Yeah, we've forgotten

Starting off, let me get this out: I'm not going to play partisan politics here.  I'm not going to publish conspiracy theorist comments.  The President had correct intelligence and acted on it.  Good on him.  I'll leave it up to others to pick apart his speech (there was plenty to be done even in the little bit of it I caught).

This is about the fallout.

Christ, save me from self-righteous humanism.  A sampling from last night and this morning:

I have a hard time being joyous about murdering anyone. Even crazy fuckers who kill other people.

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Bloodlust is bloodlust. The USA's justification, Bin Ladens justification...both believed what they were doing was "right".

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I am stunned at the hubris of humanity to think we could possibly mete out justice for the millions of people impacted by the actions of one.

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Do Americans understand that the rest of the world watching you dancing in the streets over murder looks the same as the "terrorists" dancing in the streets following 9/11? Both feel righteous and justified in killing, because it was for a cause you/they believe in.

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Hooray? I think...

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The ability to rejoice and take pleasure in the loss of a life is completely foreign to me. I didn't understand the people dancing in the streets after 9/11, I don't understand the people dancing in the streets at the news of Osama's death. Dancing on a grave doesn't come naturally to me.

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last night I was jubilant, today I'm just sad. I don't feel good about celebrating that someone was killed, no matter who it was. I understand the need and I'm grateful that our armed forces personnel did that for me and every other American who was in danger from that man but I can't get excited about it now.

I think it's plain a lot of people have forgotten.  Or they just don't get it.  Honestly, I lean toward the latter. 

Not all violence is equal.  My readers will understand that.  It's not a difficult concept to understand, but it's a devilish one to explain to people who have turned off that part of their brain which intuitively recognizes BAD THINGS.  (Being that small children and animals both get the BAD THINGS concept, methinks it must be something people work at losing.)

I am annoyed, but not particularly surprised, by the false comparison between Arabs dancing in the streets after 9/11 and Americans dancing in the streets after bin Laden's death.  That woman went on to say the correlation is being drawn between 9/11 and all the blood we Americans have on our hands.  Because, of course, America has been going around killing all the people who dare to disagree with us.

I'm being chided on this from a "Christian" standpoint as well.  Whatever.  I'm not going to waste my time on it.  I could sit and trade Bible verses all day, and that wouldn't change a thing.  The Devil himself can quote Scripture, as we all know.

Look, there is evil in this world.  There is good, and there is evil.  They are not a continuum.  They are two distinct things.  Even if we must have evil in order to understand good, that does not mean they are the same thing.  Evil is one of those BAD THINGS, perhaps the BAD THING.

Osama bin Laden was evil.  He was evil because he wanted to kill every person who didn't adhere to his very narrow version of Islam.  He was 57 when he died.  He chose evil early on and he lived evil every day of hisMo life.

The three thousand folks who were killed on 9/11?  Well, I'm not going to romanticize them.  Numbers dictate that a handful of abusers and pedophiles and the like were taken out.  Most of them, though?  Most of them just were.  They were no better and no worse than any of the rest of us who just are. 

You cannot draw a moral equivalence between the two.