9/11: The Tragedy, The Comedy

So I want to discuss my thoughts on 9/11 on 9/11... is that a problem for anyone?

Apparently it is... it was enough for someone (that I don't know and couldn't possibly care less for) to block me on FaceBook and get a status deleted due to... disrespect.

Disrespect of what? (No idea)

Thing is, I didn't even make a joke about it. It was a simple discussion on whether 9/11 was an inside job or not. And then I'm told to leave the conversation alone and to let those who are in mourning to mourn over it. Of course, because I literally said nothing disrespectful about the situation, I continued. Why? One, to be an asshole (being an asshole on the Internet is fun, you should try it in small morsels), and two, because it was already a topic, and I wasn't going to stop talking about it if everyone else wasn't and if there could be some form of intelligent discussion to be derived from it.

But alas, I was blocked, and the status was deleted. Oh well.

One thing that was discussed was the idea that 9/11 was an inside job. We probably will never know the truth about it, but there's something very important about knowing whether it was an inside job or not.

You see, because of 9/11, airport security has been improved. They've managed to catch a lot of different types of objects and keep all different types of whack jobs off planes because of it. (many many many more people may have missed flights due to security, but that's a different story for a different day.) So if 9/11 happened simply because someone in security slipped up, then I am relatively sure that all bases are covered.

But if 9/11 was an inside job, then I'm just as sure that if someone wanted it repeat those events (and do it on a larger scale), then it could be done, and probably rather effortlessly. And this, I feel, is why it's relatively necessary to know if it was an inside job or not, because while a repeat is clearly preventable in terms of keeping outsiders from pulling it off, what can we do about insiders? I don't know if the TSA is ready to deal with that.

The next thing I want to talk about is the thing that actually ventures into disrespectful territory... 

the jokes.

FUTURE TRUNKS! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE US IN TIME?!

See what I did there?

But yeah... the jokes of 9/11... they're amazing if you look hard enough to find them. Oh, and if you find yourself offended by them. (though honestly, this is my favorite)

The young lady whose name I do not know but can be found under the moniker of Android 18 (and if you click her name, or this, you can go to her FaceBook Like Page) (she's also the one that made that picture and that makes her awesome) said something that I found interesting along the lines of...

9/11 jokes are only unfunny because it's a tragedy that happened in America. People make fun of the nuke bombings in Japan and the Holocaust all the time, both of which had more people killed than 9/11, and people laugh at it all the time, but once you start joking about 9/11, we got a problem.

And it's kind of true. Obviously, you have those people that just get offended by life and therefore any joke about any tragedy offends them. But there are definitely people that will laugh at racist jokes, Holocaust jokes, Japan bombing jokes, dinosaur extinction jokes (hey, they were alive too), Michael Jackson jokes, Whitney Houston jokes, etc. But put out a 9/11 joke, and apparently, a line has been crossed.

My thing is, at the end of the day, they're jokes. I feel like there's a big difference between making a joke about a touchy topic, and then being plain ol' disrespectful about it. Like, there's a big difference between making a racist joke and actually being racist. There's a big difference between make a joke about anyone and actually disrespecting them and their character.

And I think that once people understand that, the world will be a better, more humorous place.

Okay, I think I'm going to cut this blog short. I've got more than I'm willing to type, but I'm tired, I got another adventure to hit up tomorrow (I'm on vacation by the way) (The Adventures of Mark Wins is super dead, so let's not even bring it up) (too bad I already brought it up), and I've made it require that I get up early and stuff. So I'm done here.

9/11. Never forget. And if you do, it's okay America won't let us forget.

Osama bin Laden is Dead... And...?

So last night, during the trailers, I hear that Osama bin Laden is dead. We get into the neighborhood after the movie and I hear he got shot... my first reaction?

"Killing a leader doesn't stop the cause."

I don't exactly remember when or where I learned that, but I know that it was a fact.

I finally get home and look up the news. I see the video of Barack Obama's speech on bin Laden's death. It was a solid speech. And yes, it almost guarantees a second term for Obama because America is good for voting for people via trivial shit as opposed to looking up what a given candidate stands for.

Then I see the "SHITSTORM" of statuses about bin Laden's death. I see the simple "ding dong, the witch is dead," statuses, I see jokes, I see deep shit about bin Laden being dead and what it means for the country... just a whole bunch of shit.

But ultimately, I don't see bin Laden's death as a cause of celebration because I don't see what killing bin Laden actually solved. Yeah, he might have orchestrated the attack against the US on 9/11, but you gotta realize... there were suicidal people on his team, willing to actually pull it off.

By a show of hands, how many of you are willing to go to the army and fight for your country?

Okay, by a show of hands, how many of you are willing to die for your religion?

mmhmm... even fewer... how about this, how many of you are willing to fly a plane into a Mosque because you don't have bombs to drop out of planes like that?

Yeah... that's what I thought. While America was hit hard by the 9/11 attacks, the guys who did it were regarded as legendary heroes by the people in countries and religions that hate us. You got people showing "raw footage" of the attacks and the aftermath. How about you show "raw footage" of the celebrations that went on around the world because of the attacks? Thousands of people died that day... does that make the people who celebrated bad people? No, they're not any worse than anyone celebrating the death of bin Laden.

What really gets me is how bin Laden was seen trying to cross an area or something like that, and was shot. Obama ordered for the capture or the shooting of bin Laden when they had him cornered... I wouldn't have ordered for the shooting, simply the capture. People are too quick to pull triggers in acts of revenge rather than figure out the cause of the malicious action brought to them in the first place. Why not capture bin Laden, figure out why we did what he did, and form a peaceful solution from there? Maybe our oil prices could start to alleviate. Oh, we don't like peaceful solutions? Fine, use bin Laden to figure out how deep al-Qadea runs so that we can, you know, stop it.

Ultimately, I just feel like shooting bin Laden dead wasn't the brightest idea, even if it looked like the best thing to do at the time. I feel like the best thing to do was capture him, figure him and al-Qadea out, and work from there, either to obtain a peaceful solution that puts America in a better position than has been in, or work on stopping al-Qaden directly from attacking America and whomever else they may attack ever again. As it stands, though? America is still not safe.

Doing the harder work to ensure that America is safe would not only be an amazing example to lead not just the people here at home but around the entire world by, but it would also make America look like a better country to those who hate us. But you know how America doesn't like hard work, so...

Like I said, the people on the other side of the coin aren't bad people. They just have differing views that no one seems to want to get understand. They don't want to get to know us, we don't want to get to know them. It's times like this where I feel peace is (or was) the best weapon. But it's too late... you can't reverse damage like this.

Someone has to step up and be the bigger man. Guess it won't be America.