So just for the sake of argument: let’s say that yesterday I had the opinion that someone was a cancerous tumor on American democracy, who was in favor of executing the innocent, repealing laws that support equality, enthroning second-place losers in the White House, and basing his beliefs on the deification—and his personal interpretation—of a bunch of 20-somethings and 30-somethings in the 18th century.

This person dies.

I’m having trouble understanding why the statement of opinion that this person was, up until the moment of his death, a cancerous tumor, is somehow less polite or reflects on me poorly in a way it didn’t yesterday. Wouldn’t the reverse be true—that if I suddenly decided this person was a paragon because he was no longer breathing, then *that* indicates that my opinion has no value?