Norway attacks: what happened and the implications (new title)

[Bill Moore]

Prof Paul Wilkinson, of the Centre for the study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, said: “With hindsight I think the Norwegians need to step up monitoring of these transactions and of domestic extremist groups.

“I think there is a strong case that with closer monitoring there would have been a chance of finding out what Breivik was up to, taking him into questioning and preventing this terrible sequence of events.”

''

David, quote is from the link you provided, and what concerns me is we now have people suggesting that Norway and it implied that e-bay and other companies also should more closely monitor their suspects and customers. We can take this fear thing too far in short order (Homeland Defense) and inch every closer to Orson Wells 1983 novel. You don't protect freedom by denying it.

[Fuchs]

There's a huge horde of people with certain beliefs and preferences who would do lots of very unpopular and crappy things if they only could.
They lie in wait till something happens that can be misused to push through their agenda when other people's brains at least temporarily (sometimes permanently) lose the capacity to think rationally about the topic in question.

Examples;
* TSA tap-downs
* OIF
* Patriot Act

And at other times said 'despicable' people have enough power to bring about the crisis that helps their agenda. Your news are full of it these days....

The nazis even waited till they had a world war as distraction for their most egregious plans.


Societies' biggest failure is to not keep their ~5% 'despicable' people in check, away from (direct) power. Crisis situations that lead to otherwise unacceptable reactions merely expose that the society failed to keep the 'despicable' people away from power. The society enabled them to get into a jump-off position, close enough to power to eventually realise their crappy ideas.



On the other hand, the Norwegians don't seem to be poor at keeping their wrong people at bay; afaik their head of government refused to promote any new anti-terror laws and the state (officially) merely intends to add some police presence to some locations and events.

[JMA]

Societies' biggest failure is to not keep their ~5% 'despicable' people in check, away from (direct) power.

Would that be "...in check and away from direct power."?

If so how does one identify this 5%?

[Fuchs]

If so how does one identify this 5%?

Establish a culture of reality, not fiction. The few per cent 'despicable' persons are usually known, but their character and demonstrated leanings are not being published and considered properly. Instead, they keep a shroud of fiction around themselves.

Lenin warned about the power hunger and extremism of Stalin - the party did not listen.

Hitler wrote about most of his intents back in the 20's - nobody believed him.



It's also rarely a surprise to hear some idiotic advice from certain people. We know our usual suspects, but societies fail to keep them in irrelevancy.

In Germany we have one arrogant prick who played the representative of high morals for years until he got busted with Cocaine and forced prostitutes.
Guess what? He's back on TV 'because he's so good on TV'.