. In that way he resembles Pim Fortuyn but hopefully can keep himself safe from that martyr's fate, murdered by a green lefty for contradicting the religion of multicult and speaking against Muslim immigration. Bawer's most recent book "Surrender" subtitled "Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom" has a gagged Statue of Liberty on the Cover and appears a commendable sequel to While Europe Slept.
The comment from the lady who spoke out against the predator pedophile is interesting. However we must remeber that this is a very old story throughout history. Remember, our Lord Christ spoke the Truth publicly ALWAYS. And look at what those stupid, blind morons, did to Him!
"I admire the police chief who spoke the hard truth that parts of Oslo are "lost" - they don't belong to Norway anymore."
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/06/radio-free-norway redux.html
I admire his speaking out too. Norway needs more people speaking out. Otherwise, no point in complaining about the oligarchs.
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