Falwell fell Dead. Tough luck.

I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is behind gushing respectful comments about someone just because he's dead. We all die; it's the inevitable touch luck we are born to; it doesn't take any particular talent, and to get all gushy post mortum about an SOB like Falwell demonstrates the nice-nice do-goodism that is creating a totally ineffective left. Let's get pissed off people, and call the bastard what he was. There are lots of people -- some of them my friends -- dead of AIDS because of the reluctance of Falwell and his ilk to allow the disease, oh so long ago, to be treated like a public health issue. His stand on global warming, if followed, would doom the planet to an even more rapid end. He loved capital punishment, dead Arabs, and every god-awful assault on life except abortion. And his obsession about abortion -- more a fetus neurosis than pro-life, given everything else he stood for -- cannot hide the fact that the politics he encouraged and preached were anti-life, anti-science, and -- let's face it -- anti "let's make nice." There is no reason that any decent human being should not be glad he is no longer around to work his mischief. Too bad there isn't really a hell for someone like him to rot in and experience something like the suffering he caused. Unfortunately, he gets a walk in the indifferent cosmos, and we who have suffered his abuse have to pick up the pieces and go forward, something we cannot do by pretending that this man was anything other than a willfully ignorant, vicious, sanctimonious and destructive presence in the world. He leaves great harm behind him.