[quote name='trzy' timestamp='1304363521' post='4805605']
When the people decide to stand up for themselves. As I recall, people on this very forum were tripping over themselves to justify the bailouts of big banks and automotive companies as soon as their favorite politician got behind them.
If people stand up, they'll go to jail.[/quote]
Voting, petitioning leaders, disseminating information, and creating public advocacy groups will land you in jail?
Get real. I don't know what your personal position on the bailouts was, but your arguments are eerily in tune with the same kind of folks who supported them when it was politically expedient to do so (wouldn't want to be labeled a "tea bagger" after all) and, now that it is too late, complain about the evil banksters who took advantage of their brilliant "progressive" idea to meld state and private enterprise.
Values have never been better or worse. Values are determined by force and ability to apply it.
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You believe what you believe because someone held a gun to your head?
People cheering the death of an individual are not highly moral and definitely not Western.[/quote]
Really? Says who?
They aren't celebrating end of terror, end of war on terror, end of decaying freedoms, end of corruption, end of greed.[/quote]
As far as I can tell, the celebration is largely about achieving a major milestone in the so-called War on Terror: the elimination of a leading figurehead and symbol of the enemy. People are happy Bin Laden has been brought to justice but I don't think the crowds were out to fantasize about the "headshot" moment. In fact, the cheering crowds materialized before the gory details of the operation emerged.
Do people also cheer when criminals get executed and throw parties late in the night?
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No, they don't. So maybe this should clue you in on the fact that this is about more than just the assassination of some criminal. Maybe, just maybe, this was a slightly more complicated moment.
There is no ideology, morality or anything higher. it's just the same images as those seen every day in other countries, except that instead of burning flags, they burn pictures of Bin Laden. There is no superiority, no moral victory. None of the things he stood up for changed, if anything they were reinforced. None of the ideologies fought against have been defeated.
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The ideologies are slowly but surely being discredited. People aren't exactly keen on living under an Al Qaeda-styled caliphate anymore.
Bin Laden was a dead man on 9/11. Death certificate just took a while to show up. He was a madman with an impossible plan that somehow lucked out against impossible odds. But for every one of his victims, 300 people died.[/quote]
The vast majority at the hands of other Muslim terrorists and insurgents, by the way. So much for moral equivalence.
And every time you use a phone, every time approach an airport, every time you show an id, every time you use a credit card, his legacy is there. Until this changes, his death is irrelevant.
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Now you've taken us way off topic. This is another issue altogether. You lost the argument that celebrating Bin Laden's downfall made us no better than fanatical, flag-burning throngs in the middle east, so you're shifting to our own internal problems, which are up to us to resolve.
Clever. But not clever enough.