4:55pm | The killing of Osama bin Laden certainly doesn’t trouble me. I’ll go as far as to say I prefer him dead to when he was living. Way prefer. The United States has done much with which I disagree; hunting down bin Laden does not fit that bill. Ding-dong, bin Laden’s dead. Good. 

But unlike some people, I’m not shooting off fireworks about it. 

Granted, I’m also not prone to lighting cars on fire when my favorite sports team wins a championship, so maybe I’m a stick in the mud. But really, I don’t see what’s to celebrate. 

If and when there is a need to kill another human — and I allow that the need may arise — it is a dreadful, sad, sorry business. That it ever comes to that is horrific, and so a sigh or a tear seems more appropriate than a victory whoop, no matter what we think of the decedent.  

Obviously, many people disagree. Take my congressperson, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.,who views the death of bin Laden as proof “that no one can kill scores of Americans and think they can get away with it. Tonight, America is celebrating while Osama bin Laden burns in hell.”1  

Never mind that bin Laden got away with it for a full 1/7 of the life expectancy of a male born today in bin Laden’s native Saudi Arabia, that dying in a battle against the infidels was probably just the kind of martyrdom for which he hoped, and that the current ontological status (or even existence) of bin Laden’s soul is quite beyond Rohrabacher’s kin. What is lamentable is to have a local leader publicly model bloodlust. 

By democratic design, our leaders are meant to be extensions of our collective will; ,and while this doesn’t necessitate their beliefs aligning with our own, in practice it is most always so. Thus when Rohrabacher employs such rhetoric, I tend to believe it is what a lot of his constituents — my neighbors — are feeling. 

Consider, for example, the first words of the first response generated by the Long Beach Post‘s coverage of the local reaction: “Thank god good has overcome evil.”  

Is that what we’re celebrating? Allowing that 9/11 was an evil deed, does it really amount to a triumph of good over evil merely because U.S. forces managed to kill its chief architect nine-and-a-half years after the fact? If we’re going to look at the matter in such starkly moralistic terms, in the big picture isn’t bin Laden’s life a textbook case of evil triumphing over good? 

Put it another way: Do you imagine that bin Laden would consider his life, complete with the events of May 1, a failure or a success? 

If you’ve been celebrating over these past 24 hours, my question is: Why? Cut through the reactionary symbolism, and what really happened here? 

If you’re looking for something to celebrate, try focusing on the living, your loved ones, your community. There’s much in which to rejoice. 

Don’t party because of a killing. At best bin Laden’s death is a conclusion to one chapter in a terrible story that has no real ending in sight. No justice has been had; the innocent dead have not been restored. If your life in Long Beach is better today than it was yesterday, it’s got nothing to do with that violently misguided man gunned down in a faraway land. 

We exist in this world for a finite duration with only so much emotional energy to expend. Perhaps if there’s a personal lesson to be learned from the 9/11 tragedy, it’s that we should focus ourselves on the good in the now, preserving and augmenting our goodness, since that which we love can be lost at any time.  

Call me a hippie, but I’m pretty sure that reveling in life pays better tribute to bin Laden’s victims than celebrating death, any death, anywhere.  

L’chaim.

Footnote 

1Click here to read Rep. Rohrabacher’s statement on Osama bin Laden’s death.

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Editor’s note: The original version of this post failed to include the footnote, which has since been added. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.