bin Laden gets what he had comming, but...

OK this is one of those serious posts.

Today was a good day for the world. An intolerant religious asshole of the highest caliber finally got what he had coming. The antithesis to one of the United States of America's most sacred pillars, the freedom to worship without interference from the government, is dead. The world is a safer place without him trying to ram his faith up everyone's asses at the end of some instrument of violence, even after so long, the various victims of 9-11 finally getting justice, when the bigger picture is looked at, I can't help but feel hollow. That this was nothing more than a Pyhrric victory.

Yes we finally lopped off the head of al Qaida, but what ever we did to him, killed him, put him on trial, tortured him, throw him in Guantanamo to rot the rest of his days, the damage is already done. The PATRIOT ACT still remains, there are already countless complaints about the TSA violating some right or another. Bradly Manning is still in prison without being charged with anything. The implications with that being that we as a nation are willing to deny one of our own, a Marine no less, the rule of law for the sake of security. The intolerant Christian counterparts to Wahabbi Islam are as strong as ever, feeding off fear and intolerance of Muslims generated by 9-11, and are doing more than their part to tear this country apart. Because of 9-11 they've become powerful forces that are trying to twist this country that stood as a home for anyone fleeing oppression or just wanting a better life into some warped perversion of a Christian nation for Christians. Fear whipped up after 9-11 has lead to American citizens giving up measures of freedom in exchange for some illusion of security. Because of one man's heinous attack, this country has become insane with paranoia towards Islam, a faith with more in common with Christianity than Christians realize, perhaps even more in common with Christianity than Christianity has in common with Judaism. The resulting backlash being used as propaganda by groups like HAMAS to frame the United States as anti-Muslim. And that same fear also resulting in United States citizens believing they were under-siege by an entire religious faith, and not under attack by an isolated and radical sect that hates other sects of Islam.

Bin Laden sought to destroy America, destroy our way of life. He did this by instilling fear and paranoia though a brutal attack. Just because he's dead doesn't mean it's over, doesn't mean we won. To quote Winston Wolfe "Well lets not start sucking each other's dicks just yet." So long as we remain living in some kind of fear, remain living divided and standing against each other, his legacy lives on, Osama bin Laden lives on. To wipe out his legacy, to really kill him we have to stop living in fear, we have to stop allowing ourselves to be polarized and fighting each other over ideology. Stop letting politicians manipulate us by scaring us with the phantom of another attack. Stop worrying and caring about ourselves as individuals living in a vacuum and start caring for each other as American Citizens, citizens who put their country first not Democratic-Americans and Republican-Americans who put their party and ideology first.

Only then will bin Laden be truly dead and buried. When the world can see that at the end of the day, after he hit us worse than we've ever been hit in the last 60 years, that all it did was make us stronger. That is the way to undo the damage bin Laden has done. That is the way that he will go down as a small chapter in the pages of history, as a religious fanatic who tried to scare a nation that proclaims itself a beacon of freedom for all that showed that it would not bend to his religious fervor. And not as a man driven by religious faith who stood up and frighted a super-power and turned it against itself, turned it against the very thing it sought to protect.