So sleepy...

[altivo]

I sat dozing over a book for so long that my neck and shoulders are stiff and sore.

An awful lot of people are missing the point about Osama bin Laden in my opinion. He wasn't "wicked" or "evil." He was insane. They aren't the same thing at all. He surely thought he was doing the right thing in the name of an extreme religious view, which is really no different from what many other people continue to do every day for the same reasons. Many of them are even nominally Christian, or Jewish, or some other faith. Anyone who insists on interpreting values in hard black and white lines can commit the same kind of errors. This is neither responsible nor sane behavior.

The reason such people can attract large followings of unquestioning and obedient individuals is a separate issue. It has to do with a failure to teach reason and history, rational thought, and perceptive evaluation. The US culture is as guilty of this as any other, and we see all the symptoms easily enough if we look for them.

Comments

[lhexa]

Heh, I should've expected a fearsome swirl of opinion surrounding the event, but parts of that swirl have still managed to catch me by surprise.

[altivo]

Yes, and a lot of the opinion being shouted so loudly is ill-informed rubbish.

One thing that does concern me though is that "burial at sea" business. In simple terms, the US has concealed the evidence, which will inevitably lead to dozens of conspiracy theories about how they didn't really catch him, or didn't really kill him, and it was yet another "leftie plot" to hide the truth or make drama at an opportune moment, etc.

[lhexa]

And, I just read Obama's decided not to realize photographs of the body. Well, dust off your favorite maxims about human behavior and set them up facing the loud and anonymous, because you know what's coming. :P

[altivo]

If they released photos, then there would be insistent claims that they were faked. It makes no difference one way or another. The people who will insist on a conspiracy in this one are just like the ones who keep insisting that Obama is not a citizen. Facts and reality have nothing to do with their fantasy.

[baphnedia]

Indeed! I hadn't figured out what I wanted to say about his passing, but when it really comes down to it, not much will change, in my mind... something that was years in the making and likely millions of dollars invested to get rid of one man; to make him a martyr. My $0.02. :)

[altivo]

Yeah, I'm not terribly impressed either. Remains to be seen what comes of it, I guess, and in the political grandstanding world that US politics has become, it's a major play of some sort. But it just inspires more conspiracy theories in the end, and certainly doesn't put an end to Homeland Insecurity and all the paranoid threat levels.