Osama

[tongodeon]

A few weeks ago I tried to explain the difference between a bigot who spends his life reveling in the deaths of the heroic and blameless, and one day celebrating the death of that bigot. I feel much the same way about the recent death of Bin Laden. Some have argued that " monsters take pleasure in the deaths of their enemies", or that that from a

Comments

[gaping_asshole]

Totally agree with your logic, but I just don't feel the emotion. I feel quiet satisfaction knowing after all the bullshit and suffering and expense and lost opportunities that plague this shitty dead guy and the shitty stuff we did in response to him that we're still here and he's gone. It reminds me of the feeling of ending a bad relationship. One final ugly step that promises a future reduction in ugliness. Well, I'm also proud of the astounding strength, courage, and general hard-assed-ness of the truly elite men who took the risks and did the deed.

I don't want to take happiness away from people who see this as a cause for celebration, but the celebration seems empty to me. Let's use this as an opportunity to stop Extraordinary Renditions and torture and badly planned military adventures, then celebrate after we've put ten years of honorable behavior in the bank.

[gaping_asshole]

My thoughts exactly:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/02/osama-won

This small tactical victory shouldn't obscure the fact that we lost the larger conflict like 47 times over. Even worse, Osama probably knew this too, and probably met his end contented that he was wildly successful in the goals to which he devoted his life.

[tongodeon]

I wouldn't put it this way. Osama lost, but he had relatively little to lose. Which shows, if you can live a hunted disconnected existence for a decade and people will count it as a victory. America won, but it was a pyrrhic victory which cost us a lot. More generally, reducing the discussion to who "won" or "lost" is going to sweep a lot of important perspective under the rug.

[angel_boi]

w0rd.

[mister_borogove]

My stance is that some people do deserve death, but I'm generally anti-death-penalty because I feel that the US justice system is terribly failure-prone and inconsistent: it happens disturbingly frequently that racist cops pick up uninvolved or barely-involved black suspects in order to close a case, and those suspects get convicted, jailed, and even executed. Until the system is far more reliable, I'd like a moratorium on executions in the US.

I'm somewhat more comfortable with the idea of an international tribunal giving a death sentence for mass murder, genocide, or crimes against humanity on a large scale. Even a serial killer who's taken dozens of innocent lives doesn't compare to Osama bin Laden's score, let alone your average genocidal dictator.

Secondarily, in practice, the American way of life gives much, much more weight and consideration to the lives of US citizens, even criminals, than to foreigners. We don't talk about it much, but it's a fact.

[mister_borogove]

Ah, I was interpreting your "should" to be more about functional consistency than ethical, I guess.

Reasonable (i.e. rational) to have a different opinion on death penalty? Sure. You can base special privilege for Americans on either the basis of "my tribe is best tribe" (which has gotten to be a harder case to make for the US in particular over the years, but not indefensible) or "my tribe is my tribe", i.e. it's rational self-interest to support American exceptionalism.

Ethical, moral, just? Where do you draw the line of loyalty? If all humans deserve what you deserve, why not chimps, all primates, smart mammals, all mammals, all smart animals, all animals, smallpox? If just your countrymen, why not just those of your province, town, household? In practice, most people's ethical systems operate differently at each level in that hierarchy.