Before it gets too stale, a quick note, reacting to the (mostly liberal) scolds who can't tolerate a celebration.
Even though I am against the death penalty, I recognize that there are people who deserve it. (I just think that very fallible governments should not be deciding how to apply it, and in any case, life in prison is a good alternative that can be reversed if an error was made).
Among the people who do deserve the death penalty, there's a further select few whose death can be celebrated, simply because it has the potential to prevent so much future suffering. Among these Kony, Escobar, and Bin Laden.
So I celebrate not so much his death, but the fact that he won't spend the next 20 years causing the trouble he caused for the last 20.
The fact that bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans on US soil and lived 10 more years to tell the tale adds further pressure to the bottled-up emotions. It was an embarrasment that he was still around.
Steven Colbert might have said it best: "I hope I am never again this happy over someone's death."
It's OK. We don't all have to be Ghandi or the Dalai Lama.
I always thought this fake Mark Twain quote was dubious: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure". Twain was an honest writer, and probably did wish someone dead at some point in his life.
