Some Things Need To Be Said

I’m about to blow every shred of my carefully accumulated, ferociously guarded street cred. In this blog, I’m going to dispel for all of my liberal friends and associates the meticulously nurtured conception that I, I am their conservative friend who cannot be dismissed out of hand, for (even though I profess unashamedly to being conservative) I have never stated anything particularly outrageous. Through my careful nonspeaking about political matters, I have been identified as reasonable by those who I disagree with. This is of course typically achieved by not voicing much of anything at all, but I’m going to break this tradition and destroy all these years of hard work. I feel like I’ve earned a good ol’ freakout.

It all comes down to this quote:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."

This has been attributed (falsely) to Dr Martin Luther King, and has spread like wildfire over the webbytubes via Twitter, blogs and facebook statuses less than 48 hours after it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been found and killed by US Special Forces.

Here’s where I’m going to offend a lot of people.

How nice it is, how very comfortable, how open-minded and accepting and sensitive of us to choose the highest of high ground regarding bin Laden’s death. How much is speaks for my generation that we have taken this of all moments as the time to claim our philosophical position, to use this moment in history to demonstrate that we are above the maddening crowd. It’s so enlightening to see my peers view the reaction to the death of a mass murderer with idealistic eyes, to watch them weep sophist tears of pity and condemnation for those whose more base instincts took over and compelled them to gather at Ground Zero to savagely toast the continuation of barbaric acts. I’m sure my peers are all very proud and satisfied with themselves.

I, on the other hand, I am enraged.

I have had reason to be embarrassed by my generation in the past. I have seen (and admittedly participated) in a movement of apathetic materialism. I am fully aware that our canon of behavior dictates that our reaction to any overt display of emotion, patriotism, or reverence for tradition must be consistently one of arch, jaded bemusement. As the information age has expanded and the social network revolution spiraled on, the people of my demographic have responded with the dichotomy of a self-absorbed urge to document everything while remaining aloof from any true commitment of passion, conviction, or action.

To you all, I have this to say: responding to bin Laden’s demise with a catchphrase concerning the sanctity of life does not demonstrate your depth. It showcases your debilitating naïveté. You have become so ensconced in your comfortable distance from reality that you now embarrass yourself in your complete lack of context or scope.

Osama bin Laden was by all accounts a quiet man of measured tone, intelligence, and reason. He was no mad man frothing at the mouth. This makes it all the more sickening that his lines of logic lead to the calculated conclusion that the violent destruction of life was to be his life’s work. He calmly determined that those who lead lives in a manner contrary to his own radical teachings had no value, and that it was not only his duty to murder them, but to do it in such a way that even survivors would feel the threat and fear hang over them in their daily life. He was not my neighbor who slighted me and who I should in the end find it within me to forgive and mourn. He was the mastermind behind a force who is seeking to eliminate me and mine.

I rejoice that his potential for evil has been cut down in the most final of ways. I mourn that he is not alone in this perverted world view, but I celebrate that his individual capacity for wicked works is at an end. I believe that the fact that he prevailed this long after his attack on New York City was psychologically damaging to us, the survivors. I consider it essential that we be able to see that in the end those who perpetrate mass acts of hate against us will be brought down and stamped out. And I resent the proliferation of people who hand down judgment on me for responding this way to his death, who aim to paint me as one with a Neanderthal-like grasp on ethics, or just too absorbed in my mundane existence to pull above such ‘savage’ responses.

I celebrate that the very pluralism of society that allows me to offend all my comrades as much as they deeply upset me is the same society that bin Laden felt to be so offensive that he wished to obliterate it. Better luck next time, Osama. I relish the very contradiction of terms, and am exultant that a threat against all I consider holy has been neutralized.

God bless the troops who performed this righteous deed, and our President for having the conviction to follow through on an unpleasant but necessary task.