Joy provides emotional closure, which we never got after 9/11 and the distraction in Iraq. Maybe this joy at Osama Bin Laden’s death can provide that for us. And maybe then we can finally have politicians say that we won, and so we can finally shut down the illegal prisons, the ongoing war, and maybe even the ridiculous security theater at airports. But if we scold and silence the joy away, we’ll never get a chance to find out.

And maybe, and maybe, oh baby, just maybe. I’m not sure how Amanda manages to achieve such a dense ratio of WTF/word count, but let’s just marvel at it anyway, what do you say? So, how many quantum leaps of logic and non-sequiturs do we have here? Let’s tally ’em up.
• Gloating and exulting like barbarians over a revenge killing is one of the refined pleasures of life, like a good smoke or drink, or uninhibited sex. People who object to either are Puritans who are haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy, as Mencken put it.
• The tiny minority of people who do object to treating displays of military force like a college football game have the power to make the slightest dent in the fist-pumping, chest-thumping, dick-swinging AMERICA FUCK YEAH celebrations.
• Osama’s violent death will provide emotional closure and allow us to declare “mission accomplished” and leave, uh, Afghanistan, I guess. Just like how the last declaration of “mission accomplished” and the emotional closure provided by Saddam’s violent death allowed us to leave Iraq and let the flowers start blooming. Just like how Gaddafi’s impending violent death will mean likewise for Libya. Etc.
• Politicians, out of the moral considerations that inform their every decision, actually want to close Gitmo and the black sites, end the occupations of however many countries we’re currently bombing the fuck out of, and dismantle the national security apparatus, but have been forced to keep them going for lack of a clear-cut national feel-good moment. So quit complaining, Puritans, unless you love all those bad things which are totally aberrations and can in no way be shown to have predated the War on Evil Incarnate or to be reflective of our national character. On a related note, if there’s one thing we can say with certainty about our political climate, it’s that judicious, rational, humane decisions always manage to prevail, despite however they may contravene the interests of those in power.