What do you think about the crowds in Boston cheering "USA" when the Boston Marathon bomber was finally caught?

Jihadists are self proclaimed enemies of the West.
They want us to die and go away.
The US is an iconic figure of the Western world.
The Boston bombers were, by currently available information, jihadists.
They were unsuccessful in meeting their goals, and we (The West) lived another day.
That is worth cheering about.

I understood the cheering for the police and everyone else involved in the manhunt, but I agree with you, the other cheering and celebration makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t understand it. If my child had been killed and I had other family members in the hospital, I wouldn’t be cheering. I think I’d still be pretty angry.

I don’t know about the cheering. But I’m astonished the folks allowed a city wide curfew, demanding all residents stay inside.

Was it Jefferson saying something about those who trade security for liberty, deserve neither…?

The city wide curfew seemed more like a social experiment to me, than a necessity.
_______

The most repulsive thing I heard was Cuomo claiming Boston bombings as the new normal

Mr. Cuomo… You just busted yourself. For upon that statement, we the people, have perfect resolve to replace the leadership that allowed this new normal to manifest.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
I like your answer. Wish I had come with something that good. Almost makes me wish I could erase my comment.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I would guess part of the reason for the curfew was because they assumed there would likely be a shoot out. Obviously, the other reason was so he would have a harder time hiding in a crowd. Plus, if more people were killed by the bombers or in crossfire, the police would be under scrutiny for how it was handled, so curfew was a little CYA in a way I figure. The curfew did not sound ridiculous to me, but the amount of police and other authorites on the seen was overkill in my opinion. Lots and lots of tax dollars. I said on another Q my mom was annoyed with her tax dollars paying for a helicopter constantly flying above the uncle’s house in MD. There were cops and media all over his house and he was estranged from his nephews, that helicopter made no sense.

Thank you for explaining @JLeslie. Good points. Although I don’t agree in the ethical legitimacy of the decision.

It should have been a request. Not a mandate.

And with all this talk about how Boston won’t bow to terror… well, by allowing one teenager to mandate the entire city be indoors, they did.

This bomber killed a couple of people, disrupted a city, and was apparently intent on killing more but was thwarted. Many people were locked inside their houses terrified that this murderer would try to get into their home, hold them hostage and hide out. Hell yes, I would have cheered when he was caught and I could come out in the open again. I still think it is a shame he didn’t put up more of a fight so they legitimately could have shot him a couple of times for each person who died or lost a limb thanks to his disengagement from the society that welcomed, supported and educated him.

The irony is (if I have my information straight) it was when they finally lifted the curfew the guy was found.

^^^Why not verify your information before making a comment?

@gailcalled That is the information I got from the news I watched. If they are right I am right. But, sometimes they are wrong. You can verify it if you are that interested. I qualified my statement that it was to the best of my knowledge, I think that is enough. I didn’t state it as fact like I was there.

I thought the citizens were cheering the police for capturing the guy. I’m all for that. Our police often do a thankless job of trying to protect us. In this case, I think they did an exemplary job. Other police forces (not trying to single out Los Angeles) could take a few pointers here.

@josie is right on. I really doesn’t matter what we infidels do or say. Islamic jihadists are going to try to kill as many of us as possible.

Artist Rod McKuen captures my feelings in this old song from the 1960’s:

“The Things Men Do”

It makes me cry to see the things

Some men do to one another

Makes me cry to see the things some men do.

Every street’s a battlefield and every door’s a jail

And never the sword and not the shield

Can stay the widow’s wail.

I cannot understand,
I will not understand

Why freedom stumbles in our land

And it makes me cry to see the things

Some men do to one another

Makes me cry to see the things some men do.

Every road’s a bitter road and songs are only songs

And when in church children kneel

They cannot right the wrongs

I cannot understand,
I will not understand

Why terror rumbles in our land

And it makes me cry to see the things

Some men do to one another

Makes me cry to see the things some men do.

Every night’s a lonesome night that lasts a lonesome year

And torches all the brighter burn

To burn away the fear

I cannot understand,
I will not understand

Why freedom staggers in our land.

And it makes me cry to see the things

Some men do to one another

Makes me cry to see the things some men do.

Better than he would have gotten 100 years ago. They likely would have met him on the street with a rope while chanting string him up.

I think chanting “USA” at any time is over the top. Then again, I’m not the type of person that claims to have pride for their country. I just happened to be born here.

If anyone deserved cheers, it was the cops that apprehended him.

@JLeslie I heard on some news station that they may have lifted the curfew and let people leave their homes in the hopes that the bomber was watching and would make a run for it. Not sure how true that is, or if it was just speculation. I was watching the news against my will – I generally avoid it at all costs. I have enough of my own problems.

I think it was their way of saying ‘thank you police force’ for risking your lives to keep us safe.

Unlike the Bin Laden case, the perpetrator was captures alive. No one cheered when the older brother was killed earlier as far as I know.

Perfectly understandable to see an outpouring of relief given the immediate circumstances following his capture, but…those young guys playing up to the camera with their supposed “don’t mess with us biatch” attitude, yeah, these are the same “dudes” who’d spent the past 24hrs cowering in their homes in abject fear of their lives on account of a 19yr old…a little perspective might be advisable here, hmmm?

Fancy computer graphics… the constantly repeated images of the explosions followed by the enhanced video clips of the bombers as they planted their death-filled backpacks… the grainy night-scope images during the long, pre-capture vigil… the cheering at the end—coverage of the horrible event from beginning to end was like some reality TV show you feel a little dirty watching.

The coverage was certainly necessary in order to keep us informed of what was, in a sense, happening in all our yards. But sadly, even news about such a despicable crime has become entertainment—including endgame cheering—as decades ago Edward R. Murrow foretold it would be.

It makes me very uncomfortable.

I disagree with the cheering. The fact is, the terrorists temporarily won. They got a city to confine everyone to their house for fear of more deaths.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies The quote you were referring to was Benjamin Franklin. ”Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.”

What really disgusts me though is how many people have used this bombing to try to further some political goal of theirs. It only took a few hours before people like Jay Mohr used the bombing as “proof” that we need more gun control. I’ve seen many posts from people (in these one’s, I don’t know the originator) saying this is “proof” we need to shut down the borders. Using this tragedy to further your agenda makes you no better than the people who did the bombing in my eyes.

This’ll be great when the government convinces us we have to go to war again. People were against war after Bush, but give them another terrorist attack and they’ll be all for it.

It’s xenophobic ignorance.

Well, the bombers were American citizens, so apart from anything else, it’s bad manners. It kind of puts all other immigrants on notice, in a way. LIke saying, “You may think you’re one of us, but you can never really be one of us.”

I didn’t actually see anyone chanting “USA”, only “Boston”, which makes more sense to me.

I think it was catharsis.

@glacial I thought the older brother is no a citizen, but does have a green card. The younger is a citizen. I could easily be wrong. It doesn’t really matter, they both have been here the same amount of years, and both would be legal either way.

I’m still cheering the capture of the 2nd ingrate. Would you rather he still be running loose? Evidence is now coming out that more attacks were planned. Maybe they should have let him run around maiming more people first, then would it be okay to cheer his capture???

@rooeytoo Of course I am glad he is captured. I think everyone is. Some people obviously feel like cheering in this situation, but some of us just feel relief. Possibly it has to do with what emotions we experience during the process? Maybe some people are angry, while others are worried, and still others are saddened, I think many of us just want the lunatic caught so we can go back to normal. I think everyone has multiple emotions, but certain emotions more than others in each individual. I’m just guessing at the psychology of it.

I wonder, did people cheer when the unibomber was caught? When other mass murderers or serial murders were caught or killed? Or, is America only cheering when it is a Muslim terrorist? Did we cheer about finding Adam Lanza?

@JLeslie
Let me try to answer that.

Most sensible Americans, on the whole, understand that in the grand scheme they face a greater threat from Muslim terrorists than they do from the occasional and inevitable lunatic like Ted Kaczinsky or Adam Lanza (It is not likely that either of those morons were trying to get their hands on a nuke to set off in LA or NYC) .

So it seems to me that there would justifiably be a greater tendency to cheer when a jihadiist was brought down than when a mental case was brought down.

@josie What you say makes sense. I think it probably has to do more with individual personality.

Why do you feel this need to make muslims victims and protect them? If a muslim did it, then call him a muslim and that is what he is. If anyone commits a crime for a religious purpose, the religion would be named, why should this be different??? I wouldn’t cheer because they caught a muslim, I would cheer because they caught someone who was hell bent on creating chaos, kept me locked in my house terrified and was planning on killing/maiming more innocent people. Would it have been more acceptable to cheer if he had been extremist christian?

@rooeytoo Are you asking @josie? Because, I basically am saying what you are saying; to me I just want the lunatic, whoever it is, off the streets. I have no problem calling him Muslim, what I am saying is many Americans seem more inclined to cheer if it is a Muslim who seems to be killing in the name of God and Islam. As far as I know nothing has been confirmed about their motives in this particular instance, but it seems everything is pointing towards radical Islam having an influence.

The thing I would offer is that when. A Mulism does a terrorist act a lot of people generalize to the whole religion having a problem. If a Christian does a terrorist act, they tend to think of it as one lone or a couple homocidal crazy people or specific Christian sect.

I agree with Josie. I disagree with just about everything you said.

@rooeytoo I know we disagree in terms of you cheer and I don’t, but I agree with you about telling the truth about who or what the perpertrator is. I even told @Josie I see the logic in his statement. I never said anything about not saying he is Muslim or trying to dismiss that in some way. I don’t see where you get that from? Did that even come up at all in this line of answers?

@tom_g – The cheering when Bin Laden was killed made me uncomfortable. I was silently relieved.

I think it was great.