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Is this really a remotely good example? Bin Laden was held directly responsible for the deaths of thousands. Kirk, to my knowledge, wasn't.
It's a great example of what Red Tribe enthusiastically celebrating a killing looks like, which we can use as a measure for the scale of Blue Tribe celebration of Kirk, and Red Tribe celebration of other killings.
If we can accurately say that Blues are celebrating the death of Kirk the way Reds celebrated the death of OBL, that's an interesting data point about how Blues as a tribe see the world.
If we're going to look at claims of Reds celebrating the deaths of other people, it should be reasonable to examine the scale and intensity of that celebration. Is it "a couple people made mean tweets", or is it "the entire internet lights up with celebration, which spills over into the real world in numerous cases"?
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A lot of left-wingers cheered the death of Osama bin Laden also. Especially in the NYC area. You can have a general rule against celebrating deaths and still make exceptions for mass murderers and other especially horrible people. But if you do, you have to start punching sophists who insist on blurring the line.
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