This is the most disappointing thread I’ve seen on HN in a long time. A large number of accounts have been banned and rightly so. There are lots of good and interesting comments, but also lots of comments dancing on her grave. This is one of the lowest, meanest and fundamentally uninteresting things one can engage in.
I would say there are many things lower one can engage in than commenting on an internet forum on a news event, not least, presiding over decades of colonial terror and genocide.
It might be worth considering that comments you find offensive due to their apparent disrespect might be justified in their anger in some way you can't directly relate to.
She's dead. She has ceased to be. If you think this is an appropriate time to trot out grievances, which I'm sure are all well justified, then we have a different understanding of common decency.
Common decency is a concept most often wielded to increase social control and to stifle challenges to social norms. Where was decency when the monarchy was plundering and altering the lives of millions?
Westerners are generally able to understand this idea, because they are for instance receptive to criticism of Japanese revisionism and loyalty to the Emperor. Yet there's a mental block when it comes to applying this concept to Western monarchies.
The subject wasn't any grievances of mine (I had trotted none before your comment) - the subject is those lavishing praise. You imply trotting out grievances would not be "commonly decent", but what of the opposite? Praising someone who has brought so much pain and suffering to the world? Is that what you consider decent?
