Margaret Thatcher has died. A few people have declared that this is grounds for celebration. ‘A great day’, they have announced. Pop open the champagne.
Well, we know that Lady Thatcher was the most divisive British prime minister of the 20th century. Still, this response puzzles me.
Why would a person’s death ever be good in any way? There are various possible answers to this.
First, a death might be good if the person who died was doing great damage or would have done great damage in the future.
Second, it might be good if the death were a useful deterrent in some way to other people. That’s one rationale people use to justify capital punishment.
But neither of these arguments applies to Thatcher, an octogenerian with dementia. A third reason for celebrating death (though not one I would ever give) might be on retributive grounds – if, by dying, a person received their just deserts. But again, it can’t be the case that those who declare themselves happy by Thatcher’s passing think that the death of a woman who’s lived to a ripe old age reflects some sort of natural justice.
All I can imagine is that the celebrators somehow believe that Lady Thatcher’s existence in the world was a kind of metaphysical stain on the universe. That’s one heck of a thing to believe….