There has been a terrible slaughter in Norway, one of the most peaceful nations in the world. Among the dead are over 80 children who were at summer camp on a small island. A person, now identified as Anders Behring Breivik, a right wing extremist, dressed up like a police officer and gained entry claiming to be doing a routine check in connection with the bombings in Oslo.
I am Norwegian-American and have visited there a few times. One thing that stuck out was how much the Norwegians loved their children. My relative proudly pointed out to me that on their national day, they have children march and not soldiers. This is such a terrible tragedy. My heart goes out to each and every Norwegian. It will be so hard for them to come to grips with this.
Lately I have developed the habit of clicking on over to the right-wing site Free Republic, to see how the right is spinning the various political issues that we at DKos are interested in. On my latest trip I read the collection of comments there about this shooting:http://www.freerepublic.com/...
The first commenters were interested in whether this was the most people killed by a lone gunman. Maybe they worked for the Guinness Book of World Records. Someone wondered how much that much ammunition would cost in Norway:
What would it cost to buy this much ammo in Norway?? Seriously, a cup of frikking black coffee is $5.
Some were interested in his methods:
Normally, for those kind of numbers you need gasoline.
Everyone there at first assumed Islamic terrorists were behind it, as did most everyone else. So it was hard for some to accept that it was an ethnic Norwegian, that actually had views somewhat like theirs.
“It seems like a conservative who is sceptical about islam and multiculturalism.
He would fit in here at freerepublic.
I read many of his posts. He seemed smart, and I agreed with most of it. Not a hint of any aggression or murderous intent.
He had ambitions of starting a conservative print media as he didn’t like the socialist bias of the msn.
Just crazy.”
One said he could understand his frustrations, but this was the wrong way to express them:
Flipped out. Frustrations with the evil perpetrated by one's government. That is my interpretation. Democracy as practiced today, requires a lot of tolerance for evil. Some ain't got it (the tolerance.) Such as the evil perpetrated by Dodd and Frank, to use a trivial example. Or Ted Kennedy over the years. Some boil over, while the rest of us sit back and tolerate it helplessly, because what else are we to do. But the evil so often pointed out on these very pages is real, and Robert Bork was right when he wrote Slouching Toward Gomorrah. This is not to excuse the perpetrator, but an attempt to comprehend the underlying reasons. He achieved nothing, and the message he was hoping to send will be lost. Are there better ways to send the same message? If there are it doesn't get through, either.
Someone else agreed:
Setting aside the monstrosity of it for second.....what a freaking idiot. As a political act, this was monumentally stupid.
And then, inevitably, some refused to accept the account now offered by the Lame Stream Media:
I don’t believe for one minute it was a ‘tall, blond’ as ‘reportedly’ told.
Earlier reporting said it ‘should’ be one..
and
Yea, Bin Laden said 4 million American children have to die.
And the plan is to overwhelm police stations with an emergency, then kill children in the school yards etc...sounds familiar eh. Despite the ‘reportedly’ tall blonde who allegedly did this..
But anything else wouldn’t fit in the Obama/ Napalitano meme of white domestic terrorists doing it, eh?
and
I wouldn’t believe a word coming out of Norwegian spokespersons at this time. Norway is worse than Japan at lying about incidents that put them in a bad light. Norway is a spoiled rich country, living off oil, with spoiled rotten people.
That's it. I could only bring myself to read the first 3 pages. Maybe I will stop going over to Free Republic for awhile.