Thatcher's Death and the Rise of Moral Hypocrisy

Few figures have ever remained politically divisive than Lady Thatcher- and if you've got a Facebook or Twitter account, that's probably evident in the mix of comments you might see on your feed. In any case, I've seen a mixture of "Hurray, the witch is dead" to "Farewell, the greatest PM the UK has ever seen". And sure, everyone (though there's an irony of 90's kids praising a PM they didn't even live under) has a right to their opinions, regardless of the political divide.
A controversy has come out of this, which The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald has summarised pretty well.  In basic terms the argument made by the Right is simple : Regardless of what you thought of the Iron Lady, you should respect the dead, and certainly not celebrate death.

In a personal capacity, I agree. Death is humbling, assuring the living of the limits and realities of existence. It also assures us that regardless of our social positions, occupations and wealth, all humanity ends in the same place. Regardless of opinions toward individuals, death as a private matter should be respected.

Yet there is a particular irony espoused by the Right. Take David Pryce Jone's article in the Spectator, referring to those westerners who mourned Hugo Chavez's death as 'useful idiots', or the US asassination of Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, whose 'terrorist' label by US intelligence agencies were used to justify drone bombing without trial- despite that both he and his son were American citizens. And of course, lets not forget the jubilant celebrations of Osama Bin Laden's death in the States- something understandable, but not necessarily respectful.  This isn't even limited to notable figures either. Numerous military video games like Call of Duty reduce war into games of good and evil, where enemy combatants are otherised and considered inhuman- basically, reducing their "death" into  trivial proceedure. And for those Tories who believe that unlike their socialist counterparts, they are incapable of using death to score cheap political points, look no further than the ConHome's reporting on former Labour leader Michael Foot's death a few years ago, where far from respecting Thatcher's once opponent, many users take enjoyment in espousing their hatred for his communist principles- and using language not too dissimilar than those speaking ill of Thatcher at present.

The point I'm trying to make is that there have been occasions where those who currently argue to 'speak no ill' over Thatcher's death are more than happy to either celebrate, justify or be complicit in the celebration of other deaths. And while we are  willing to respect and symapthise with Thatcher for both her prominence as PM, and her personal struggles later on, we are less concerned with the death of other mere mortals- those caught in the middle of war in the Middle East, or even those struggling to eat in Britain. In fact many of us are more than happy to dismiss the latter as those 'not willing to work hard enough', as Boris Johnson's column today suggested.

And here's the final kicker. The moral vanguards of the Right argue that regardless of one's opinions of Thatcher's politics, both left and right, socialist and libertarian, should acknowledge her as a human being. I'll agree to that, but it's quite rich coming from people who refer to urban, unemployed poor, many of whom were at the blunt end of Thatcherite policies, as undeserving 'shirkers'.