Norwegian Terrorism

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

As an aside, I wonder to what extent it is justifiable to champion American justice when 90% of US cases never reach trial but are settled through the "plea bargain". Is this not a "mockery" of "due process"?

[River]

Since when did scratching heads over the Norwegian system equate with championing the US system?

Is Norway even a common law country? Could Breivik make his defense in another common law country?

I'm actually a little torn. On one hand, he's going to dig his own grave trying to convince Norway he was trying to defend himself and the country from all them scary brown people by murdering white Norwegian children. On the other...does anyone really want or need to listen to this crap?

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Since when did scratching heads over the Norwegian system equate with championing the US system?

Is Norway even a common law country? Could Breivik make his defense in another common law country?

Apologies. My off topic aside was a response to the introduction of "American due process"

I'm actually a little torn. On one hand, he's going to dig his own grave trying to convince Norway he was trying to defend himself and the country from all them scary brown people by murdering white Norwegian children. On the other...does anyone really want or need to listen to this crap?

What crap? His crap? My crap? Uncle Tom Cobleigh's crap?

Of course, nobody is forced to listen to any of the "crap". However, I find that Breivik, and his arguments, actually raises fundamental issues of justifiable actions; issues that are all too frequently "swept under the carpet".

Btw, I think it is interesting that you presuppose Breivik's stance as against "brown people". Why? From what he has stated so far, it is Norwegian culture that appears paramount to Breivik, not race. His grievance is against multiculturalism, it would seem. Are you claiming that Islam is racial? If so, that is an interesting proposal...

[River]

I've been to Scandinavia a few times. It's a very homogenous part of the world. Over there, multiculturalism is a code-word for "people who don't look like us." Because Turks, Africans, and Asians tend to stick out in that area and because a sizable fraction of these immigrants also tend to be Muslim, religion gets conflated in the mix.

The crap I was referring to is Breivik's claim that he acted in self-defense. You are, of course, free to take my comment personally if you support his stance. You can even get on a soap box and loudly demand the Marshals edit my post because you are offended. Really, I won't mind.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

I've been to Scandanavia a few times. When people over there freak out about multiculturalism, it's a code-word for "people who don't look like us."

The crap I was referring to is Breivik's claim that he acted in self-defense. You are, of course, free to take my comment personally if you support his stance. You can even get on a soap box and loudly demand the Marshals edit my post because you are offended. Really, I won't mind.

The joy of living in a free society!

No, I'm not offended. I'm never offended! I offend, I'm sure, but... no, any communication with Marshals from me is always defensive...
I simply wanted clarification. I do think Breivik's argument regarding "self-defence" is worth examining. Considering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threat of war against Iran, the concept of defensive pre-emption is apposite.

[Primula Baggins]

I think it's appropriate to point out here that this is a privately owned messageboard, not the public square, and that the people who meet here generally agree to behave civilly, as we would if we were in our host's living room.

That expectation of good manners and pleasant conversation doesn't constitute political repression, even if it means we can't all say absolutely everything that occurs to us. Because, again, this isn't the public square. It's a privately owned space. One of its purposes is interesting conversation, which certainly can get intense. But another quality of interesting conversation is that it covers a range of subjects and does not always return to one topic, no matter how fascinating one participant finds that one topic.

I'm posting this as a private person expressing her private opinion of a board I enjoy being part of. I hope everyone here will enjoy it.

[axordil]

The problem with defensive pre-emption is that it's a matter of degree, not kind. Attacking someone who has the capability of being a threat someday, and with whom you have poor relations (aka Iraq) strikes me as morally dubious (as it did at the inception of hostilities).

That isn't the same as, say, spotting a sneak attack coming and going after the forces ready to execute it. That's morally defensible, if perhaps hard to pull off.

Nor is it the same as killing kids who might grow up to disagree with you politically someday. I don't think I need to explain how that ranks.

Where one draws the line on the continuum is a matter of personal and political persuasion...but the lack of a sharp line we all agree on doesn't mean there's no differentiation to be had.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

The problem with defensive pre-emption is that it's a matter of degree, not kind. Attacking someone who has the capability of being a threat someday, and with whom you have poor relations (aka Iraq) strikes me as morally dubious (as it did at the inception of hostilities).

That isn't the same as, say, spotting a sneak attack coming and going after the forces ready to execute it. That's morally defensible, if perhaps hard to pull off.

Nor is it the same as killing kids who might grow up to disagree with you politically someday. I don't think I need to explain how that ranks.

Where one draws the line on the continuum is a matter of personal and political persuasion...but the lack of a sharp line we all agree on doesn't mean there's no differentiation to be had.

ax, I agree with you on your substantive point, that there is a moral continuum, and I further agree that Breivik's actions are indefensible. However, where I may disagree is on the relative "indefensibility" of the examples cited, and the concomitant opprobrium each example merits.

It is interesting, I think, that Breivik has taken exception to the idea that he has killed "kids"; no victim was under the age of 14 (the relevant age of responsibility, I believe). Does this matter? Not to me. A life is a life, and whether the victim is 15 or 50, their ability to survive a spray of bullets is not age related. So, I think, "kids" is used emotively. And Breivik didn't target these young adults because they "might grow up to disagree with [him] someday", but because they were already actively involved with the political establishment he saw as the enemy of Nowegian identity. Again, this is not meant to justify him, but it is a distinction.
Breivik's action was a "shock and awe" act of pre-emption. It was unequivocally indefensible. But it was only unique in its particular circumstance. The ideology behind it is, at least for me, totally unacceptable. It is predicated on a desire for racial/cultural/ethnic purity.
My opposition to this is total. And not just for Norway...

[axordil]

If I still have to drive them around because they can't drive themselves, they're still kids.

However, where I may disagree is on the relative "indefensibility" of the examples cited, and the concomitant opprobrium each example deserves.

As I said, people put the line in different places, and it may not be fixed in stone for everyone.

Thought experiment: let's say the US got wind of the attack on Pearl Harbor three days before the attack, via some fishing boat seeing the Japanese carrier force or some such. That major of a military force steaming toward the lynch-pin of the US presence in the Pacific wouldn't require much interpretation, given the tenseness of the diplomatic situation then.

Would the US have been justified in sending out submarines, etc., to sink the carriers before they launched their planes?

Of course, from the Imperial Japanese point of view, the attack on Pearl Harbor WAS pre-emptive self defense, or at least pre-emptive defense of their supply routes to the Dutch East Indies.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

If I still have to drive them around because they can't drive themselves, they're still kids.

Then my mother is still a kid!

However, where I may disagree is on the relative "indefensibility" of the examples cited, and the concomitant opprobrium each example deserves.

As I said, people put the line in different places, and it may not be fixed in stone for everyone.

Thought experiment: let's say the US got wind of the attack on Pearl Harbor three days before the attack, via some fishing boat seeing the Japanese carrier force or some such. That major of a military force steaming toward the lynch-pin of the US presence in the Pacific wouldn't require much interpretation, given the tenseness of the diplomatic situation then.

Would the US have been justified in sending out submarines, etc., to sink the carriers before they launched their planes?

Of course, from the Imperial Japanese point of view, the attack on Pearl Harbor WAS pre-emptive self defense, or at least pre-emptive defense of their supply routes to the Dutch East Indies.

Did you just answer your own thought experiment with an "absolute" ambiguity?

[axordil]

Not so much ambiguity as illustrating the number of issues involved, and timing (and its conjoined twin certainty) not the least. Stopping an inevitable attack immediately before it happens is never going to have the moral stigma attached to it that stopping a likely attack months before it happens would, which in turn is less morally noxious than stopping a possible attack years before it might happen.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

Not so much ambiguity as illustrating the number of issues involved, and timing (and its conjoined twin certainty) not the least. Stopping an inevitable attack immediately before it happens is never going to have the moral stigma attached to it that stopping a likely attack months before it happens would, which in turn is less morally noxious than stopping a possible attack years before it might happen.

I see. So I take it that (sorry Godwin!) the assassination of Hitler in 1919 would be an especially noxious moral act?

[axordil]

Ah, but there we're down to particular individuals, not large-scale military action, or even wholesale mindless slaughter. That's the alternate history game, not the "When does it become permissible to act in self-defense" question. In 1919 there was no way of knowing what Hitler, or any given person, would eventually do.

[Túrin Turambar]

Norway is a Civil Law country and I am unfamiliar with the rules and procedures of criminal trials in the civil system. Nonetheless I am saying, as a general point, that I can’t see the any possible benefit to anyone in showing Breivik’s Youtube video to the court, or letting him give obviously political speeches, or letting him call Islamic extremists as witnesses or any of the other inane things that seem to be going on. I can’t read a word of Norwegian but I’d be surprised if that view was not also being expressed in the Norwegian press and community generally.

Ultimately talk of history or global politics is irrelevant in criminal cases, as much as the likes of Breivik would like it to be otherwise. I don’t know how self-defence works in civil law, but in common law countries it has a specific meaning – you take action that a reasonable person would take to protect yourself from an immediate threat proportionate to that magnitude of that threat. What Breivik is arguing is not self-defence in a common law sense, and I would doubt it would be anything resembling self-defence in the civil law sense either. He is welcome to lobby the Norwegian Parliament to change the law, but I don’t see why he needs to be given ten weeks to make his argument to a court which cannot possibly accept it.

[Alatar]

Of course, as usual its all down to those Satanic video games.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/04 ... the-facts/

Getting so tired of this lazy journalism.

[CosmicBob]

Of course, as usual its all down to those Satanic video games.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/04 ... the-facts/

Getting so tired of this lazy journalism.

Next they will be blaming Rock and Roll. The Devil's Music, don't you know.

[vison]

My youngest son is going to be in Oslo during this trial, or at least part of it. He's going to be staying with relatives. He's going to be there for a shooting match - many of his fellow competitors will be military and police from all over Europe.

I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say about what THEY have to say.

[Ghân-buri-Ghân]

My youngest son is going to be in Oslo during this trial, or at least part of it. He's going to be staying with relatives. He's going to be there for a shooting match - many of his fellow competitors will be military and police from all over Europe.

I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say about what THEY have to say.

I would not be surprised if there is a majority of Norwegians who are aghast at this "circus", but is that really relevant? There is a consistent majority in the UK favouring the reintroduction of the death penalty, but this doesn't happen. Why? Because populism does not, necessarily, create good law.
I am in a minority in the UK in not wanting the death penalty here, and I am thankful that the law is not democratic. Therein lies tyranny, I fear.

[vison]

I daresay most Norwegians are opposed to a "circus", and who wouldn't be?

I look at my 2 boys and think what it would be like if they had been part of that group. They could be. Cousins of ours could have been.

I've said before and I'll say again: even this beast is entitled to a Fair Trial. But everyone is "entitled" to fairness. Everyone is "entitled" to live without their children being butchered like deer in the bush.

The rights of the accused vary from nation to nation. But I have not been reliably shown that the laws of Norway require or even allow this man to claim what Voronwë correctly terms "not a defense".

However, my comment about what my son might hear were not so much what he might hear from our Norwegian relatives, but what he might hear from the military and police he's going to be competing with. After Norway, he goes to Czech for a really big match - I'm sure he'll hear lots there, too.

[River]

Of course, as usual its all down to those Satanic video games.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/04 ... the-facts/

Getting so tired of this lazy journalism.

In hindsight, it was only a matter of time.