Breivik after his arrest
In July of 2011, Anders Breivik set off a bomb in front of government buildings in Oslo, killing 8 people, then gunned down dozens more at a summer camp for the youth league of the Norwegian labor party; in all, 77 people died by his hand. Breivik, a virulent Islamaphobe with a manifesto he wanted to publicize, thought he was striking a blow at the “Cultural Marxists,” multiculturalists, and feminists who, in his mind, were destroying European culture.
On Free Northerner, a far-right manosphere blog run by a self-described “Christian Reactionary,” the regulars are debating if Breivik did their cause more good or harm.
In a post that is equal parts pedantic and pernicious, the anonymous blogger behind the site tries to assess whether or not Breivik was engaged in a “just war” against his foes. Free Northerner argues that
Breivik did have a just cause for war; the rapes, violence, and slow genocide of his people by foreigners and hostile elites are just causes for war, but he was not carrying out a just war.
While Breivik’s cause, in the blogger’s mind, was a noble one, he failed the test for a “just war” by acting alone and targeting youth rather than “legitimate military targets.” Also, Free Northerner laments,
his actions had no real chance of success. Given that propaganda outlets are almost entirely in the hands of his enemies, the most realistic outcome was that his actions would actively hinder his cause.
In order for his attacks to qualify as a just war, Free Northerner suggests, Breivik would have had to rally a significant portion of Norwegians to his cause. And been a bit more picky about his targets:
Given the nature of the conflict in Norway, I think a legitimate case could be made that the ruling elite and politicians are legitimate military targets, but the spawn of the ruling elites were not. He should have targeted the politicians, media, and bureaucrats, not their children.
Good to know just which particular forms of murder are ok with you.
The readers of Free Northerner’s blog aren’t all this squeamish about the whole “indiscriminate killing” thing.
One anonymous commenter, giving himself the name of “A. Breivik,” writes
I don’t agree. Breivik lurks in the subconscious of reactionaries and SJWs alike.
I think a decentralized “lone-wolf” campaign of violence directed at SJWs could have a multiplier effect. Terrorizing weak minded sophists, while inspiring innumerable disaffected members of the majority to finally stand in self defense.
America could sorely use a Breivik or two.
A commenter calling himself Pode decides to do the whole “devil’s advocate” thing, although it’s clear he agrees pretty thorougly with this particular devil.
Argument could be made (not necessarily by me, just advocating for the devil) that the traitorous elites of Norway have in fact declared war, by allowing the invasion, violence, & rape. Thus any member of the Norweigan people would be justified in undertaking a solo mission in that existing civil war … since the war has already begun.
In a followup comment, he added:
Further, compulsory exposure to the content of the public school system could arguably be considered a kidnapping attack on the children of the Norwegians, making their opponents children equally legitimate targets
Commenter Mark Citadel is fine with political assassinations; he just thinks the far-right needs to get a bit more organized about it. Yes, “the Norwegian government is an enemy, like all Western governments,” he argues, but “lone wolf” attacks like Breivik’s can backfire.
Yes, there can be positive effects such as inspiring others, but these are often outweighed by big negatives and tricky moral questions. I think the issue is where do we draw the line? Modernity is the aggressor in this conflict and its adherents are not shy about using violence against us. Where can we respond in kind, and where can’t we. That’s a question that really needs hashing out on the radical right.
But hey, Citadel continues, while Breivik wasn’t really a proper Reactionary, he had some “good instincts,” and picked the right targets. “I do give him props for not blowing up a mosque or something similar,” Citadel writes. “He did actually ‘gore the matador, and not the red sheet’ as I think Jim put it.”
It’s not news that there are those in the right-wing of the manosphere who think Anders Breivik was at least partially on the right track. Shortly after Breivik’s mass murders in 2011, after all, the radical and repellent MRA Peter Nolan wrote that “in different times” Breivik “would be called a hero”; the equally repellant Matt Forney described Breivik’s manifesto as lucid and “sensible,” and a bunch of Men’s Rights Redditors praised excerpts of Breivik’s manifesto before realizing just what it was they were praising.
But it is a little startling to see reactionary manospherians talking so openly, and even enthusiastically, about the pros and cons of murdering their political opponents and/or their children.
