Take a Cruiser with All Hands

Many Americans cheered when Osama bin Laden was killed. Some people said that was in poor taste. Osama was a bad guy to most of us. He was a terrorist. He was responsible for the murder of thousands of people. Sane people would not mourn his death. But openly applauding the murder of a fellow human being is a bit much for some.

My personal view is that people can cheer his death as much as they want. He was evil. Plenty of people are vilified and characterised as evil but he truly was. I did not applaud his death but I do not mourn him either.

Many Brits are now cheering Margaret Thatcher’s death. Some Americans say it is all in poor taste. Maggie was a bad person to many. She was not a terrorist by any stretch of the imagination. But one could argue that she was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. Though I doubt she ever ordered anybody to strap on a bomb and blow up children.

I will not mourn her death. She was the leader of a country with which I have no special connection. I reacted to news of her death in the same way that I reacted to the death of Roger Ebert. Neither was a particular surprise.

A glaring difference between Thatcher and Osama, other than the terrorism and democratic elections, is that one of them was the active leader of his group while the other had been out of power for more than 20 years. I can see rejoicing when Thatcher left office. But there seems little point in gloating at her death. If you think she was a terrible leader who ruined your country, fair enough. But she stopped doing that a long time ago. Dying changed nothing.

Americans, those people who were called gauche when Osama died, rejoiced when Richard Nixon resigned. I don’t remember any of them cheering when he died. Perhaps the British could learn something from their backwoods cousins.