WASHINGTON — Think of Anders Behring-Breivik, the man who
bombed a government building in Norway before proceeding to
cold-bloodedly massacre scores of defenseless young people on a
secluded island several miles away, as an Adolf Hitler of one. The
first Adolf Hitler was a Hitler to millions. He captured an entire
nation and terrified the world for years.
One imagines that the two, if ever they could have a quiet
talk together, would have much to agree on. Both were meticulous
planners, though I dare say Breivik was Hitler’s superior. He would
not delay an invasion of Russia. Both harbored grudges against
threats to their culture from the foreign-born, and what Breivik
called the “cultural Marxists.” I can well imagine the
Führer admiring Breivik’s taste in uniforms, his Aryan
features, and his longing for his Viking past. Both were mama’s
boys.
The New York Times on Sunday rushed into print
the front-page headline: “As Horrors Emerge, Norway Charges
Christian Extremist.” Within hours, applying the appellation
“Christian” to the assassin subsided, and by Tuesday the newspaper
settled on identifying Breivik with an organization that may or may
not exist beyond his deranged mind, the “Knights Templars.” It was
a military force from the Middle Ages that went on a crusade. I
actually doubt Breivik is any kind of Christian, but rather a
fanatical pagan, a Viking. On that, he and Hitler might
congratulate themselves. Both were pre-Christian
savages.
Breivik hated Muslims and other immigrants’ entering into
Norway, and now the amazing Liberals are linking him to almost any
critic of immigration or of Islam, even critics of illegal
immigration and of militant Islam — terrorists, for
instance. I find these Liberals amazing because most have never
shown any sympathy for any of the West’s organized religions, at
least not religions that demand anything from their believers. I
suppose a religion that suggested yoga or Pilates from adherents or
perhaps vegetarianism might appeal to these Liberals. Yet I cannot
see them respecting an obligation to attend Sunday church or honor
a celibate priesthood or defend female-male marriage, or any other
requirement associated with an established religion of the
West.
What is the American Liberal’s position on “sharia law”?
There are places in Europe, and I dare say America, where Muslims
are insisting on the practice of sharia law with all of its
strictures against women’s rights and, come to think of it, against
the traditional democratic freedoms that our Founding Fathers
fought for and brought into the law of the land.
On other matters, from purchasing alcohol to practicing
homosexuality, sharia law is against it.
Europe, for people of faith and for people of no faith
(though they replace religious rigor with substitutes, say Global
Warming), is in serious trouble. This week, writing from Norway the
critic of Islamic fundamentalism, Bruce Bawer, asserted in the
Wall Street Journal that “Millions of European Muslims
live in rigidly patriarchal families in growing enclaves where
women are second-class citizens, and where non-Muslims dare not
venture. Surveys show that an unsettling percentage of Muslims in
Europe reject Western values, despise the countries they live in,
support the execution of homosexuals, and want to replace democracy
with sharia law.”
Bawer does not strike me as anyone that Liberals have to
worry about. Yet maybe they do. Still, after all the Liberals’
dithering, it is sobering to think that Breivik shared so much with
Hitler. Hitler captured the loyalty of a nation. Breivik was a
loner. How many more would-be Breiviks and Hitlers are out there? I
doubt the Liberals’ dithering ever thwarted a Breivik or a Hitler’s
grand designs. For that you need a Churchill or a Roosevelt, a
pre-modern Liberal.
