Norway Feels Blowback and Conservatives Feel the Heat

*From the cutting room floor of The Humble Libertarian (originally composed July 28, 2011)

The July 22 Norway attacks perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik that killed nearly 100 children at a political summer camp and a government building has reawakened the paranoia of the thought controllers on the Left that may be igniting a new cultural war against conservatives.

On January 8 of this year, Jared Loughner killed six people in Tucson, Arizona and critically injured Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Almost before the bodies hit the ground, Paul Krugman of The New York Times sat as judge, jury, and executioner of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as the depraved masterminds who inspired Loughner to go on a killing spree. Others joined the dog pile but as details about the young man’s “ideology” surfaced, the case against Palin et al was dropped.

Breivik’s impetus for murder, it appears, was a reaction to what he identified as the “Islamification” of Europe, multiculturalism, and open borders. His actions were undoubtedly a terroristic crime but the people Breivik shot are just as significant as the people he didn’t.

While Muslims certainly stuck in Breivik’s craw, and he apparently cited some of America’s professional anti-jihadists like Robert Spencer and Pam Geller in his infamous manifesto, he didn’t kill any Muslims as far as anyone has reported. His targets were children at a political summer camp held by Norway’s Labor Party and Norway’s three-time prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. His real aim was clearly directed at the governing class, not Muslims. His operation was blowback for Europe’s decades of enforced multiculturalism.

No one Left or Right condones the deed done by Breivik but liberals still leapt for joy that they got to dust off the Loughner playbook. Their objective in this aftermath was to silence any dissent in the Breivik narrative. Not only must the Norwegian’s actions be condemned but his grievances as well.

Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan wrote, “[a]wful as this atrocity was, native born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.

"That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists. . . .

"As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right.”

Naturally, Thought Police like ThinkProgress and Daily Kos were incensed and dragged out old bigotry cards and called for Buchanan’s head. Of course, what angered them is not that Buchanan defended the actions of a murderer, which he didn’t, but that he questioned some of the highest articles of the liberal faith. The belief that maybe Breivik had a reason to gripe does not excuse his actions. It only explains them and this is lost on liberals.

It might be offensive to say that Muslim communities in countries that are not traditionally Muslim have caused friction. But the people of Europe were also not consulted about these policies of open borders and multiculturalism so it shouldn’t be surprising that somebody would eventually have something to say about it.

The lion’s share of the attention has focused on the sympathy Breivik had with the likes of the aforementioned Pam Geller and Robert Spencer who do peddle in fear-mongering and paranoia. Not to be outdone, over at National Review Online, another professional anti-jihadist, Andrew McCarthy, used this tragedy as an excuse to not apologize for selling his own brand of Muslims Under The Bed. Those who should be chastened for their sensationalism have let us know that they are reflecting on nothing and are refusing to look beneath the surface.

Entirely dismissing Breivik’s motivations along with his actions does no more favors than entirely dismissing the grievances of the jihadists. In each instance it oversimplifies a complex problem.

Murdering children is certainly no way to protest despicable government policies. But post-Norway, will there be any discussion on the American Right that penetrates deeper than the talking points of FrontPageMag but indicates that the real culprit might just be the bankrupt welfare state?

That Rally

If there is any question about the status of the conservative movement, it could be found in Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally: it is as alive and kicking as Ronald Reagan himself.

Too soon?

Either way, despite estimates of hundreds of thousands attending Beck’s rally last Saturday, there was nothing on display to imply that American conservatism has any long-term usefulness.

More than anything, it showed the triumph of liberalism over everything in the country, even the purported conservative movement itself.

Heeding criticism that the rally could only be political in nature, the Mormon Beck made it about “god.” Only keynote speaker Sarah Palin, whose presence was derided as proof that the event would just be a Republican rally, treaded into the political muck.

The insufferable opening prayer, led by a supposed descendent of Mayflower passengers, alongside a rabbi and supposed descendents of the Indians er, Native Americans at Plymouth Rock, included a petition about Quaker William Penn and this beauty:

“And you, O God, called us to repentance when we did not live up to our creed, and we did not treat everyone as equal. But Lord, we found out that you are a God of forgiveness, you are a God of covenant, you are a God of restoration, you are a God of healing and you have healed us.”

I’m no professional theologian, but if I understand that correctly, Americans didn’t learn about the forgiveness of God by reading the Bible’s account of Christ’s sacrificial death but only after we had enslaved the blacks and broken our treaties with the Ind-. . . Native Americans. Was this conservative Christianity or the liberal gods of collective guilt and multiculturalism?

This display of multiculturalism isn’t new and it isn’t even unique for Beck. In May, the radio and TV host dedicated one of his “Founders Fridays” programs to the forgotten black founders, a pathetic display of unwatchable political correctness.

That so many conservatives lap up this god constructed in the image of America only proves that the liberals have won the race card war. Or as James Edwards says at Alternative Right:

“. . . a conservative movement as willingly impotent as the crowd that came to DC on Saturday can’t go on much longer. At some point it’s going to dawn on them that no matter how much they grovel to MLK and praise his holy name, or how many ‘conservative’ imams they pack their podium with, they still get called racists and Nazis, and their country just keeps slipping further down the tubes.”

So what was the point of this event? Did we restore honor? Did we worship the god of our imaginations? Has anyone bothered to ask how ironic was it that someone like Beck, who is calling for an end to big government, chose to have his event at the Lincoln Memorial, a monument to a man who knew a thing or two about centralization?

A better question, one that should have been asked, is what the Republicans will do after the November midterm elections, where they are poised to either retake the House or at least make inroads.

The clarion call of the Tea Party over the past year has been “Cut spending!” The right course to be sure, but Pat Buchanan asks what cutting spending really means:

“Where are the victorious tea party Republicans going to cut?

“According to USA Today, 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, and perhaps an equal number on Medicare and Social Security. Which of these three will tea party Republicans cut, when Republicans are already denying Democratic charges that they plan to raise the retirement age for Social Security? . . .

“Are Republicans going to go after other entitlements — veterans benefits, earned income tax credits, food stamps — which now go to 41 million Americans, or unemployment benefits that run for 99 weeks?

“The big remaining items in the budget are interest on the debt, which must be paid, and war and defense. But Republicans are more likely to be supportive of Obama’s rebuilding a military ravaged by war, and staying the course in Iraq and Afghanistan, than are Democrats.

“Obama’s budget commission will surely come in with tax increases on personal incomes, perhaps also for Social Security and Medicare. But the GOP cannot sign on to these and go home again.”

The Republicans only stand to benefit from an event like Beck’s “Restoring Honor,” an event celebrating America’s civil religion, one that obviously resounds with the Republican base.

The only question is how long it will take for conservatives and Tea Partiers to realize that to “restore honor” or restore the republic for that matter, will take more than a few hours of feel-good entertainment and self-indulgence.

It will require hard questions like those above as well as a healthy dose of willpower.

If not, “honor” will only be an afterthought.