The Right Wing's Reaction to Norway

While most of us have been civilized enough to be disgusted by last week's terrorist attack in Norway -- and the chilling manifesto that the killer has been allowed to put on the public, though it -- there is also a not-insignificant amount hardline conservatives who reject all suggestion that he did anything wrong.

For instance, Open Diary user Watcher of Freedom (one of many conservatives who already post tons of Anti-Muslim articles) actually made a comment that the shooting will be used as a propaganda tool for liberals. On Yahoo News alone, there are TONS of users who blame the murdered children for this attack, and are calling this sick fucker a world-wide hero!

THIS INCLUDES GLENN BECK, WHO COMPARED THE DEAD CHILDREN TO NAZIS!

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...Let me explain this to you.

The Norway bomber/shooter murdered over seventy people -- including kids at a day camp -- just because they don't hate Muslims. He -- and those who support him -- want to spark a revolution against Muslims, who have immigrated to the West; a final solution, if you will. Some of them -- including the shooter -- have gone so far as to create a militia, to accomplish this. Hell, the shooter -- who openly admits to what he did, but sees nothing wrong with mass murder, by the way -- actually wrote a 1,500 page manifesto about why Muslims and the people who accept them, should be wiped out!

And yet -- according to far-right wing nutbars and their apologists -- it's not THESE PEOPLE who are like the Nazis, but people who are non-violent, care about the people around them, and don't think that the greatest threat to any nation is that there are more brown people living in it than there were twenty years ago.

I'm just going to come out and say this: if you don't see why this is utterly absurd and appalling, don't get within three feet of me.

Because that's how far I can punch.

Atheists are NOT NAZIS, Your Holiness

If you haven't heard, Pope Benedict mentioned in a speech to Queen Elizabeth that he felt the Church was threatened by "secular extremists" and thought that atheists are no better than Nazis.

(we'll just get this out of the way now: what was Benedict's summer job, again? Oh right, the Hitler Youth... And what faith were most Nazis, including Hitler? Roman Catholic... And what did the Catholic Church do during Hitler's reign? Oh yeah, pray for its success...)

Now look, I might as well say what's been on my mind for some time: GODWIN'S LAW IS OVERRATED. It's well intended, but the fact is that if you've been out in the real world you know that there are a lot of people out there who think that everyone who isn't the same nationality, skin colour, religion, or sexual orientation as themselves should be wiped out. That's not an exaggeration or "liberal bias", it's the truth -- ever heard of the Aryan Brotherhood (or anything coming out of Ann Coulter's mouth)? Heck, if you've seen my video or blog on the Qu'ran burning campaign started in the United States, you'd know that there's some disturbing parallels to the Third Reich becoming more and more common in American conservatives.

Anyway, to directly address The Pope's point... There are definitely extremists in every belief system -- and for all intents and purposes, that includes Atheism -- but to say that every Atheist is an extremist is utterly untrue and disingenuous (great, another clergyman who can't follow Jesus' teachings to save his life...). In my experience, most Atheists just want organized religion to butt out of the government, and to leave them alone personally.

If anyone in any belief system deserves to be compared the Nazis, it's the fanatics (and possibly the fundamentalists) that appear in nearly EVERY religion (the most obvious evidence of that are groups like Al Qaeda and the Westboro Baptist Church). Then again, acknowledging that would need The Pope to acknowledge that Mother Church is fallible (which goes against ecumenical policy), and it would arguably require saying that The Pope's most devoted followers could be a problem. So yeah, I'm not holding my breath.

Look, is it really too much to ask that the leader of the largest religion in the world, actually try to teach his followers to be PEACEFUL instead of thinking everyone's out to get them? With an attitude like that, it's only going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.