Reply #13: Nobody is sympathizing with bin Laden.

[wickerwoman]

That's a really disgusting straw man argument.

You're entitled to your feelings about the event and so are other people.

What some people find distasteful is:

1.) treating a death (anyone's death) as an excuse for a pep rally. OBL was a mass murderer and a threat and he chose to die rather than be taken into custody. He caused a lot of tragedy and some people respond to that with solemn reflection rather than glee and flag-waving. Some people find gravedancing in poor taste and I think that's a legitimate reaction which does not imply sympathy for bin Laden.

2.) the immediate politicization of the event and the rush to give all the credit to Obama before any of the details are known. It's a little early for it all to be about "we rock/Republicans suck".

My first reaction in this instance is to look to the families and to listen to what they would like, instead of shoving a flag in the air shouting "USA!" or pulling out my political points calculator so I can lord it over all my Republican friends on Facebook.

I hope that this brings closure and peace for them and I would like to give them the space to process how they feel about it. I agreed with Obama's point that they have not been forgotten. I hope that can be true as much for the next bit of time and for the last ten years.

Some families will want to process through celebration and some through solemn contemplation. I say both are fine. Just respect others peoples' processes. Some families are Republican and probably don't need "Our guy got him not yours!" shoved in their face. That's the kind of thing that just deepens the divisions between us at a time when we finally have an excuse to be unified.