No, it's not okay, and I'm not trying to justify it. But you (and everyone else in this thread, with perhaps a few exceptions) hated him long before the salute

No, it's not okay, and I'm not trying to justify it. But you (and everyone else in this thread, with perhaps a few exceptions) hated him long before the salute, so to try to blame it on that is pretty disingenuous. I think trying to justify your hatred of someone based on something the did after you started hating them is pretty "not okay", too, fwiw