Perspective
May. 2nd, 2011 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barking_iguanaFirst ethical, then practically electoral:
Bin-Laden's being overcome by the US is a good thing. It's probably better, even, that in the natural course of events he was killed, rather than allowing himself to be captured. His guilt was not doubted by sane people and the spectacle of a trial would probably have done more harm than good.
Some of my friends are saying that death should never be cheered. Others are saying (perhaps not explicitly) that this was a necessary, hard, and emotionally involving thing the US had to do and its long-delayed completion is a just cause for celebration.
This is one of those cases where seemingly contradictory statements are both mostly true, so long as they're not taken to extremes. Confidence that justice will prevail is essential for people to invest civilization with the authority to settle scores, rather than people doing it for themselves and making a mess of society. The lack of that confidence is one of the main reasons our inner cities are what they are.
That we have been able to settle this particular deeply scarring score is indeed cause for celebration. My hope and expectation is that it will lessen people's sense of insecurity and make them ever so slightly more rational and less self-destructive in their distrust of the government.
That's not to support celebration of or more than momentary satisfaction (if you have that impulse) in Bin-Laden's suffering. If justice could be served without actually inflicting yet more suffering, that would be good. But it can't. Sadism by proxy, through the news, is bad for us. But that's not what I see happening here. I understand some of my friends' queasiness about it, but the vast majority of the celebration I've seen seems just fine to me.
Politically, I can be much shorter. Obama's popularity will rise for a while. But his electoral position is similar to that of George H.W. Bush's after the liberation of Kuwait. The GOP field does look weak, but most observers thought the Democratic field entering the 1992 elections was weak, too.
Bin-Laden's being overcome by the US is a good thing. It's probably better, even, that in the natural course of events he was killed, rather than allowing himself to be captured. His guilt was not doubted by sane people and the spectacle of a trial would probably have done more harm than good.
Some of my friends are saying that death should never be cheered. Others are saying (perhaps not explicitly) that this was a necessary, hard, and emotionally involving thing the US had to do and its long-delayed completion is a just cause for celebration.
This is one of those cases where seemingly contradictory statements are both mostly true, so long as they're not taken to extremes. Confidence that justice will prevail is essential for people to invest civilization with the authority to settle scores, rather than people doing it for themselves and making a mess of society. The lack of that confidence is one of the main reasons our inner cities are what they are.
That we have been able to settle this particular deeply scarring score is indeed cause for celebration. My hope and expectation is that it will lessen people's sense of insecurity and make them ever so slightly more rational and less self-destructive in their distrust of the government.
That's not to support celebration of or more than momentary satisfaction (if you have that impulse) in Bin-Laden's suffering. If justice could be served without actually inflicting yet more suffering, that would be good. But it can't. Sadism by proxy, through the news, is bad for us. But that's not what I see happening here. I understand some of my friends' queasiness about it, but the vast majority of the celebration I've seen seems just fine to me.
Politically, I can be much shorter. Obama's popularity will rise for a while. But his electoral position is similar to that of George H.W. Bush's after the liberation of Kuwait. The GOP field does look weak, but most observers thought the Democratic field entering the 1992 elections was weak, too.
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Subdued Celebration
Date: 2011-05-03 02:17 pm (UTC)I think his was almost* the perfect reaction for the country. I'd be glad to see toasts to the fallen (toasts both literal of figurative) in public groups, and likewise toasts to the seals who did the job. Then we should all say a collective Amen, and move on. To me, the cheering and fist pumping seems in somewhat bad taste. But it's completely understandable and harmless, as long as it stays joyous rather than gloating, and orderly rather than the riots that have been known to occur after big sports wins.
* Of course, if any one person's version of perfect is to do his toasting in private, well that's just fine too.