I have been to funerals where the minister/priest has asked for people to stand up and say something about the departed and everybody looks at each other and eventually somebody stands up with that "Guess it's up to me" look on their face and says "Sorry to the family" and sits down. And after it was over everybody short of the deceased's Mother was saying "you know He really was an asshole"
And I have been to funerals where they had to put a stop to the people standing up and singing the praises of the deceased and the singing didn't stop when the funeral was over.
We've all been to both. So what was the difference? Person A was a prick and Person B was a great person. And anybody who would say anything bad about person B or compare the reaction to the death of the two people we would figure to be a complete dick. These are lessons you don't learn at Cal.
Now the Professor is getting into hair splitting. It's clear that The Professor was a follower of Falwell's cult and for whatever reason the death of John Murtha has brought out in him his pent up frustrations over the reaction to the death of the divine profit.
3 comments:
Sergei opines...
You cannot measure decency; it is an inherently subjective concept. In any case, though, the question is not whether they were good people, but whether badmouthing them while their bodies were still warm is somehow worse than doing the same thing when they were alive. I might remind you, by the way, that both men had children who wish/wished to bury their father in peace.
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This might be one of the dumbest things I have ever read. Of course you can measure decency unless you're a robot.
I don't think Sergei was a follower of Rev. Falwell. I think he strongly believes that when a person is buried six feet under, that person deserves some form of respect not wishes of ill will for a certain time (or at least that's what I take away from his argument). Normally, I would agree with Sergei with most unlikeable people (for me, it means someone who was a harmless asshole), but in the case of men like Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms, and other true scumbags? They've shown no decency in life, and they're not getting any from me in death.
No I think he was Jonathan. Notice he didn't pull a name out that would have some merit to his argument like Charlton Heston.
And his you can't measure decency comment is still too ignorant to be believed. Everything we do in life, every decision we make is based off of measuring decency. From the person we marry, To the restaurant we chose to eat lunch at to the shirts on our back.
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