Ann Coulter & the 9/11 Widows

[john5746]

By the way, I can't wait to see people on this board who thought it was okay for senators to call each other "bigots" in legislative debate will now tell us that it's NOT okay for Ann Coulter to treat 9/11 widows disrespectfully. That should be interesting.

 

Not saying it was OK to throw around the bigot label, but I consider two senators more on equal footing than a TV/Author figurehead vs a widow. This Ann B**** shows that people who demagogue others will do it to ANYONE who disagrees with them. She can criticize them without using low blows, just as the military can be criticized without calling them names.

[swansont]

It is probably as irrelevant as is the total number of deaths to the amount of per capita compensation which should be awarded. As I said from the beginning, the first step is to consider the principles involved which justify compensation. Only then can we assess whether we should compensate.

 

 

And, as you had stated/linked, (part of) the reason for the 9-11 compensation was to eliminate or reduce lawsuits, since it would seem that security, run by the airlines/airports at the time, should have detected metal weapons, amongst other things. So there was some culpability there. My objection was to the Trubune columnist/reporter's assessment that the WTC was "less intimate," as I feel that it was just a matter of someone using convenient, but easily misinterpreted statistics.

[Jim]

And, as you had stated/linked, (part of) the reason for the 9-11 compensation was to eliminate or reduce lawsuits, since it would seem that security, run by the airlines/airports at the time, should have detected metal weapons, amongst other things. So there was some culpability there. My objection was to the Trubune columnist/reporter's assessment that the WTC was "less intimate," as I feel that it was just a matter of someone using convenient, but easily misinterpreted statistics.

 

That was one rationale. The other was not to let terrorists succeed in victimizing/impoverishing American families. The idea is that you may be able to kill some people but we take care of our own. This rationale would apply to the OKC bombing which to the people affected was just as severe.

 

It's kind of the flip side of Saddam was giving $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers and ultimately distributed millions in this way as I recall.

 

One unstated reason for the different treatment could be the relative political power of NYC vs. OKC.

[entwined]

I just think that what these widows think about foreign policy is irrelevant unless one of them has had some kind of special training or experience that makes them an expert in the field.

 

Bear in mind that I am not saying that they don't have a perfect right to their opinions, just that I fail to see the news worthyness in what someone thinks about the war in Iraq, for example, just because they lost a loved one in the event that we now refer to as 9/11.

 

The same thing goes for movie stars and country singers.

[Skye]

I think alot of it came down to the willingness to pay. The Oklahoma bombing was terrible but it wasn't such a definitive moment as 9/11, or more precisely a transformative moment. The post-Cold War world of benign hegemony was subsumed by the War on Terror. Such an important moment was naturally accompanied by a sort of veneration of the dead and the destroyed buildings.

[zyncod]

Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it? The American Pax Romana lasted 11 years.

[Pangloss]

Augustus's wasn't exactly a bed of roses either.