Thread: What’s your opinion on revenge killing?

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

The Times front page today says "There was jubilation around the world today at ..." I may be in a minority, but I find that disgusting and barbaric, it is only a step away from putting his head up over the doorway.

I'm in that minority with you. My mum and I talked about exactly that, and I stayed away from Facebook for the day because all the "Good Riddance"s make me feel ill.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

...

The Times front page today says "There was jubilation around the world today at ..." I may be in a minority, but I find that disgusting and barbaric, it is only a step away from putting his head up over the doorway.

Agreed and that was my immediate reaction to the "celebrations" as well and the reason for the poetic reaction.

Oh and I would not call it a "revenge" killing but more an execution for crimes committed.

I think it's terrible to take glee in the demise of another. This "We won!" attitude some are expressing over the whole thing is just nauseating. I don't think that's right at all, but whatever. I'm not surprised in the least.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

We have all just witnessed a revenge killing of one man, a revenge killing of global proportion.

Was it right or wrong?

Well... I'll tell you this... the front pages on the Milwaukee Journal and other city and national news papers, with photos of large mobs of Americans gathered, smiling, and cheering, immediately reminded me of the photographs of smiling whites, several decades ago, standing under trees of lynched black men.

Of course many white people were lynched in the U.S. too. The largest mass lynching supposedly took place in Louisiana and Italian men were the victims.

I was a personal acquaintance of this man. He was Catholic and attended Mass at a parish located in a predominately Black-American neighborhood.

(Historical note: in the Midwest the state of Indian was a KKK stronghold for a long time, in Milwaukee the Klan entered in the 1930's under an anti-Catholic platform but were run out of town by the efforts on Catholics in both Chicago and Milwaukee. On one occasion, unlike in the South, the police had to actually rescue and protect the Klan from mobs of Irish, Italian, and other ethnic Catholic men in Milwaukee. I don't think the showed their face again in Wisconsin until the 1980's [when Geraldo Rivera got his nose broken by one] - they're not in Milwaukee, however.)


James Cameron (activist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Cameron (February 23, 1914 – June 11, 2006) was an American civil rights activist. In the 1940s, he founded three chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1] He also served as Indiana's State Director of the Office of Civil Liberties for eight years during early integration. After moving to Wisconsin, in 1988 he founded America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee.

At his death, he was the only known survivor of a lynching attempt.

Apparently his friends murdered a white man (I'm assuming he was innocent) and possibly raped his white girlfriend. The photo of their lynching in the Wiki link.

If a firefight ensued, unless he was shot execution style, his death was just in the dual of battle. He lived by the sword and he died by the sword.

On 911 I was caught behind the US border and as the reports of the 1000's dead I wanted to see his head on a stick.

Now? I would have preferred they took him alive [if possible] tried him, and he would have died in captivity.

I stood on the Jersey Shore watching the smoke rise from NYC and no matter what you think of US policy, those people who were killed and their surviving families did nothing to deserve the savagery that was inflicted upon them.

Those who would hide behind innocents have not a drop of my sympathy.

Originally Posted by Writ-with-Hand

If a firefight ensued, unless he was shot execution style, his death was just in the dual of battle. He lived by the sword and he died by the sword.

He died by the sword, but not like a warrior. He lived in the shadows and ordered men, women, and children strapped with explosives to kill other innocent men, women, and children.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Perhaps another way to ask the question would be, if you were in Obama's shoes, would you have authorized it?

At a military forum, one soldier asked the question “Why didn’t they just drag the body into the Capitol, behind a chariot, Roman style ?” Others, being less kind made reference to pigs and what they should be fed, etc.

Myself, I not only would’ve ordered the raid, but then also have the compound, at least the house, leveled.

He had the blood of over three thousand Americans on his hands. His people weren’t picked on-he was a Saudi. Matter of fact, he was born into privilege and he alone chose the path he walked. Live by the sword, find your head hoisted onto a pike.

Strategically, I believe in the burial at sea (no shrine to him), although, I would have had him wrapped in ham first. I also would display his death pic. Some of the public, including me, need that closure.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

It was a revenge killing, he was an old man who had not been outside for months and he was probably betrayed by those looking to replace him.

All you can possibly know from what you've stated is that he was an old man. But if choose to assume he was retired and just trying to live out the rest of his somber life, bothering no one, no longer a menace, then you can also know that the messaging [of his death] alone is exponentially worth every ounce of breath he had, and gauging by the world's jubilation, well received.

The Times front page today says "There was jubilation around the world today at ..." I may be in a minority, but I find that disgusting and barbaric, it is only a step away from putting his head up over the doorway.

I find that amusing.

Originally Posted by Blood

Well that depends on how you look at it. Is it wrong to kill a mass murderer, especially if he's not willing to be taken alive?

Killing is bad, period. There's no question on its non-goodness, regardless of modifiers you put after or before it.

But as I've said, if I had the chance, I would've thrown morality out the window and I would've killed him all the same, perhaps in an even much more brutal manner, to satiate the vengeful urge of one who has suffered something he did not deserve.

Originally Posted by TheFuhrer02

Killing is bad, period.

Prove it.

^ Any negation is non-good. Light is good, darkness is non-good. Any absence of a positive entity is non-good. Life is good, death is non-good. We're talking about goodness in a logical term here (positive against negative, presence against absence), not the moral one. The moral definition, despite having its basis on the logical one, is too ambiguous and relative to be discussed. We can talk on hours on end and not meet on a conclusion. But then again, Logic has its flaws as well. Having said that, killing elicits death, a non-good, ergo, killing is non-good, period.

In retrospect, this isn't the point of the debate. The debate pertains basically to Bin Laden and revenge killing, or revenge killing in general, yes? I am on your side with that one. I may not be jumping up and down on his death, but I am satisfied with his death. He deserves it in my view. On the same note, I may not be jumping up and down with killing someone over vengeance, but in real life, I may have done the same thing, perhaps in a more brutal manner, as I've said.

Please do not misquote me on that stand. Quoting parts that point my frowning upon death and killing as non-good seem to show that I am against Bin Laden's death or revenge killing in general, which, to some extent, I am not.

I was pretty relieved when the news came up. Then thought "took 'em bloody long enough."

The world's a pretty messed up place, and I'm not surprised they did eventually kill him. As for the public reaction, people are just people, they feel a certain way and get swept along with the mass tide.

The death of Osama Bin Laden is the death of one man. It won't put an end to terrorism any more than executing the leaders of the Easter Rebellion (Éirí Amach na Cásca) stopped Irish Republicanism. The difference is that those leaders were at least given a trial, albeit a biased one. It was the death of those leaders which repulsed the Irish and drew greater support for the Republican cause. In the same way, the death of Bin Laden is likely to draw more support for the Islamic terrorist organisations.

There is something terribly wrong, whatever anyone's views about the war on terrorism, about a leader gaining praise for proudly announcing the summary execution, without trial, of an enemy. In the light of the Hague Convention and the Geneva Convention such an execution is illegal. We all know that these things have always happened but it's something new for a world leader to take pride in such an action and for his citizens to support him. Every man, no matter how evil he is deemed to be, deserves the right of trial and the opportunity to be heard. Democracy and law are sidestepped and ignored when actions of this nature go unchallenged by those who believe that justice applies equally to all. To deny that justice is to deny the constitution that Barak Obama has sworn to uphold.