Posted on 05/03/2011 4:46:53 AM PDT by Huck
Yesterday should have been a glorious day around here. There should have been fireworks and celebration. There should have been somber remembrances. There should have been patriotic tributes. There should have been shared joy at the news that our guys had finally gotten Bin Laden.
Instead, when I visited the site, what I found was a lot of carping. I found people focused more on the political spin than on the great news. I found people transferring their birther mentality onto this event, talking about Obama faking this news, photoshopping information, etc. It wasn't everybody, but it was a LOT of people. It made me sick.
Yesterday Free Republic seemed like DU. It makes me wonder what the hell is going on. Are Freepers getting younger? I always assume that DU is so pathetically immature because they must be younger. Free Republic has always been a place dominated by great class, and wit, and decency. Not this time. What I saw yesterday was a pathetic embarrassment and totally unworthy of this great forum.
As some of you may know, I was in lower Manhattan on 9-11. I was just across the street from the WTC when the first plane hit. I still remember the beautiful clear blue sky that day. I remember walking in between the towers just a minute or so before 8:46am, on my normal route to work. I remember my co-workers screaming in panic when they watched from an office window as the second plane hit the south tower. I remember women crying and screaming hysterically. I remember not being able to contact my wife to tell her I was OK. I remember people jumping to their deaths. I remember seeing the north tower go down with my own eyes, hearing it with my own ears. I remember fleeing Manhattan. I remember it was a Tuesday.
I remember returning to work the following Monday, riding the ferry passed the site, noxious smoke still billowing from the wreckage. I remember armed troops on the sidewalks. I remember wearing a breathing mask inside my building because the foul odor was seeping in through the ventilation system. I remember thinking we'd really gotten kicked in the teeth. They had killed innocent people, they had traumatized our women and children, and I really wanted revenge. I hung a picture on my wall of the American eagle sharpening his talons.
It has been a long time since that day. It's hard to believe how fast time flies. Then again, if you lost your loved one, I imagine time hasn't gone so fast. I love my wife so much, I can empathize with anyone who has lost the one they love. I can't imagine how that would be, and don't want to know, but I can cry for those people because I know what it is like to find your one true love.
I'm not an Obama fan. I hate socialism. But I am so happy that Bin Laden is killed, and that we have exacted some real revenge. It's about time. The politics don't even play into it for me. I still have the little flag, now tattered, that I flew on my car antenna after 9-11. I want to take it out of storage and put it on my car. I want to see American flags on cars like we saw back then. But it's not going to happen, and partially because the normally patriotic conservatives such as the ones here on Free Republic are instead focused on the politics and the fact that a socialist Democrat was president and will get some of the credit.
I guess you all would have been pissed on D-Day too. FDR was as big a socialist as anyone. I guess VE day and VJ day would have chapped your hides, since Truman was a DEM. I don't mean to paint with a broad brush. I know it wasn't every Freeper acting this way. But when I went on the board, that was the general impression, and it was really disappointing. It should have been a great day here. Instead, I saw a lack of patriotism and a lack of class. Free Republic should be better than this. If conservatives lose their patriotism and class, then what will happen to those virtues? I hope we can get them back soon. In the meantime, thanks for reading.
Respectfully,
Huck
Huck, for what it’s worth, I agree with you . . . it was weird around here yesterday. Hope you stick around, though.
Huck I might have said a few things that weren’t patriotic when this happened. Considering all that you’ve said I can understand your disappointment. I was angry that I can’t trust this particular president in anything he says. The same president that did a flyover in NY terrifying the citizens there when he first was in office and now that our military has gotten him, he has politicized this thing. The final insult in disposing the body so quickly giving bin Laden a respectful burial or so we’re told.
The only solace is to know that the era of bin Laden is over.
Osama had a gun then he didn’t. Osama’s wife was used as a shield, the she wasn’t... what a crock.
They could have put Osama’s body on a victory tour, displaying it in every city in America, and the conspiracy nuts would claim it was faked. Truthers long ago proved that no fact can stop a good conspiracy theory...
I will not give Obama one ounce of credit till he steps forward and apologizes for slandering our Commander In Chief President Bush.
To give Obama credit now only validates his previous attempts to lose the war in order to make President Bush look bad and I will forever refuse to do it.
I bet he didn't even offer to share the podium with President Bush prior to his press conference.
You have a good point. I was brought back to that hellish day too, and I understood the big picture. Even though I was across the country, it was still the worst day I’ve experienced.
Do not leave. Plenty of people “got it” yesterday, but others were still focused on the smaller picture: that our President is dishonest and possibly a usurper, and their minds couldn’t get to the big picture in 24 hours. Forgive them. Whether they are young, or obsessed. The bright, wise, and witty are still here.
As in all free exchange, you will get all kinds. Like mindeds abound as well. Forgive the silly and the small minded.
“When they released the birth certificate I was able to download it immediately and prove it was a forgery. Then I knew for sure.”
Insane.
The first story was the wife was used as a human shield and was dead, which reads nice. I mean, in the end Bin Laden is this self serving coward. Sure, I’ll admit I wanted to believe that and who wouldn’t! With that, late Sunday night, newsprint had had three hours to go to print with “GOT HIM”.
But, then people start asking questions about the warp speed DNA test and super sonic burial trip. Subsequently, we’re told no the wife is alive and identified him...maybe has some injury. Well, that’s different then the first story, but supports the narrative certainly. And, by the way, we’ll surely never see her.
The White House is the sole source of information. It does seem very odd how the story is morphing and still now no proof.
Anti-semites often hide behind the Old “I like jews...but hate Israel” crap...so you know what you are getting into when you go there...
And quite frankly...the only personal opinion I care about concerning behaviour on FR is Jim Robinson....
“Finger wagging” is NOT a time honored traditition on free republic.
The original post reeks of moral superiority and lecturing.
I have a one word reply....
Screw.
Yes releasing the pictures would be a good thing.
Really? You didn't see all the threads and all the posts congratulating The Special Forces and CIA and all our fighting men and women in uniform?
Huh. I guess it's true. You see what you want to see.
I can see how 911 may have scarred you for life, but we are not the enemy, my fine, feathered FRiend.
My suggestion: Spend a few hours at DU and then come back here and tell us again how we are becoming like them.
I accept your apology beforehand.
And as we speak the White House is retracting the story they told just yesterday about what went down just Sunday.
And our fellow FReepers complain that we are skeptical. Sheesh.
Just Smile, darn ya, Smile!
That's a responsible, clinical response that is clearly level-headed and mature.
And I do think that's a shame.
But there was too much conflicting information and too much fuzzy "evidence." The government has lied to us so many times before that my BS Detector was engaging. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm not saying id didn't happen the way the government says it went down, but I also have the instinct to "Trust, yet verify."
(Not to mention, our leation here in Iraq was somewhat tempered by our increased vigilance in expectation of retaliatory attacks.)
The Federal Government lied, all the time, about EVERYTHING! They lied about taxes, drugs, the Environment, cigarettes, Viet Nam, Cuba, Russia, Kennedy, it's membership, the Law, guns... AND, the Media let them get away with it, or actively helped them. And, we DIDN'T KNOW! Thanks to the Net, the Truth, now, is Out There.
When did the Feds, and the lying, Chicago, Muslim thug, suddenly turn honest? Day before yesterday? May 1st, 2011? Shazam! Total Truth, all the time? Sorry, I didn't get the Memo.
Democrats might believe in social miracles. Evangelists, with Faith, in Miraculous Revelations. Fans of the Chicago Cubs, next year in the Series.
The rest of us, not so much.
Wow, Huck. That’s one of the best things I’ve read on FR in quite a while. Might be the best ever.
Thank you for sharing it with us. Well done.
Well some of us enjoy this site so perhaps you should pick up your crying towel at the exit.
I was in lower Manhattan on 9-11. I was just across the street from the WTC when the first plane hit. I still remember the beautiful clear blue sky that day. I remember walking in between the towers just a minute or so before 8:46am, on my normal route to work. I remember my co-workers screaming in panic when they watched from an office window as the second plane hit the south tower. I remember women crying and screaming hysterically. I remember not being able to contact my wife to tell her I was OK. I remember people jumping to their deaths. I remember seeing the north tower go down with my own eyes, hearing it with my own ears. I remember fleeing Manhattan. I remember it was a Tuesday.Everyone else watched it on TV.
Osama set out to destroy our economy. Obama is actually doing it.
They are spinning “history” by trial balloon.
If a BC can be forged, so can pictures. He’s dead.
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