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bitchy People who're feeling a bit vulnerable on the subject of real-life, non-homicidal suicide should probably not click the cut, since I talk fairly frankly about it.
*Sigh* My reaction to the news that the London bombs were suicide attacks - as opposed to dump-the-bombs-and-leg-it - is less "EEEK KILLER FANATICS" and more Hicksian "did you feel the world get lighter? We lost four idiots!"
But then I never got the allegedly uniquely scary aspect of suicide attacks. New nominees for the Darwin Awards, whatever. Deciding to kill a bunch of other people is a problem. Deciding to kill yourself in the process? I really don't care. Just go blow yourself up in a field a long way from anybody else, rodents and birds included, moron. Nope, sorry, you're not special. I worry about the people who wouldn't want to die if they could stop hating their lives and see any other way out of an intolerable situation. Which is how some of my dearest friends have felt over the years. Now there's a suicide that's worth preventing. People who decide to take others with them, on the other hand, are just attention-seeking brats.
(Although the people who call it cowardly annoy me, too. Ever attempted suicide? It's difficult and scary. Note that I'm not saying that suicide bombers are the same as severely depressed people, just that, as a society, if we could deal with our unhelpful reactions to suicide in general we could perhaps approach this more sensibly and focus on the consequences.)
Nope, still not burning with fear, terror and panic in all the quarters. This could be because I'm from the middle bit. (Christ, newspapers, STOP GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT. Are you stupid, or just brain-dead slaves to the market?)
(Occasionally my raging misanthropy scares me. I'm generally anti-death-penalty, pro-pacifism. I think today's fury might have something to do with the fact I haven't taken my happy pills in a couple of days and, thanks to this fucking heat and my next-door neighbours doing noisy DIY, I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks. Like I said, I'm in one of my moods.)
July 15 2005, 10:47:42 UTC 6 years ago
I would say that you're not being misanthropic, just sensible and that I think most people think the same as you (and I) until I read a letter in a newspaper about somebody's bus journey where everybody got really tense because a woman wearing hijaab got on the bus.
So I'll leave it as you just being sensible and the rest of the world thinking we are misanthropic because they are too blinded by the Daily Mail to see otherwise.
At the end of the day a bomb is a bomb, it kills, does it matter that much whether the person who plants it blows themselves up as well. Like you said, 4 less idiots and at least we don't have to deal with a trial and talk of bring back hanging.
July 15 2005, 10:53:35 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 10:57:51 UTC 6 years ago
Sir Ian Blair needs to shut his yap. "A new paradigm of terror" because the people were British. How is it more frightening ? Bombers are bombers are bombers. The only people who have a legitimate reason to be more frightened (IMO) are British born Asians who are going to face even more racism from morons looking for a reason to justify their hatred.
July 15 2005, 10:59:21 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 11:06:01 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 11:11:20 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 11:01:28 UTC 6 years ago
They bought a pay and display ticket at Luton train station. They had bombs in their bags to blow up trains, but they bought a parking ticket.
July 15 2005, 11:08:35 UTC 6 years ago
If we can't find tasteless things funny, The Terrorists Have Won
Oh, god. I will not leave a note saying "even bombers park better than you" on the next illegally- and dangerously-parked car I see. I will not. I will not.(Hesitated for ages before clicking 'post'. Yes, I KNOW it's a tasteless and horrible thing to say, before anybody flames me for it. Please forgive my mood and sense of humour, both of which are bloody awful.)
July 15 2005, 11:16:09 UTC 6 years ago
Re: If we can't find tasteless things funny, The Terrorists Have Won
That's because they were British. Your foreign bombers wouldn't do nice orderly law-abiding things out of sheer habit.July 15 2005, 11:06:31 UTC 6 years ago
In general, though, the Darwin bombers remind me of the excellent riposte: "Could [those] who claim they're willing to die for their God or beliefs please just go and do it, quietly in the corner?" [source]
July 15 2005, 11:10:50 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 11:36:01 UTC 6 years ago
It's also harder to spot because anybody can carry a bag, it doesn't really create panic, unlike spotting a dodgy looking package .
You can't carry out a controlled detonation on a suicide bomber the same way you can on a "suspicious package".
I think ITN should run a poll "Should Asian people be allowed to carry back packs in the wake of the recent suicide bombing ?" I'd bet a lot of people would vote no.
July 15 2005, 11:45:29 UTC 6 years ago
It's also harder to spot because anybody can carry a bag, it doesn't really create panic, unlike spotting a dodgy looking package.
Mmmm. Though I still reckon the fact of needing a death-wish probably cancels that out. Sure, they're harder to spot - but there's not gonna be that many of them, realistically.
July 15 2005, 11:54:13 UTC 6 years ago
Or is that too convoluted even for fundie religious criminal masterminds?
I actually heard the first joke about it yesterday. It wasn't funny.
July 15 2005, 14:00:03 UTC 6 years ago
(For what it's worth, I decided ages ago that it was completely possible to be a misanthropic humanist. If only because trying to reconcile the two otherwise would have made my head explode...)
July 15 2005, 18:44:13 UTC 6 years ago
Hah, yes. I hate people; I think everybody should be equal and happy and live the best lives possible and try and be nice to each other. There's no contradiction, because I accept the fact that I hate people. It's the ones who can't be honest with themselves about this fact who have trouble.
July 15 2005, 15:37:41 UTC 6 years ago
:)
July 15 2005, 17:47:18 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 17:48:10 UTC 6 years ago
should actually include the link really! double stupidity next to the typo!
July 15 2005, 19:38:15 UTC 6 years ago
July 15 2005, 23:24:04 UTC 6 years ago
Although the people who call it cowardly annoy me, too.
I agree, I noticed this after 9/11, with people calling the terrorists cowards. Like, hang on, they certainly weren't cowards. There seems to be this idea that if someone has done something bad, then all the words we use to describe them must be "negative" - which is wrong; sometimes people require bravery to commit evil acts, where a coward would be unable to.
It reminds me of the idea of referring to Hitler as an excellent orator - despite the fact that this may be true, and indeed probably helped him accomplish much evil, many people are unable to accept the idea of him holding any positive attributes.
July 16 2005, 00:08:19 UTC 6 years ago
Mmm. It would make much more sense to describe people who dump the bomb and run as cowards, but people generally don't. I think it really is because of the stigma surrounding suicide - "coward's way out", and all that - which the depressed know is bullshit, but that's a rant for another time. It's as though the fact they've committed such a stigmatised act as suicide is allowed to take precedence over the fact that their primary intention was to kill people (okay, probably overstating the case there, but still), which is bloody weird.