Don’t get me wrong — I can appreciate taking any excuse to party, get drunk, and pretend that the world has been set aright in one fell swoop. (I’ve been waiting 25 years for the Dodgers to win another World Series for that very reason, and 20 for Notre Dame to win a football championship.) But this is truly, truly strange — and very revealing, in a number of ways:

Hundreds took to the streets as macabre ‘Thatcher death parties’ were held late into the night across the country, organised by critics of the ‘Iron Lady.’

Smashed shop windows, paint bombs and police being attacked were all consequences of the Left’s sick ‘celebration’ of Baroness Thatcher’s death from a stroke yesterday morning.

In Brixton, south London, riot police were deployed as the crowds, which had been drinking since 5pm, started to become more aggressive smashing shop fronts and throwing paint bomb.

In Liverpool, flares and fireworks were set off outside Lime Street Station by revellers, while in Bristol, seven police officers were injured – one seriously – as violence erupted at a street party of 200 people and police were pelted with bottles, cans and rubbish.

What exactly were they celebrating? Thatcher hadn’t been in power in over 22 years.  An entire generation has gone by since Thatcher left office, and the Tories have held power only briefly since.  If these people are so miserable and put her in the center of that misery, perhaps they should ask why their lot in life hasn’t improved since she left office.

Normally, this kind of celebration takes place when brutal dictators die while still clinging to power, not when elected leaders pass away 22 years after they honored the will of the electorate.  That’s a key point, too — Thatcher didn’t seize power and rig elections to keep it, like the mullahs of Iran or (arguably) Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.  The voters of the UK made her Prime Minister, and kept her in place as she rolled out the policies that returned the British to economic, military, and diplomatic strength.  If these ghouls want to protest, they should probably protest their own people instead of a long-retired popular leader whose place in history won’t be threatened at all by people who struggle to spell correctly:

It’s not even possible to be angry at these people, only to marvel at how empty and petty their lives must be. If they have been holding this kind of grudge for 22 years, on what kind of hate will they be able to live now?Queen Elizabeth wasn’t fooled. She’s breaking with tradition to attend Thatcher’s funeral, which while perhaps not intended as a rebuke to the ghoulish hooligans in the street certainly acts as one:

Queen to attend Margaret #Thatcher's funeral April 17th . Doesn't normally go to funerals; went to Churchill's in '65

— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) April 9, 2013

The funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s longest-serving leader of the 20th century, will be held in St. Paul’s Cathedral on April 17, officials said Tuesday.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, are expected to attend what will be the most elaborate funeral to be staged in London since the death of the queen’s mother in 2002. It will be the first funeral of a prime minister that the queen will have attended since Winston Churchill’s in 1965.

Thatcher, who died Monday at age 87 after years of declining health, will be given a ceremonial service with military honors, a service almost indistinguishable from an official state funeral.

Dignitaries from around the world will be on hand to remember the “Iron Lady” who transformed Britain through her free-market policies and thrust the country back onto the world stage through her staunch Cold War alliance with the U.S. and a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

The hooligans will be left in the dustbin of history, and given their performance last night, that’s justice.