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Originally Posted by Karthik
That being said, I have question. I'm a little confused as to why there's so much public outcry to people burning effigies of Bin Laden and Hussein, yet it's perfectly acceptable when it comes to serial killers and child molesters.
To cite a Canadian example, there's nothing that rallies our country together more than people discussing different ways to torture Paul Bernardo and Karla Holmoka (The notorious serial killing and raping couple). As soon as one speaks out about this, they're immediately turned into social pariah's.
I think it was only 10 years ago when people mailed all their O.J. Simpson memorabillia to a central location for some sort of public burning.
Clearly the crimes of Hussein and Bin Laden are worse (if you can even compare magnitudes at this level). I'd be interested to hear what people have to say in terms of this apparent double standard? I'm looking at those on both sides of the coin here...
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Okay Karthik, I'll bite. You raise an interesting question and I'm going to just touch on it. First of all to put things in perspective, I think a lot of us are actually quite indifferent as to what other people want to burn/hack/mash/eat, but the argument you present about them imposing a double-standard doesn't address something I'll attempt to explain in a minute. I personally couldn't care less if either party's effigies were mutillated in a show of free expression, as we Canadians call it, though it's certainly a silly waste of the aformentioned mad cheddah.
My belief is this: Paul and Karla hit close to home and commited much more brutal, personal crimes. Saddam commited very detached crimes in a much greater magnitude, but we as a whole can hardly relate with the goings-on of the Arab world. Likewise, Saddam only recently started being tried, in a questionable court on the other side of the world; he exists as an icon to the West, but we really know little of him. As some have already pointed out in this thread, the reason they are questioning the motive behind burning Osama's effigy is that doing so is less a statement of disapproval for the crime as it is a childish political statement. As such, I think this could also be an important distinction that is being made, rather than a double-standard.