Just another dead soldier

Hey, listen, it's hard to feel upset about bin Laden's demise. He was a nasty piece of work, obviously. Still, here's a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that a friend posted on facebook:

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

[UPDATE: I am not one hundred percent certain about the attribution of this, but if you can't trust a random person on facebook who got it from some other random person, whom can you trust?]

I can get behind that. And I cannot help but think that a populace that applauds governmental violence in one instance is more likely to applaud it in others. It might be one thing if the killing was actually likely to make any discernible difference in anything aside from helping Obama's reëlection campaign. But it's pretty much entirely symbolic. I certainly can't get pumped up over it.

Here's a picture of people celebrating the news (from here):



That makes me a little queasy, I have to say. I don't know that I necessarily want to live in a country in which this sort of reaction to this sort of news is widespread. I realize that probably rules out...well, every country in the world, but still.

That said, I'm only human, and the mean-spirited side of me can't help but find this pretty funny (via alicublog):



I'm lukewarm at best about Obama, but the capacity of an image like that to make wingnut heads explode is kinda priceless.