Person of the year

[cocoNUT]

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Osama Bin Laden.

Before I get flamed from ten gazillion directions... let me state why...

He united an entire nation, the USA.

He has forced us to focus on non-materialistic things and appreciate our families and our friends and make us live more meaningful lives.

He has forced us to take inventory of our own lives and reflect on family values and morals.

He made us appreciate how lucky we are to live in a country as free as ours. We have shown our patriotism and our love for our country no matter our age, our race, our income level or our state of residence--- we are proud to call ourselves AMERICAN.




Here's my disclaimer:

... I hope no one take offense to my post. I am not pro-terrorist or anything close to that! I just wanted to add some spice to the forum which is getting kinda tiresome w/ everyone asking "Has anyone heard from...?"

 

[shamthis]

how bouuuut

YOMAMA bin Laden


take 'er to the lounge ace

 

[tryingagain]

You used some of your free-time to post that???

 

[CTIL]

You're nuts. The only thing as appauling as Osama is our foreign policy. And if you call the trampling of the Constitution "patriotism" than you have much to learn.

The targeting of civilians is wrong. 9/11 was wrong. Israeli bulldozing in gaza/west bank is wrong. Suicide bombing is wrong. Nonetheless, can't we all admit that young arabs/muslims have a right to be pissed at the U.S. of A? Oh ya, and if you want to criticize the religious fanatacism of Al Quaeda, why don't you take a look at Bush and his buddies at Bob Jone's University.

 

[Mutterkuchen]

Originally posted by cocoNUT
Osama Bin Laden.

I don't really agree with this in principle. If I did, I would say that this applies to 2001 not 2002. The Sept. 11 attacks and the response were in 2001.

 

[Cerberus]

Originally posted by cocoNUT
He has forced us to focus on non-materialistic things and appreciate our families and our friends and make us live more meaningful lives.

Right, non-materialistic like American flag shirts, stickers, mail boxes, yard ornaments, etc etc😉

He has forced us to take inventory of our own lives and reflect on family values and morals.

and bomb teh **** out a bunch of other peoples families. What was that about morals again?

He made us appreciate how lucky we are to live in a country as free as ours. We have shown our patriotism and our love for our country no matter our age, our race, our income level or our state of residence--- we are proud to call ourselves AMERICAN.

now when you say free do you mean before or after the "Patriot Act" or "department of homeland security"?


flame on😎

 

[Cerberus]

Originally posted by CTIL
You're nuts. The only thing as appauling as Osama is our foreign policy. And if you call the trampling of the Constitution "patriotism" than you have much to learn.

The targeting of civilians is wrong. 9/11 was wrong. Israeli bulldozing in gaza/west bank is wrong. Suicide bombing is wrong. Nonetheless, can't we all admit that young arabs/muslims have a right to be pissed at the U.S. of A? Oh ya, and if you want to criticize the religious fanatacism of Al Quaeda, why don't you take a look at Bush and his buddies at Bob Jone's University.

i like you

 

[fullofhope]

I agree, this should be a forum discussion and not the pre-Allopathic.

I, however, am in disagreement with putting down the opinions or others by comments such as "you're nuts" or to say that they need to learn more. Knowledge, granted, is a large portion of how we may formulate our opinions, but opinions are ones own and sometimes you must be a little open minded to see someone's point of view. Just because someone may not share the same opinions as yourself, does not simply mean they should learn more or they dont know as much as you do... perhaps it is vice versa.

I may not agree that Osama bin Laden is person of the year, and I certainly understand that you thinking so does not insinuate you are pro-terrorism, but I can see why one would think of bin Laden as person of the year.

 

[HoMuffin]

Cerberus, you rock.

 

[rbassdo]

Originally posted by cocoNUT
Osama Bin Laden.

I totally agree. If Adolf Hitler can be "Person of the Year"...so can Osama. If you don't agree with this because you think he's too terrible of a guy to be person of the year, then you're missing the point and, in a paradoxical way, you ARE voting for him. If you don't think he should be person of the year for some other reason - that's cool.

I'm not going to pass judgment on US, Israeli, or Muslim policies. I'm just looking forward to seeing how God is going to sort all this out when it comes time for Him to do so. That will be an interesting time.

 

[Street Philosopher]

i'm the person of the year.

 

[pillowhead]

Yes Street Philosopher, yes you are. I'm interested as to what the answer is to your signature question.

 

[X]

Originally posted by cocoNUT
He united an entire nation, the USA.

You call waiting in long lines to go through nonsense security checks at the airport uniting a nation. How has the nation united now that you cannot visit a US mint anymore. To go anywhere now we are subjected to stupid and worthless security checks (even the 90 year old grandmas that don't even have an idea of what a terrorist is). If this is uniting a nation, then I think the un-united nation was better off.

X

 

[tatabox80]

I nominate TATABOX80 as person of the year

 

[FutureM.D.]

You're ALL wrong. I'm the person of the year😉
Now wasn't that easy?😀

 

[BulletproofMONK]

Did soemone say tata? as in TA-TA? Yum, 2 servings please

 

[Bonds756]

Originally posted by rbassdo
I totally agree. If Adolf Hitler can be "Person of the Year"...so can Osama. If you don't agree with this because you think he's too terrible of a guy to be person of the year, then you're missing the point and, in a paradoxical way, you ARE voting for him. If you don't think he should be person of the year for some other reason - that's cool.

I totally see how people are picking him since the US is (or was at the end of 2001) more united than pre-September 11. But I think it is more that voting for him is giving an image and rallying point to all those looking to do harm to our great nation. Voting for him is, in essence, rewarding Bin Laden and his terrorist networks by making them think that they are more powerful than they really are.

 

[rbassdo]

Originally posted by Bonds756
I totally see how people are picking him since the US is (or was at the end of 2001) more united than pre-September 11. But I think it is more that voting for him is giving an image and rallying point to all those looking to do harm to our great nation. Voting for him is, in essence, rewarding Bin Laden and his terrorist networks by making them think that they are more powerful than they really are.

Point taken, but he's person of the year because he did more than "unite" the US. He has changed the way people in the Western World live. He caused us to spend billions of dollars hunting him and his crew. Every time he releases a statement, the world news stops everything and attends to that. He is rallying, possibly, millions of Arabs to his cause and he's given hope to tons of people who would otherwise have no good outlet to hurt and/or loathe the Western World. Arab mothers are naming their sons "Osama" in his honor. I could go on.

Regardless of how terrible all this might seem to you - this is all huge stuff! Negative shouldn't mean unworthy of such an award.

 

[Raptor]

Originally posted by cocoNUT
Osama Bin Laden.

Before I get flamed from ten gazillion directions... let me state why...

Osama, you know you shouldn't be posting on the internet like that talking about you are the person of the year. Come on, you got to be more careful then that...where the moderators at. just kidding.

 

[Samoa]

I think this is a totally legitimate pre-allo discussion. It's been a UW interview question this year, so we should be able to talk about it here.

However, I doubt they're still asking it, since it's 2003 now. It happened to be a timely question at the time of my interview, in December. But they'll probably ask something else now.

It's an interesting discussion though. But I just want to remind those of you basing your choice on who "united" the US, that TIME is an international magazine. They choose ONE Person of the Year for the whole world. It is NOT all about the United States and what WE think is important.

I remember one year they chose two different people--one for their domestic edition and one for their international edition--and everyone got pissed off at them.

Although the actual 2002 selection seems awfully ethnocentric to me (American whistleblowers), and I don't see how it could fly internationally. So they may still be doing that.

 

[cocoNUT]

As the original poster, I wanted to say thanks to those of you who posted insightful comments. I was prepared for the immature remarks and the flames, but was also pleased to see some serious thinking.

rbassdo and fullofhope... thanks for recognizing the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and for actually taking the time to think beyond the superficial level.

I initially made this suggestion b/c I thought that the person of the year should be someone who has caused great change and whose actions make others people think about their own lives. For example, G.W.Bush can say "Be patriotic, be an american" until he's blue in the face or the pope can preach about "honoring thy mother and father" and family values... but would they be as effective as Osama Bin Laden has been the past year? on such a worldwide scale?

Samoa, you caught on to me... I posted this here b/c I was thinking about my upcoming UW interview. I dunno... this response might not go over well with the UW adcoms😀 .

 

[TeinVI]

 

[rbassdo]

Originally posted by TeinVI

It's Osama in disguise! That must be his portable dialysis machine.

 

[gringotuno]

Why do we even bother giving this wacko any more of our energy besides the energy it takes to track him down a pop a cap in his head?

If anyone truly believes that the country is more united after everything that has gone on, then I truly believe you to be a little short-sighted. Just because most of us have rallied around the fact that we don't like being the target of international terrorism doesn't mean we really have anything more in common with another person and that we won't run over that other person with with our SUV when they won't get out of passing lane when we wanna pass.

Also, isn't being a person a prereq to being "person of the year"... maybe we should have a discussion about what it really means to be a person.... cause whatever he/it is, I surely don't want to be classified as one too.

 

[TeinVI]

to the op: i do'nt care whether or not osama brought the u.s. together. as a matter of fact, i could care less than a sh1t about any positive thing that came out of 9/11. 3000 lives were lost; nothing is worth that. nothing, period.

edit: in light of that, saying "person of the year" and "osama" in the same sentence is the most rediculous thing i've ever heard

 

[Bonds756]

Originally posted by TeinVI
to the op: i do'nt care whether or not osama brought the u.s. together. as a matter of fact, i could care less than a sh1t about any positive thing that came out of 9/11. 3000 lives were lost; nothing is worth that. nothing, period.

edit: in light of that, saying "person of the year" and "osama" in the same sentence is the most rediculous thing i've ever heard

Exactly. While he might have had incredible (but clearly horrific) impacts worldwide, if I was the editor (or if anyone with moralswas) he would not be given the honor of gracing my magazine cover and being called "person of the year."