UK's Thatcher, rot in hell . . .

Hi dronester.I was a child in the US during Thatcher's time as Prime Minister. I understand that it's highly likely that I would vehemently reject a great many of her policies, but I'm not sufficiently curious to dig into the matter and find out.But all of this "rot in hell" and "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" nonsense is rather awful. And of course this: was uncalled for.A woman died. That is a sad occasion, not a happy one. Whatever our disagreements, it is always sad when a person dies. Indeed, the person exhibiting the most sociopathic tendencies is the person who is glorying in the death of another human being - you are, at this moment, representing all of the hatred and apathetic disregard for human life and human dignity that you claim to oppose.One can oppose or even hate a set of views and actions. One can rejoice when a political opponent leaves all positions of power. But death is not something to cheer.

The video is immaterial, dronester. What was uncalled for was the accusation of sociopathy, particularly while in the very same post you cheer a human death. The victim's POV is the same, dronester. That's what you don't understand. You feel compassion selectively. It is sad when any person dies. Every person has friends and family who care about them, every person has hoes and dreams and memories and thoughts and feelings, and it's sad when anyone is made to suffer or dies. It's sad and reprehensible when that suffering and death is caused by another person, and it's still sad when it's caused by unavoidable natural phenomenon. When I say how sad it is that Thatcher is dead, I am also saying how sad it is that anyone ever has died or suffered, for exactly the same reasons.

It was your commentary that I found objectionable. There is no video you could refer to with such commentary that would make the commentary acceptable. Therefore, the video itself is irrelevant - what I object to is your casual flinging of the term "sociopath," particularly while in the same post you cheer the demise of a human being.I don't tell anyone that they have to feel anything. But I'll note that those (few) occasions where I have observed holocaust survivors forgiving Nazis have been some of the most touching and morally exemplary acts I have ever witnessed. There was a Netflix documentary, "Forgiving Dr. Mengele", about a victim who after the war, met and forgave one of the Nazi doctors who performed experiments on her and even moved on to (posthumously) forgive Mengele himself. It was quite moving.Not everyone is capable of feeling compassion even for an enemy. It's all too easy and all too human to dehumanize those with whom we disagree or those who have committed crimes. That, too, is sad. I make every effort to apply compassion universally. The base human tendency is toward dehumanization and retribution, both of which I find morally repugnant, and therefore I try to avoid them. That tendency exists most strongly regarding those who have committed the worst crimes, and so I pay strongest attention to my positions when speaking of those with whom I most vehemently disagree, or those who have perpetrated the worst acts of suffering.I'm human, and I'm not perfect, but I don't believe I'd act as the executioner of even Hitler so long as he was removed from power. I am relieved at the failure of his inhuman atrocities, but I am not rejoiced by the fact of his demise. I would be happy if he had abandoned his "final solution" before a single person was killed. Of course human lives are equal. To consider otherwise begins down the road where a single countryman's life is worth a hundred foreigners, or variations on that theme. Dehumanization, dronester, the valuation of some lives as less than others, is the single largest step toward precisely what the Nazis did. That's an interesting scenario, and yet I note that it generally costs significantly more money to try to "reform a rapist" than it does to feed a single child. And, of course, our society is not actually so starved for resources - the resources are simply misappropriated. The largest flaw in your scenario, of course, is that in one case you have a dying child, and in the other you have a rapist who will continue to live even if not reformed. Obviously the resources would go towards saving a life over improving one...which demonstrates not at all my valuation of one life over another, but my equal valuation of life and your absurd bias.For the record, I do support rehabilitation as the focus of criminal justice systems, including the rehabilitation of rapists and murderers whenever possible, and I never support retribution. Somehow I find room to support the feeding of starving people, regardless of age, as well. If resources were truly limited, I would start with the necessities of providing food, water, clothing and shelter to everyone from children to the elderly to convicted criminals of all sorts, and rehabilitation would be much farther down the list. I feel no inclination to accede to your absurd request. I'm not trying to prove anything to you. I'm here only to tell you that dancing on someone's grave demonstrates precisely that which you claim to hate.

dronester, I think I'll simply redirect you back to the very post you're replying to. I think I've said all that needs to be said on the matter. I feel I've sufficiently rebutted your points and expressed my opinions. I'm sad that you feel the way you do, but then...you're hardly unique in your dehumanization of those with whom you disagree.Margaret Thatcher's life was not worth less than yours. She was a human being, every bit as much as you. You might believe she was misguided, and that her beliefs, combined with the power of her position as Prime Minister, caused great harm to many. I'd very likely agree, and I'm happy that she hasn't been Prime Minister for quite some time. But she was still a person. It's sad that she's dead.And it's sad that you feel the need to express joy over a sad occasion.

Part of the reason I feel sadness even for the death of a person who has done great harm is that the finality of death prevents any possibility of reversing the scales. There can be no changing of minds, there can be no alteration of policy, not for the deceased.The reality is that the harm Thatcher could cause personally ended the day she left all positions of political power. Cheering that day would be perfectly acceptable, and I'd join in as I cheered when Bush the Lesser finally left office here in the US.Death does not change the balance of help and harm. Not a single person who suffered under Thatcher's policies will have that suffering erased through her death, just as Bush's eventual death will not restore a single Iraqi or Afghani civilian to life.Death serves no positive purpose when the power to cause more harm has already been stripped. The feeling of satisfaction over the death of another human being can only be a sense of retribution, of vengeance, and those reactions I reject as morally repugnant. Nobody ever "gets what they deserve."A better world would be one in which we can all feel compassion for each other even when we disagree, where we can encourage that same compassion and respect for the lives of others in our philosophical enemies instead of labeling them as inhuman monsters deserving only of their own suffering and death.It's perfectly acceptable, laudable even, to condemn those policies that harmed others. It's perfectly fine to say "we shouldn't hold this woman up as a hero, she used her power to hurt people." I'm against expensive state funerals on general principle, even regardless of who's getting buried.But there's a significant step taken between condemning policy and action, and actually expressing joy at the death of a human being.To paraphrase myself in my earlier reply to dronester, I am sad for all of the victims of Thatcher's policies. I'm relieved that Thatcher left political power behind many years ago. I'm sad that many of her ideas (rather, the ideas Thatcher ascribed to; I doubt every idea she had was wholly original, and as such she doesn't bear perpetual responsibility for all of them) persist in modern politics, and I hope that political change will occur within my lifetime, the sooner the better. I would have been happy if she had realized the negative repercussions of her actions as Prime Minister and had taken a better course instead.But mostly I'm sad at her death, and at the fact that so many people still think that the deaths of some people are happy occasions.

And this is exactly the right attitude. Decry her policies, point out her mistakes, do your best to ensure that the disastrous actions of the past are not looked back upon with the fondness of "the good old days" that never were.I oppose only those who say "gee, I'm glad she's dead, I hope she rots in hell." As I've said, there is a large difference between expressing vehement disagreement and moral outrage, and expressing gladness for the death of a human being. You appear to be doing the former, and I applaud you for doing so. dronester is doing the latter.

I'd just like to direct you to the thread other than dronester's example. He's quite rabid, but most of us on the left are not. Some of us spoke directly against cheering the death of a political adversary.

What's funny is that I have the precisely opposite sense.I suspect that it's simply a matter of extreme opinions attracting attention, particularly in the media. The conservatives I know in person are by a vast majority not the mouth-frothing extremist types, but I see a lot of extreme right BS in the media and on the web.I expect you see extreme left views in the media and on the web, and yet the large majority of liberals you know in person are not hate-spewing assholes.Extreme opinions get ratings on TV, between the people who agree and the people who disagree, much like Howard Stern attracts listeners who both love and despise him. And extreme words are more memorable. Hell, those with extreme views are the most likely ones to say anything at all where anyone else would hear, because the more moderate majority usually just won't say anything at all.

An actual benevolent and competent absolute monarchy would be better.In the short term.Unfortunately, history has consistently and frequently shown us that totalitarian governments, from monarchies to dictatorships, do not tend to be ruled by the benevolent and competent. What happens when the "good" king dies?Not to mention the problem of public discontent. Even if a ruler is doing well at being benevolent and competent, you can never please all the people. Revolutions happen when people are sufficiently upset, even if their reasons are foolish. Democracy allows for a systematic and interactive approach to regime change rather than waiting for a ruler to die and then hoping for the best in the heir.How a government works in effecting good policy is only one part of what makes a system of government effective and desirable. One could even say the smallest part.

The point though, dronester, is that Bush was removed from power after only 8 years, and without requiring a bloody, violent revolution, and without needing to run the risk of his heir being just as bad or worse.A bad king can last decades, his heir can be just as bad or worse, and there is no recourse short of rebellion. The truest victory of democracy is the allowance for regime change to be accomplished through words rather than swords. The various forms of it in practice today are not always efficacious in their protection of human rights or working for positive change, but at least the availability of easy regime change is built-in to the system.Bush seems particularly bad to us because we have not had to deal with a malignant monarchy in living memory. There's a reason we haven't experienced a revolt in the US since the Civil War, despite multiple incompetent and/or malevolent political leaders.Democracy's not great, it's just the least bad form of government anyone's come up with so far (and of course that's an oversimplification as there are many, many forms of democracy in existence). If you can come up with better, I'd be more than happy to hear it.

Voter turnout isn't even what I'd call the worst problem. Resolving the political apathy of the masses would be one way to counter what I see as the real cancer, but democracy can still function even when large segments of the population just don't care.The real problem in my eyes is money - you need it to get elected, a lot of it. The result has been that while the people get equal votes for determining who goes to office, the wealthy have a massively disproportionate influence on campaign funding and lobbying. Even when the people get the representative they want, that politician will be influenced by money while he's in office.I'd favor completely public campaigns, no private money allowed, and equal funding to all candidates who can meet some form of minimum threshold to get on the ballot. Enforced equal media time for all candidates as a requirement for retaining an FCC license. That sort of thing.But of course we're diverging pretty far off-topic here.

That, but not only that. Just as an example off the top of my head, unions also influence campaigns and elections and lobby for legislation. While I support the ideal of unions and an organized workforce to negotiate for the best possible working conditions, unions as a political body are acceptable only because the corporations are also politically active.I think it would be best if politics was a thing of people and not of money, regardless of whether I happen to personally approve of how a given entity trying to influence government with their money.Other problems inherent in many democracies are simply cultural, like the American distrust of "experts." For some reason Joe the Plumber thinks he is qualified to determine whether climate change is real, , or whether evolution is legitimately part of science, or whether a nuclear power plant is dangerous, and to be perfectly blunt he is simply not.More than a benevolent dictator for a day or even sweeping political reform is needed to solve problems that stem from a deeper place, I'm afraid.

That is simultaneously the most succinct and most accurate description of (at least American, which I realize isn't actually what you're talking about) politics I have seen in a long time.

There's a difference between accuracy and precision.