This is a genuine question.
I have a hard time with this. My righteous side wants him to face an appropriate sentence, but my pessimistic side thinks this might have set a great example for CEOs to always maintain a level of humanity or face unforseen consequences.
P.S. this topic is highly controversial and I want actual opinions so let’s be civil.
And if you’re a mod, delete this if the post is inappropriate or if it gets too heated.
I mean… If not for the fact that a felon is about to become President again, I would want some form of justice in the law for the assassin. A slap on the wrist, maybe. A few years in jail; definitely not life or a death sentence.
But that’s just to enforce the rule of law to not embolden others to commit such crimes, even if they could easily be justified. Since that’s not being enforced with an even bigger threat to the rule of law, fuck it. Shit doesn’t matter anymore anyway.
If he gets caught, then I’d say yes. Murder should be treated as murder regardless of what the reason is. Making exceptions is never a good idea.
I just hope he doesn’t get caught.
Then all of the healthcare companies that allow people to die because they will not cover them need to be prosecuted, every executive, every decision maker.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.
CS Lewis - Screwtape Letters (preface)
Brian Thompson and his co-workers murder hundreds of thousands of people with systemic neglect, spreadsheets, and lawyers. They murder in broad daylight, during business hours. And yet they’re comfortable, well paid, successful people who will never see a day in jail. What they’re doing isn’t even considered a crime.
I hope he doesn’t get caught, also. Because the same laws that protect those fucking ghouls will crush him for bringing attention to the grift.
Like I said, making exceptions is always a bad idea. It’s how these fuck heads even get away with it. But at the same time I can’t agree with exceptions even if I agree with the reason behind it.
Making exceptions is never a good idea.
Why not? The whole reason we have judicial discretion is that every crime departs from the platonic ideal in one way or another.
The working class has been losing a class war for decades without ever properly noticing that it was happening. Working Americans have been dying in that war, and now someone struck back.
I’ll be sold on the “no exceptions” ideal when we haul in the corporate murderers alongside the people who fought back.
Jury nullification is the other acceptable option.
Yeah, that’s kinda my point. The system is fucked beyond repair specifically because these people running the companies get exceptions. These people have basically let thousands of people die for the sake of money. So like I said before, murder is murder and should be treated as such.
Given the perspective you described, I would consider the actions of the company to be systematic mass murder who the legal system fails to stop, and the actions of the shooter to be community defense against a mass murderer. They’re certainly not equivalent, and I don’t see what the benefit is of treating that defense equally to even one callous for-profit murder.
The problem isn’t that exceptions are made and therefore all crimes should be treated in an ignorant vacuum. The problem is that the idealist legal system doesn’t even consider indirect suffering as the violence it is, because the legal system is ultimately beholden to the power of capital (money buys politicians and the media power to make them win, politicians write laws).
I just hope he doesn’t get caught.
he will get caught. they already have his photo, he is not professional hitman, he can only evade for so long when there is the whole country’s law enforcement after him.
Except the photo they have of him with his face visible isn’t even the same guy. Doesn’t even have the same clothes or backpack. So unless this dude is proficient at changing his clothes and ditching a backpack all while riding an electric scooter down the street in New York, then they have the wrong guy in that photo.
wtf are you talking about? they have multiple photos and it is obviously the same person
2 or so years ago I’d have agreed with you.
But it’s become clear that the wealthy and powerful are beyond the reach of our justice system. coughdementedfeloninthewhitehousecough
So fuck 'em.
I understand why they will prosecute him if they catch him, but I wish for him to never get caught, and I feel really confident (given the other signs of planning) that the phone, water bottle, and very public appearance at Starbucks in recognizable clothing are nothing but a red herring.
Yes.
Even in a unjust world mob justice isn’t justice. This means a mob deciding someone is guilty and acting out punishment is unjust. But also a mob deciding a crime should go unpunished is unjust.
There’s plenty wrong with how insurance works and plenty wrong with the justice system. But instead of giving up, we should be trying to fix these issues. It’s all to easy to give in to our basic instincts and point to someone to blame. We punish them instead of fixing the issues. Killing one ceo might feel good, but it doesn’t really change the big picture and in fact constitutes layer upon layer of failure. We should be better than that. History is full of people (singular and groups) being used as a scape goat to deflect and feel like something is being done, whilst in fact not actually fixing anything and just feeding hate.
Also in a capitalist world, the people with the most money have the most power. If we collectively decide it’s open warfare, purge style distopia, they are going to have the upper hand. So purely from a self interest point of view, it would be better to work on fixing shit instead of reverting to monke.
But instead of giving up, we should be trying to fix these issues.
Genuine question - how long do you think we should try to fix the issues before coming to the conclusion that they can’t be fixed through conventional means? Do you think we should resort to nonconventional resolutions at all, if the conventional ones cease to function or don’t yield results? If not, why not?
Nobody actually has an answer to that because there is no answer to it.
The system is so broken that there is no longer a way to fix it.
Any processes that could be implemented that have the potential to fix the issues comes from a broken system.
These processes would then be administered by the broken system.
Therefore no matter how good the process is, it will end up broken.
You may say that I am a hopeless person.
You may say that I am wrong and there is obviously something that can be done that has not yet been done.
I would say you are right, but experience indicates that although the possibility of reform exists, the capacity of the system to reform itself would be administered by a broken system.
Therefore even reform will end up broken and fail.
There was a reason why Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. I’m just out here handing out rosin .
It did fix one issue. Just hear Blue Cross rolled back their decision to limit General Anaesthesia. That is one good turn.
Perhaps some CEOs must be sacrificed from time to time for fixing all the issues. Not everyone at once, just enough to put some pressure on the companies.
No
but my pessimistic side thinks this might have set a great example for CEOs to always maintain a level of humanity or face unforseen consequences.
To maybe help your pessimistic side:
Even when the murderer gets convicted, that CEO will still remain dead.
