There’s such a thing as fearing something too much, yes, but that’s not the issue here.
The issue here is that the news media is milking a non-story for every cent of advertizing revenue it’s worth. If this WAS newsworthy, sure, talk all you like about the guy, as long as the discussion is meaningful and impactful. But if all you have to say about things is “Mass murderer makes absurd statements, isn’t that WACKY and OFFENSIVE?”, you’re contributing nothing meaningful to anything except the culture of advertising profits from click-bait non-articles.
We don’t need to have international coverage of a madman’s insanity to know he’s unhinged - he already proved it with mass slaughter. There is no point to this sort of journalism other than the goal of shocking people into macabre interest in the hopes that they’ll click an advertisement or down the line subliminally remember a logo, name, or marketing phrase which influences their purchases.
Different from the Protestant monarchy/dictatorship that existed already how? While he may have been bent on bring England back to the Catholic fold, it’s not like English protestants were blameless and pure, only victims of Catholic tyrranny. In the 16th century, the English were colonizing Ireland, and were pretty oppressive of the Catholics in England, depending on which Tudor monarch you’re talking about. And England had been protestant for less than 100 years at that point, with Henry the 8th only putting himself at the head of the English church to annul his marriage and get out from underneath Spanish hegemony, since he no longer wished to be married to the Spanish princess who had given him a single daughter, which he thought could not effectively rule England… of course the one son he managed to get from his 3rd wife was ineffectual and it was his 3rd in line who proved to be the most effective ruler of all his children, who actually tried to broker a deal between the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority, to some success. Her death threw the whole thing into a bit of chaos and eventually helped to lead to the events of the civil war… If I’m remembering my Tudor/Stewart history correctly.
But let’s not draw to draw this out of its historical period and apply modern sensibilities to these events, because it just won’t work. No where in Europe at this time was a free state with modern democratic principles. These struggles were not about freedom and democcracy and secularism or even religious freedom, but about war factions of elites, seeking to impose their will on each other and the people they ruled over. The vast majority of people in Europe were peasants and serfs, and were often victims in these games that the elites played.
Like Pat Buchanan, Breivik frequently refers to the antisemitic theory of “Cultural Marxim” which holds that a handful of German refugee Jews infiltrated American academia and literally conquered western culture
A fair punishment would be giving iron bars to the relatives of victims of his crime and letting them go at him, one hit at a time. Start with the extremities and once those are sufficiently damaged, amputate, cauterise, then start on the remaining torso. Preferably stop just before he’s dead and then leave his limbless torso in a room full of fire ants with a DVD of various worldwide calls to prayer playing on repeat.
Retribution for mass murderers in teapotland would be very very unpleasant.
And yet, somehow, a comedy film is entirely different than a news report or a blog post.
(That and the comedy in the film isn’t that the Third Reich and Hitler themselves were or are laughable, but rather the humor comes from the absurd situations the story presents.)
Which would be good if he were being kept in prison as a punishment (which he deserves!), but the legal system of Norway doesn’t believe in punishment like that. Which means that these indefinite extensions that everyone talks about are retribution without legal foundation. In other words, revenge.
I assume that the reason for publicizing this thug’s demands isn’t because people think he’s got a legitimate complaint, but to say that “See, he’s still a blazingly clueless loser, who doesn’t understand the seriousness of what he did.”
Seems to me, all that’s changed is that people imagine it’s changed…
Without a cold war in which to argue ideology and democratically posture, and without a viable fourth estate to continue trying to make the dream a reality, we’re seeing the same old filthy shit. It’s an embarrassment to the species.
It looks like Damnatio Memoriae has its issues too; though, I guess due to its nature, it is impossible to verify its effectiveness.
Certainly banning the use of the Swastika in Germany appears to have done little to reduce its force as a symbol. If anything it has added an extra taboo cache to it.
