Somebody has to say it: I am being hypocritical here.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

I did not say so out loud, but on the inside, I cheered when Reagan died.

To avoid a Secret Service visit, I won't say what my reaction would be if tragedy befell the current occupant of the White House.

This makes me no different than the people who are cheering Scott Peterson's death sentence. They are cheering the death of a human being. I did in June, and I will in the future when certain politicians kick the bucket.

I am a hypocrite. I suspect that some of you are, too, but I won't say so.

GB the hypocrite.

Edit: sorry, I have to leave for an appointment and then work graveyard tonight. I'll check replies in the morning.

[redqueen]

1. I didn't cheer Reagan's death

and I won't cheer Scott's.

I may be a hypocrite in other ways, but not this.

[LSparkle]

2. But the people whose deaths you may cheer ...

had an impact on your life. Scott Peterson only hurt Laci and Conner. Why are people so invested in this case that they cheer when Scott (albeit a scumbag) hasn't affected their lives in any meaningful way? Yeah, what it says about our society's morals may be awful, but I think we have a lot more right to dislike politicians whose decisions -- about taxation, labor, the decision to go to war -- can cause us harm.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

That's a selfish attitude.

The Abu Gharaib (sp?) torturers haven't affected my life, either, but I am very invested in that.

Sorry, but I don't buy that it shouldn't matter if it doesn't affect me directly.

[LSparkle]

39. Vengeance that's not personally motivated is what bugs me

I was sickened by Abu Ghraib also but feeling the humiliation of those people and knowing it was wrong, that's empathy and a positive thing. What's sickening is people wanting vengeance seemingly for no reason (as in Peterson's case). The Rocha family have a right to want him die; the rest of that crowd ought to just shut up. On the other hand, when it comes to politicians who may have affected my family's life -- through loss of jobs, bankruptcy, sending members of my family unnecessarily into war -- I think I have the right to feel some satisfaction when they're no longer around.

[JimmyJazz]

3. I didn't cheer when Reagan died, but I know I'm gonna

smile a little when Pinochet meets his maker.

[Gothic Sponge]

4. I didn't cheer when Reagan died

I wouldn't even cheer if Bush died. Don't let your lesser nature rule you. That's how the Freepers live.

[mike_c]

5. party at my house when the chimpster croaks....

Agent Mike is invited too. We'll roast marshmallows to commemorate his chump ass toasting in hell.

[curse10]

6. I didn't cheer Reagan's death, nor do I cheer this possible one

I honestly can't believe the jury gave him the death penalty.

[skygazer]

7. I certainly did not cheer Reagan's death

I did not agree with his Presidency or his policies but I don't think anyone deserves to be stricken with such an awful illness and I felt sorry for his family, even if I don't particularly care for many of them.

I would like to see the present occupant out of the WH, but I would not wish death on anyone. And I don't find anyone's demise a cause for celebration. Anyone's. Regardless of whether or not the world will be better off without them.

I don't neccessarily believe in god but that doesn't mean I think I have any right to make godlike decisions.

[indigobusiness]

8. The truth isn't hypocritical.

False words and deeds can be.

Something innate in people makes them crave the drama of terrible things. But, intellectually, at the same time, they can abhor them.

Hypocrisy is as hypocrisy does.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

9. regan died of disease

scott is going to be killed. there is a difference.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

10. how?

Which one is going to be more dead?

[bettyellen]

12. diseases cause a natural death, the death pentaly uses people to kill

other people and is entirely preventable. can't cure alzheimers (and it is a fatal disease), but the death penalty is an abomination, and can be abolished if the people so choose.
world of differnce that i can see.
i have to add, i can't recall cheering over anyone's death-- seen too much of it myself to easily do that. imprisonment, sure, removal from office? hell yes!! death, nope. never.
but that's me. been to many funerals? you might not have yet developed any empathy for this yet. it happens, i have met many to whom death is pretty abstract concept.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

22. I've been to over forty funerals.

nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. one is goign to be killed...theres no reason to cheer murder

if he died randonly and we cheered it would be the same thing...

i dont think its a bad thing that scott is going to die..i think its a bad think hes going to be murdered by society....

i dont think it was a bad thing that reagan died...however it would be if he was killed by society.

[indigobusiness]

21. Intention

is everything.

[Wat_Tyler]

11. Why does 'someone have to say it'?

Maybe you're just projecting your own issues onto the group.

[redqueen]

13. Post more.

Please.

[Wat_Tyler]

17. I'll be back.

Just have to iron out a few issues in real-land. Jobs, career and so on.

[redqueen]

28. Hope everything's going OK for ya.

Your wit is missed.

[Wat_Tyler]

33. My wit and shit will return,

as soon as I get a decent job.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

18. Please explain.

There are a dozen active threads right now decrying the lack of humanity and the barbarity in society because people are cheering the death of a human being.

I am no different from any of those people in California. They hate Scott Peterson because he murdered one (and, one could argue, given what he was convicted of, two) of their neighbors, traumatized their collective community, and has been the center of an emotional firestorm.

I hated Reagan because he caused the deaths of many people, traumatized my friends and family in the LGBT collective community, and has been the center of many emotional firestorms.

Yet the people who cheer Peterson's death are "barbarians" ?

How am I different?

I'm not. And I don't think anyone else on DU is different from them, either (speaking strictly about those who cheered Reagan's death, which I know not everyone did.)

[Wat_Tyler]

27. You're being coyly assumptive.

Either call them out as hypocrites, or don't. Your post seemed to me like you are trying to mitigate your own guilt by projecting it onto others.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

29. You're being manipulative.

"Break a rule, or I'm going to accuse you of various psychological maladies."

[Wat_Tyler]

31. First one would be paranoia it seems.

I'm only commenting on the situation as I saw it, what you do is your own affair. I suspect that I'm right, though.

[donheld]

41. You are dead right

don't let'em drag you down.

[bettyellen]

52. most people on this thread are telling you they are different from them -

not a lot of death cheering here, is there?

[latteromden]

15. I don't want to make a big deal out of this, but

explain to me how Reagan's death is something to cheer about. His presidency was over, gone, finished with, in no danger of coming back again, even if you disagreed with his policies. You cheered the death by Alzheimer's of a private citizen. The people cheering Peterson's sentence should be ashamed, and you should be even more so. I didn't agree with Reagan, but cheering his death is no different from cheering the death of my grandma - who also died of Alzheimer's.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

20. Reagan caused deaths and misery.

When he died, I said nothing on the outside, but on the inside I gloated.

I am no different from those people in California, and as there are now dozens of threads condemning them for cheering the death of a human being, I feel that my own integrity requires me to state that I am no different from any of them.

edit: typo

[Politicub]

63. I didn't cheer Reagan's death

I disliked him as much as the next liberal, but I didn't cheer his death. Alzheimer's is something I would never wish on anyone, either.

I think the other poster is right about this thread -- it's just a big projection of the originator's own guilt.

I often do have seemingly self-contradictory positions, but I don't cheer when someone dies of a horrible disease.

[CornField]

16. I think this is one of the worst things I've ever read on DU

I'm honestly appalled to have opened this thread. Death comes for us all. Some of us will even welcome it when it is our time. It was my hope that Ronald Reagan was of that group.

Those of us left behind should find no comfort in death's wake and we should definitely not take pleasure in the passing of another.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go vomit.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

19. Were you here when Reagan died?

Do a search for that day and the days immediately following.

If my silent admission that, though I said nothing, I cheered on the inside makes you vomit, you may want to have a suicide hotline on standby before you do those searches.

[CornField]

43. No, I wasn't

That day I was driving across Idaho. I heard the news on the radio and had to pull over. I didn't cry because Reagan himself had left us. My tears were for his wife and family -- people who loved him and were now hurting.

When the bodies of Laci and Conner were found near the bay, I cried not for them, but for the family and friends left behind.

Empathy. Maybe that's the difference here. I have lost loved ones in my life -- my father, my mother, and three children. I know what that big gapping hole in the soul feels like. I know how it heals over time, but never completely closes.

Regardless of why, idiots belong to all groups of people -- even among us here at DU. I appreciate your interest in perpetuating my suffering further; however, I have no desire to personally view others among us making asses of themselves.

[manic expression]

62. So...

you must be pretty busy crying for every person who died that day. I admire your care for other beings, but there are far greater people who die in far greater frequency...why cry for this?

Scott Peterson will be executed by the state after causing a relatively small number of people pain and suffering; Reagan died after causing the entire world great harm, pain and damage. Now, everything is relative, so what you need to ask yourself is this: Is this justice? I think it is disgusting that while countless people die horrible deaths for no reason, people are celebrating the killing of a man who killed his wife (one person). Reagan committed crimes which had dire consequences, and this came back to him as an individual to a certain extent. If you place more or equal passion in a pretty insignificant death, or with the death of a person who's actions are absolutely horrible, than that is your choice.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

23. i think every gay person who cheered when reagan died

was well justified

as were poor people

and other people who faced the issues that reagan caused.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

25. So, are pregnant women, and women whose husbands are

adulterers, well justified to cheer now that Peterson is going to die?

And why does it matter if it's a personal thing -- if you faced the issues that that person caused?

By that thinking, since none of us were tortured in Abu Gharaib, we can't cheer the convictions of the torturers.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

30. hence i said others

a lot of peopel have empathy and can cheer because they feel a whole community was hurt because of what someone did....and its a bit different to feel that way when one dies from natural causes adn one is murdered by the state


fyi: i did not exactly cheer when reagan died (and neither did most people on DU) ...we just questioned the blinding devotion of others at that time.

[bettyellen]

48. It seems from this that you not only lack empathy, but that you

but also lack an understanding of what empathy is........
aside from that you are equating cheering death with cheering a prison sentence? That's a big WTF from most of us !!
You seem not to be able to make a lot of distinctions between some unrelated things here. i don't get it.
don't lump me in with you and the death cheering mobs, as i have more respect for life than you do, the majority here does find it apalling and completely lacking in empathy to cheer death. i can't say i feel bad you didn't find more "hypocrites" like yourself.

[CornField]

45. So, that's all it is to you

Some sort of contest? We have earned the authority to mock the dead simply because we remain living. Let's hope those who outlive you don't hear of this.

[bettyellen]

49. hi corny! love all your posts on this... not getting the point at all here

was the bookworm hoping to unearth a lot of people who secretly cheer death as they do?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

50. listen i dont get the hypocrisy of respecting someone only after they die

i did not respect reagan before or after his death...did i say "woo hoo! reagan is dead!" NO...but did i roll my eyes when everyone did their eulogies calling him a saint..YES i did.

i see no reason to apologize for this.

[bettyellen]

57. cheering his death and giving bullshit eulogies are two different things.

completely different.
a respect for human life in general, an inability to cheer anyone's death does not mean you are praising the person in the least. how did you connect those dots?
you can hate a person and not be happy they are dead!
anyway, most of us can!

[manic expression]

64. Why respect a human life

when it is so horribly misused? If you truly respect human life, it would seem that you would be indifferent to see such a human life go, as it was blotched with the blood and suffering of many.
I think the death of someone is only a continuation of the existence in which we can sense it. In this, I think it best to see a death of a "bad" person (others can fill in what they think of "bad" here) as something not to be joyful or remorseful over. Let the actions of an individual reflect their self; the death is, for the most part, insignificant. If someone "bad" dies, hate the person (if you see it fit) for what they did, but I see no reason to have any sympathy for that individual due to their actions which warrant such a response.

[bettyellen]

66. i have respect for life, it's not cheap. but who said sympathy or remorse?

i never said i felt that either! the absence of elation is not sorrow!!
please don't put words in my mouth, okay?
i am not in the habit mourning for people i've never met actually.

[manic expression]

67. The last part of my post

wasn't directed at you, I was pretty much thinking aloud and putting my thoughts down.
Anyway, do you think that it is wrong to feel even the slightest satisfaction when a truly horrible person dies? I think it may be warranted if this stems from a feeling of justice for the wrongs committed by the individual, and not happiness in the death itself.
I'm still a bit confused on this, but I feel that death is another continuation, not an ending, and that the actions of that person are what truly matter.
Perhaps a death should be focused on as another part of a life.

[Forkboy]

24. Reagan died on his own,he wasn't put to death

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

26. dead is dead is dead and hate is hate is hate.

I am just as hate-filled as those people cheering Peterson's death, and so is every person here who cheered when Reagan died, or who would cheer if Chimpy died.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

32. no its not.

dead is not just dead...80 year old man dies in his sleep is completely different from how laci peterson died and is also completely different from how scott peterson will die.

[Forkboy]

34. Well,feel guilty if you like

but if you can't see the difference in the context than I'm out.

Have a fun self flagellation!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

36. people are welcome to self flagellate

i just don't like being called a hypocrite when i am not one.

[RandomKoolzip]

35. The funny thing about this thread is:

When we on the left are met with the death of our enemies, we are torn inside between feeling bad about the loss of life and feeling good that the life lost was a harmful one.

The right has no such compunction, go through no such convolutions of feeling, and feel only one way about those they oppose ideologically: homicidal. Remember when Clinton was in office and assholes on Limbaugh's show were saying things like "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" Or when Ann Coulter wishes death on the writers of the New York Times because some of them hold an opposing political view?

I say we keep a close watch on the RW community when Ted Kennedy dies; I'm sure they'll be lots of heartwarming elegies.

This hand-wringing, to them, is just another sign of weakness.

[redqueen]

37. Yes, being concerned about ethical standards = weakness

That explains everything that's wrong with those people.

[RandomKoolzip]

38. I've never read a thread on DU that wished harm on Bush.

But the number of republicans who I HAVE heard or read issuing threats of physical harm or worse towards all prominent dems, from Hillary and Bill Clinton on down to Skinner, is almost endless.

And unforunately, such bellicosity works/.

[donheld]

40. No, I'd say you're not thinking things through

if that happened then we'd get Cheney, If he'd croak we'd get Hassert. It may even get down to Tom Delay. Tell me how things would getting better?


BTW id don't know that i cheered but i certainly didn't even get misty eyed. Reagan IMHO was indirectly responsible for the deaths of many many people.

[Midlodemocrat]

42. Well, I wouldn't say hypocritical

...the people cheering for Scott Peterson's death were never personally affected by him. Reagan personally affected many, many people in a bad, bad way. I don't think you are being hypocritical.

On a silly note, before my dad passed this summer, he was in and out of a coma in the hospital. When Reagan passed, one of my brothers said "Tell him the Gipper is dead, that should bring him around". My family has a very dark sense of humor and my dad and all of us for that matter are life long liberals.

[DrWeird]

44. Reagan killed a lot more people.

nt

[Zomby Woof]

46. I was open in my indifference

Not cheering, but NO REMORSE. I caused flame wars because I refused to say anything nice about the dead vegetable bastard.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

51. i think that was most of us

no cheering but no tears of sorrow either.

[Left Is Write]

53. I felt sorrow for his family.

I did not cheer when Reagan died, but I did not mourn him either.

[Forkboy]

54. I DID cheer it

Hell,I'm getting the warm fuzzies just being reminded that the fucker is still dead :)

[Zomby Woof]

56. LOL

Well, the thing is, I won't flame you because unlike some, I fully believe you are entitled to YOUR feelings. I sure as hell don't begrudge anyone cheering that asshole's croaking.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

58. thank-you for your honesty

and no i dont think its hypocrisy to cheer one death and not the other...the deaths are different.

[Zomby Woof]

59. Death is the Great Equalizer

Everyone dies, and I don't believe in the death taboo. If a person lived a dishonorable life, I see no problem in taking solace in their death. Besides, a dead person can't be offended by what you say about them anyway.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

61. thats what i said when my evil grandmom died

i cant call her a good person now that shes dead...she was evil..then she died...thats her story...

[gollygee]

47. I wasn't happy when Regan died

I thought it was sad for his family. And I've had a family member die of Alzheimer's, so I know some of what they've gone through. I only have sympahty.

And I would not be happy if anything happened to *. I don't want any harm to come to him at all. I just don't want him to be president.

[ScreamingMeemie]

55. I did not cheer when Reagan died. I probably won't cheer when future

politicians die. I am not cheering over Mr Peterson. There is only one person who could possibly die and make my day, but that hasn't happened and it's personal...so I'm not sure if I'm a hypocrit or not.

[bettyellen]

60. can you explain why you needed to hide your elation over the death?

just curious why you didn't feel like you could be honest about your feelings about this at the time it happened?

[nicolemrw]

65. i don't think i've ever been happy that someone died

not even regean. and i feel bad for petersons mother.

my cousin was murdered by her husband, who also killed their 13 year old daughter. he is serving two life sentances without chance of parole. i can't see how having him killed would have made anyone feel better. i know i just felt sickened by the killing, and i just didn't want any more.