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
It's like a derangement syndrome ...; something to avoid.
Well deserved and well said. There is a pettiness and a nastiness that has taken root here. It needed to be called out. If you wind up leaving FR because of what you said in this post, I will be right behind you.
There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction now to any and all events- the lack of thought, the lack of letting an opinion form rather than leading with it may be reflective of the speed with which we participate in the world these days.
I came here immediately when I saw the news on tv and was struck by the various reactions of my fellow freepers. There was a sense, that has only grown, that this is all a grand conspiracy and UBL has actually either a) been dead for years or b) is alive and being waterboarded at Gitmo as we speak. Suggesting that scenario would require willing participation by hundreds of GI’s and you’re met with scorn or avoidance.
I do not trust the president even a little bit. I have profound dislike for his policies and his world view. However, for one day I had to credit him with the guts it took to make this call - I don’t know why he did the right thing and I frankly don’t give a damn.
Instead- what I know is UBL is dead and it was an unpleasant death and the last thing he saw was the face of an American with a gun. Completion.
There was great celebration in my family and amongst our friends and for my son and his army buddies. He said “now my buddies can rest in peace”...
Undoubtedly there are some mysteries surrounding this event- and in time I hope we are able to learn the truth. But frankly- the bigger truth is that the evil wicked man responsible for the horror of 9/11 has met his maker!!
After 9/11, some people were terribly upset. Some of them couldn’t stand it that everyone in the world wasn’t as upset as they, themselves, were. It’s odd, really, that there should be a need for “my response to event X” to be validated by the rest of the world’s having the same response.
Hey, Huck...Virginia thinks that we’re the problem....we must be doing something right.
I disagree, FRiend.
FReepers were quite upbeat ... and praising the correct Heroes.
Are you suggesting that there is something wrong
with invoking "Trust but verify"? With this Administration?
Birther mentality? Which side are you on? They are PROOFERS.
The impostor has not provided unimpeachable evidence of HIS birth
or Osama's death.
No reason to leave.
By your recounting of your trail to yesterday, you should be even more offended by the behavour of Zero and his minions. ZERO DID NOT “get” OBL. It has taken hard and dangerous work by dedicated Americans for close to 10 years to finally get OBL. Your gratitude should be reserved for those people, and the lions share to the brave People of the CIA and NAVY SEAL TEAM 6 that went into the asylum of murderers to get OBL.
Funny I have yet to see anything that indicates FDR took credit for D-Day or the defeat of Germany (he died before the end of the War with Japan).
Maybe your right, your lack of ability to look at an issue indepth seems to support your unhappiness at FR.
Your knee-jerk reaction, ready to give BHO ALL the credit, is irrational and indicative of a failure to look at the real picture.
That and the fact he gave the order instead of opposing the mission; the credit does go to resources in the CIA and DOD, as well as the Bush Administration that blazed the trail.
Amen!
I never posted anything at all about the subject. But you appear to be a “concern troll.” Preachy people are difficult to deal with. It’s a freaking website, dude. Don’t you have a real life elsewhere? Why would comments from strangers upset you so much? Good grief.
I'm certainly glad that Osama is gone as well, and I really should have posted some cheer myself. BUT, it wasn't the administration that killed him - it was a group of well-trained military personnel. I think that the problem people are having with this is that Obama popped up on TV claiming credit for something for which he had little input. He acted as though he personally did the deed, where we know that it wasn't him at all. Instead, it was done by brave people that actually care about this country.
To the idiot in the White House, it's all about politics. He's in constant re-election mode, and this event is part of his game. He's attempting to take credit for that which he DID NOT DO, and that is why people are cynical.
The credit belongs with the military, and for that effort, I am both thankful and proud.
Yes, I agree with your assessment. I am very pleased the SOB is dead. However, I knew this administration and the LSM would elevate The Won even higher on the pedestal for political gains, when “O” and everybody in the current administration spent 8 years bit**ing, whining, pi**ing and moaning against just the type of operation by the SEALS (aka “Cheney’s Assassination Squad”) that was undertaken. Obama can take all the credit he wants...and shove it!
I don’t really understand the skeptics. Wouldn’t it be easy for OBL to prove he was alive...come out with a current paper and say nya nya nya!. That is why I think we got him...Obama wouldn’t risk the embarrasment of the above scenario. I’m with the original poster..let us celebrate. Time for politics later.
Well put. Thoughtful skepticism is far more wise and useful than mindless jingoism or shallow patriotism for patriotism's sake.
As I said above, I applaud and am fully proud of the military. I am skeptical of the govt's intentions and goals. And as a conservative I believe that is how it SHOULD be.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
ALSO: Bemoaning the "Golden Age" of anything is human nature and almost invariably proves to be a sentimental illusion.
Regardless of the question of when Osama died, the current shenanigans have achieved one thing only:
Assured that America has exchanged one O*ama for a worse one.
Enjoy.
Thank you for the post Huck.
I thank our troops for dispatching this man and any others who threaten our country.
I wish I could find "joy" in his departure but I don't. I've tried to figure out the "whys" and part of it must be the amount of time that has passed (along with the sanitizing of the media of the images of 9-11).
The spectacle of Obama preening for this is so repulsive, that any expression of "happiness" about it is muted. I had to turn off the TV. Listening to everyone praise Obama was too disgusting.
This president will milk this as his platform, massage it for a ratings "bounce," and make photo-op rounds for personal enrichment.
That is the spectacle I see.
Don't blame FReepers. Blame the man in the White House.
Our lives really will not change with bin laden's death -- the terrorism he championed is still with us. The people he helped kill are still dead. It will be the generation that comes after us -- who are more removed by time from 9-11 to feel "good" about the U.S. military action (that we are so "fortunate" to see was watched -- WH official photos -- by the administration as it happened).
My energy will be used to get Obama voted out and someone who wants a strong U.S. and loves this country voted in.
Huck...you are just plain wrong. Obama in his speech said the word “I” twenty four times, and mentioned the brave troops who conducted the mission only three times.
Of course we are elated that bin Laden may be dead (I want proof)...but this would NEVER have happened had it not been for GITMO and Bush...yet, the self-absorbed power hungry destroyer of our land will take full credit and give no salute to those who made it possible....it was an ugly day because of Obama, not because of Free Republic.
I just skip those threads.
Ah !! some-one who chooses their search for FR postings’ like my-self. Hell, if I wanted to see the Lefts point of view I would read many of their web sights, which I don’t.
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