The Huffington Post is quite "pro-choice" in orientation -- including Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on its blogger list. But on Monday, they published psychologist Pamela Gerloff insisting on treating each life with dignity -- when that life was Osama bin Laden's. Celebrating his demise is neither "appropriate, nor advisable," says this Obama voter:
"Celebrating" the killing of any member of our species--for example, by chanting USA! USA! and singing The Star Spangled Banner outside the White House or jubilantly demonstrating in the streets--is a violation of human dignity. Regardless of the perceived degree of "good" or "evil" in any of us, we are all, each of us, human. To celebrate the killing of a life, any life, is a failure to honor life's inherent sanctity....
The death of Osama Bin Laden gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves: What kind of nation and what kind of species do we want to be? Do we want to become a species that honors life? Do we want to become a species that embodies peace? If that is what we want, then why not start now to examine our own hearts and actions, and begin to consciously evolve in that direction? We could start by not celebrating the killing of another.
Here's another way this shows the remarkable inconsistency (or ahem, diversity of opinion) on the HuffPost. Remember Alec Baldwin's Osama-Cheney double-murder fantasy on the Fourth of July in 2006? Gerloff doesn't. This was the sound of it:
At that instant, Osama Bin Laden comes out of a door. He is oblivious. I make my move. Bin Laden reacts, but too late. We tumble into his upper floor suite. I have him in my grasp and, conveniently, I spy a box cutter on the table. (Hey...it’s a fantasy.) Osama struggles, swearing at me in his native tongue, until I jam the box cutter into his neck. I do it again. Fading, Bin Laden says (this time in English for my benefit) “Good luck with 30 Rock. I am a big Tina Fey fan.” I gather up the body of the world’s most notorious terrorist and hurl it over the balcony. Then, in the final stroke of luck, bin Laden lands on Dick Cheney.
Our psychology expert "Possibility Pamela" thinks the usual moral equivalence is in order if we want to build a "dignitarian" society. There is no moral difference between Osama bin Laden and American leaders:
Plenty of people will argue that Osama Bin Laden did not respect the sanctity of others' lives. To that I would ask, "What relevance does that have to our own actions?" One aspect of being human is our ability to choose our own behavior; more specifically, our capacity to return good for evil, love for hate, dignity for indignity. While Osama Bin Laden was widely considered to be the personification of evil, he was nonetheless a human being. A more peaceable response to his killing would be to mourn the many tragedies that led up to his violent death and the thousands of violent deaths that occurred in the attempt to eliminate him from the face of the Earth; and to feel compassion for anyone who, because of their role in the military or government, American or otherwise, has had to play a role in killing another. This kind of compassion can be cultivated, as practitioners of many different spiritual traditions will attest.
We are not a peaceful species. Nor are we a peaceful nation. The public celebrations of this killing throughout the country draw attention to these facts....The truth is that "celebrating justice" when one person is killed--as happens regularly in the gang wars of American cities--only incites further desire for revenge, which, from "the other side's" viewpoint, is usually called "justice."
Consider this: If a leader in our country were killed in the manner in which Osama Bin Laden was killed, as "justice" for his acts of aggression in the War on Terror--and supporters of that act were shown proudly chanting their country's name, singing their national anthem, and demonstrating in the streets--Americans would likely feel more sickened than joyful, wouldn't you think? The impulse to celebrate a death depends on what side you're on.
The killing of Osama can be seen as "revenge" -- but so could any execution of a murderer, which is also justice. This is also a man committed to an ongoing campaign trying to take innocent American lives. Can't it be celebrated that his murderous campaign will be up-ended?
We saw Palestinians celebrating 9/11 -- but Gerloff doesn't bring that up. That was sickening. She can't make a distinction between the innocent lives of American stockbrokers and firemen with the man who ended them. She can't separate 9/11 from the war in Afghanistan. Who says these liberals are the truly "educated" ones when they can't make these moral distinctions?
The Huff-Post editors did apparently edit the Gerloff piece, or as they put it, "This post has been modified slightly to respond to and incorporate feedback from comments received to the original post. Many thanks to all who are contributing to the conversation."
SodaHead suggests what Gerloff originally wrote: "Get a grip, celebrators. Have you so little decency?"
