Oslo Terrorist -- The very definition of terrifying

I don't have the words to express what's going on in my head over this monster in Oslo, Andrew Berwick -- the death toll is going to be over 100. New York Times article here. Methodically done by one guy. It would be comforting, believe it or not, to find out he's insane. But the early reports and perusal of his 1,500 page manifesto called "2083" show a very calculating mind.

So what if he's not insane? That seems all the more terrifying.

He's basically a Christian Al-Queda. He doesn't seem to be a devout or ideological Christian -- it seems he has a more cultural Christendom in mind. But he professes to be so -- the thinks European Christians have been so marginalized by 90 years of what he calls "cultural Marxism" (basically the Frankfort School idea that has been around a whilte) that they have left themselves vulnerable to be devoured by Islam over the next century. His "manifesto" and apparent motivation do not strike too close to home for Biblical Christianity or certainly Evangelical Christianity. I don't gather much of the trappings of those -- it's more the answer of European Cultural Christendom to the threat posed by Islam, that is his main thing.

But he does strike close to home on the message of political conservatives. He thinks Communism, Naziism, and Islamism were the three great ideological evils of the 20th Century, and that the failure of the first two have left the field open for the third, because in coming to grips with the first two, Europeans have learned (as a second nature)to have hostility towards all of their traditional values and institutions.

This monster has really caught me with a gut punch, to hear those words from a calculating killer. And one caveat -- I've only had time for a quick perusal of 2083 and the media reports. So perhaps many more crazy things will surface that give us some comfort (paradoxically). So at the time of this writing, afford me some allowance for trying to assimilate quickly. There will be more dialog about it in the months to come -- I think there will be parallel calls for "denouncement" in the same way many have asked "peaceful" Muslims to denounce other terrorists acts. And they'll be justified -- cultural conservatives certainly don't share any of the blood on this guys hands, but they own a lot of his worldview.

I can't figure out how he thought this would help his takeover of Europe at all. His best case is that this gets forgotten. But the more likely result is anything he put in his 1,500 page manifesto will be decried as "you agree with that guy!!"

And there are a lot of very conventional conservative views in there. It's very chilling.

It's been too little time to absorb it, but he apparently doesn't want to kill the "other," the Muslims, but wants to kill Europeans who are accommodating to them, or hostile to Christians or traditional European values. He thinks Saudia Arabia's funding of Islam should be viewed in the same way the Third Reich was in the aftermath of World War II. He views it as water from the same spring.

More later -- here's a link to 2083.

Update: How about a little does of heroism to ease the pain? People were heading towards the gunfire and saved at least 150. Article here.