Death
What is the tipping point of one's crimes to allow their death to be celebrated? My original take is that anyone's death is a tragedy, and that celebration of such an event is immoral. What is the significance of death? Why do I feel that death really matters? Do we really need to kill people to take their money? I will attempt to answer most of these questions in this post.
For this post, I will be focusing on the deaths of David Koch1, John McCain2, and Magdalen Berns3, and the comments of Veronica Ivy on the celebration of death.4
The tipping point of crimes
David Koch was a libertarian, and founded, donated to, and advocated through many groups, such as Citizens for a Sound Economy, Americans for Prosperity, and others. Americans for Prosperity is a group that advocates conservative and libertarian policies through super PACs, and, with frameworks created by Citizens for a Sound Economy, was instrumental in fostering the modern Tea Party movement in the 2010s. It vehemently opposed any and all progressive policy, in favor of austere policies that fundamentally maintain power through class.156
John McCain was an advocate of Reaganomics, the austerity policies that cripple the United States working class to this day, allow the rich to get richer, and such and such. He also voted to approve the NATO bombing campaign on Yugoslavia, which included violations of the Geneva conventions by way of destroying "water systems, power and heating plants, hospitals, universities, schools, apartment complexes, senior citizens' homes," etc.7 He voted for conservative justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, opposed immigration reform, and many other crimes described in a beautiful piece of art created by Twitter user @andipalmur. 28
Magdalen Berns is a lesser known figure in the United States, brought to my attention through Veronica Ivy's original comments. She is mainly known for the formation of a group called For Women Scotland, which opposed changes to Scotland's Gender Recognition Act that would allow "any man to self-declare himself to be a woman".9 This advocacy is inherently transphobic, and Magdalen Berns has a long history of transphobic rhetoric and publishing anti-trans content on her YouTube channel.3
The tipping point I propose is such: any act committed by a person, in bad faith, that restricts the rights of individuals to be true to themselves, and to properly pursue the good life, is bad enough to constitute a celebration of death.
These three quick and dirty summations of an individual's crimes all pass the tipping point that I illustrate. Koch and McCain fought against proper healthcare for all residents, and Berns fought against the human right of gender expression.
Justice
Now we must look to enacting proper justice and retribution for crimes committed that violate this maxim. This post assumes a philosophy of power and justice around the judicial system of the United States, in that those with power will never receive punishment from the state for their crimes, and that those harmed by crimes committed will not receive justice from the judicial system.
To invoke Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards, a fair punishment for an individual guilty of crimes or one with too much money is to strip them of all their wealth and force them to sustain themselves on the lowest rung position in society. This causes them to see the world through the eyes of the people they have worked to exploit and degrade. Once they learn what it is really like to be part of the working class, they have experienced something far more constructive than death.
If victims can not receive proper justice through the state, then they must take that justice into their own hands. However, death as justice does not seem proper or fair. When someone dies, the victims of their crimes do not receive proper justice. All of their crimes become final. The only way to erase such crimes is by supplanting the crime with a more positive outcome.
One way I see to erase the crimes is to point them out. Much in the way that @andipalmur did with their McCain gif, bringing awareness to such crimes can construct a dialogue that critically examines the actual life of the person in question. Since the person is no longer alive to atone for their crimes, through methods such as jail or public service (a la Robert Evans), a rap sheet in the language of the oppressed and harmed is a way to receive partial proper justice.
Separation and Celebration
Out of our three deceased subjects, two of them died from brain cancer. Diseases of the like, ones that are mostly incurable and can not be prevented with lifestyle changes, such as cancer, strokes, and Alzheimer's, can cause death at an unforeseen and inconvenient time. All of the steps that modern healthcare can take to prevent pain in the sufferers of these kinds of diseases should be taken. This is the central axiom of Medicare for All.
More directly: even if the person suffering from these types of diseases is John McCain, or anyone else that has committed crimes that pass the threshold, they should be medically treated and cared for for just the same.
This leads us to separate the death from a disease with the death of an individual. Death is a tragedy, and death from a lethal disease that kills indiscriminately is more so. So when John McCain dies from brain cancer, the death of one more person from an awful disease is a tragedy. But also, when John McCain dies from brain cancer, John McCain has died and therefore can not harm anyone else through further crimes.
This is the central point of my post. It is possible to mourn the loss of a human being from a terrible disease, while also being able to celebrate the death of a trash human who harmed people.
Questions
My point raises questions, however. Despite the individual who died no longer being able to commit crimes, true justice becomes a more difficult task. And despite the individual being dead, many crimes committed by them and people like them can be solved the same, whether they are dead or alive.
For example, Donald Trump is still alive. Even if he were dead, the task of removing him from the White House and replacing him with someone willing to enact policies that better serve the working class remains the same. The legacy of such crimes begins to exist the instant they are committed, and so does the job of serving justice to the victims and righting the wrongs created.