TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Megan McArdle can’t celebrate bin Laden’s death:

I was, however, filled with a terrible rage. I wanted Zacarias Moussaoui to get the electric chair, even though I’m against the death penalty.  I wanted vengeance, justice, and an end to terrorism.  I think I wanted them in that order.  I would have been exulted if Osama Bin Laden had been shot by American troops.

Ten years later, I feel none of the righteous joy that I expected.  It mostly just fills me with grief for all the deaths between then and now that should never have happened.  I’m glad we’ve taken a terrorist out of circulation, of course.  But maybe because I’m older, and mortality seems all too depressingly real, I find it hard to celebrate anyone’s death–no, not even Bin Laden’s.

I sympathize with what she’s saying, and she’s absolutely right; ultimately, killing or capturing bin Laden doesn’t mean we’re going to get back any of the people who died on September 11th, 2001, or have died since.

But while celebrating in the streets may be over the top, I think it’s something we should be glad for. Bin Laden was one of the most evil people the world’s seen in a long while, and being happy when an evil person is captured or killed is no vice. Moreover, it’s a bit like feeling some closure after a murderer is brought to justice. It doesn’t change that an innocent person lost their life, but it does mean someone who doesn’t deserve to walk the earth as a free person no longer will, and that’s a good thing.

This isn’t a complex moral issue. Bin Laden was an unrepentant mass murderer who used murder to try to make his controlling and backward political ideology a reality. His death is unquestionably a good thing.