Digitus Impudicus

“Overwhelming Sense of Sadness”

Sometimes I feel like giving up. It’s now nearly impossible to parody Leftists. Here I was, thinking I was being a clever, world-class smartass by offering “counseling services” and links to suicide prevention hotlines in anticipation of the “mourning” I sarcastically expected from the Left. Oh well.

Via LGF I found a link to some commentary by a Daily Kos Leftist, expressing... Aw heck with it, I’ll just let this lunatic speak for himself. (emphasis added)

An overwhelming sense of sadness
by wilbur
Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 09:59:02 PM PST

I have just read that Saddam Hussein is dead. Hung by the neck until dead – isn’t that the phrase they always use on television? And I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. Everybody has to start by saying that it isn’t bad that Saddam Hussein is dead – he was an evil man. But what is evil? It is a religious denunciation, a way to set a person apart from humanity. We need to do this I suppose. And if we say that Saddam Hussein is an evil man, don’t we then have to say that other men are good? Who is good I wonder? Where do we find these men of goodness? To say Saddam Hussein was evil is too easy, it lets us off the hook. Saddam Hussein was a cruel man, a selfish man, a desperate man, a sad man.

* wilbur's diary :: ::

He was a bully I think. He was a man who never knew happiness I think. He rationalized his actions I’m sure by saying that he did what had to be done. He called his own enemies evil, and tortured them completely. Saddam Hussein was all too human. He walked among us. In this moment of spiritual limbo between Christmas and the start of a new year I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.

I feel sadness because we repaid cruelty with cruelty. We did it because we allowed an emotionally disturbed man to lead us, to direct our actions. We destroyed Saddam Hussein’s life. This was perhaps justified. Do we destroy every cruel man’s life? Is it our duty to destroy every cruel man’s life? Still, it was not less than he deserved. Take away his livelihood. What will we do to the war profiteers who had a hand in murdering our own children for a few dollars? Will we be as angry, as cruel?

We killed his children while he was still alive. We hunted them down like animals and slaughtered them without dignity. As a father I will say no human deserves this. Once we have reached this level of cruelty it has gone beyond repayment. It has become something visceral, something deep within our souls that we usually try to hide, even from ourselves. But we felt no shame. We celebrated this cruelty, cheered it and broadcast it to the world. Who gave us this lisence I wonder? Now that this Pandora's box is open, will we be able to close it?

We destroyed Saddam Hussein’s history. We went in to his village, his tribe, and we wiped away the footsteps of his lineage. We made sure that Saddam Hussein knows that everything about him, who he was, where he came from has ended. We turned him around and made him watch his footsteps in the sand, watch them disappear as the ocean washed over them. As a man who has reached middle age I feel an emptiness inside of me when I think of this – to watch yourself slowly disappear. It was an insane, almost psychotic cruelty. It was my society that not only did this, but cheered this – we were beating a dog over and over again because he bit us, making him yelp, humiliating him so he no longer had an identity, so that he was an empty shell. And when we knew he was an empty shell, we kept beating, our eyes on fire, snot dripping from our nose, wheezing under the strain of our constant blows. The dog had bitten somebody – he must be made to pay. Nobody regrets what we are doing – because he was a junkyard dog who attacked others.

We put Saddam Hussein on trial and we jeered him, and we could not even mention his name without saying he deserved what he gets. We stood him up for mockery before the world. We took a bully and showed the world that he is weak and that we are strong. We made fun of him, jabbed with sticks through the bars of his cage. There was nothing left of him, but we kept jabbing anyway, at that empty shell. The snarling junkyard dog was gone and what was left was the frightened, desperate inner core. And yet we kept jabbing at it. He had bitten others you know. He had shown cruelty. We couldn’t stop, we would put the jabbing on the morning news for our viewing pleasure. There was nothing human left – his eyes were empty. He was confused, no longer able to comprehend what was happening to him. We all could see it – it was impossible not to. He was like a hospice patient we were propping up and kicking and slapping because - we had long since lost any sense of reason for this. We didn’t even ask ourselves why anymore. It had become a bizarre habit, a fetish of sorts. I would pour my corn flakes, and turn on CNN, and get my daily dose of jabbing what was once Saddam Hussein with a stick. I couldn’t even really remember who he was.

And I come in here tonight and surf on my computer and the first information I get is that Saddam Hussein was hung by the neck until dead. I don’t think we put him out of his misery. I believe he left misery behind long ago. We had taken it from him, because misery was too good for this man – we wanted something more. But he was human – he had dreams, he had aspirations, I am sure. He did kind things sometimes, I am sure. But yes he was a cruel man – funny I felt obligated to say that. I am wondering if Saddam Hussein’s execution will put me out of my misery. Not tonight – because tonight I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.

You really, really can’t make this shit up.

"We destroyed Saddam Hussein’s life." "What will we do to the war profiteers who had a hand in murdering our own children for a few dollars?"

I guess we're due a heaping dollop of moral equivalence here. First, "we" didn't destroy Hussein's life in that "we" didn't execute him. As much as the Left hates democracy when democracy does things that they don't like, the fact is that the democratic government of Iraq decided what they wanted with him - their tribunal, their sentencing, their execution. We deposed him - they hanged him. But I suppose it strokes something hateful in the Leftist heart to blame America for this. It's not as if Hussein's execution was a "done deal," either - the president of Iraq refused to sign the death warrant, and it was left to one of his deputies to do so.

"We hunted them down like animals and slaughtered them without dignity. "

It was only a matter of time before the Left "went native" in this war. Now they're taking on yet another aspect of the primitivist culture in the Middle East: the "dignity cult." Where are the lofty words of compassion for the countless women who were raped by Saddam's misbegotten offspring? Did the Left howl in rage over the many women who were used by his sons, raped, then had acid thrown in their faces? What about the "dignity" of the Iraqi national soccer team members who were horribly tortured when they failed to perform up to Uday's expectations?

No. As is usually the case, the Left's compassion is highly selective: only reserved for those the West in general, and the US in particular, have assaulted. Mutilated Iraqi women and athletes are of no concern. Not when there's a chance to savage America. And every remaining compassion is to be reserved for butchers the Left actually admires, whether that be Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin.

Butchery and murder are understandable, as long as they're practiced by America's enemies. Small wonder I "question their patriotism."

I leave this post with one more quote, and my thoughts on it.

"We destroyed Saddam Hussein’s history. We went in to his village, his tribe, and we wiped away the footsteps of his lineage. We made sure that Saddam Hussein knows that everything about him, who he was, where he came from has ended. We turned him around and made him watch his footsteps in the sand, watch them disappear as the ocean washed over them. As a man who has reached middle age I feel an emptiness inside of me when I think of this – to watch yourself slowly disappear."

So much dripping sympathy in one paragraph. I'm forced to ask, what about the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands of young men and women "wiped away" by Saddam and his minions? What of the mass graves filled with men, women and children who have had their futures ripped from them? What about those Saddam murdered who never had a chance to make footprints of their own?