Hello! So two things:
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I would like to have a discussion about the UHC CEO killing and if it is at all any different than the ~45 murders a day in the USA…(other than the obvious “he was rich” one). -Typical Christmas family get together brought this up as a topic and was curious about the different perspectives. Argument made by others was “this sets a bad precedent”, and the response was “how is this any different than someone getting murdered for literally any reason”. Hate, lust, money, your car…whatever the motivation, how is this any different?
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Is there a better location to post said discussion topic?
I mostly lurk Lemmy, so not really sure how to find the correct communities for said topic.
Thanks!
- The difference is Brian Thompson deserved it. Brain Thompson was a legitimately evil person who - in a system where consequences can happen to the rich - would have been severely punished and/or executed for the harm he has done.
And therein lies the problem. We are not in a system where consequences can happen to the rich. People like Brian Thompson can abuse the public at large for his own gain. They’ve purchased congress, they have purchased the white house, they have purchased the courts, they have purchased the police.
All legal recourse has been denied to the average citizen. Voting, writing congressmen, petitioning, picketing, protesting…these things have no effect on public policy or corporate behavior. The rich own the government, the government will do what the rich people want it to do. They’ll never arrest a rich person for, say, torturing millions of people.
The soap box fails, the ballot box fails, what’s left is the ammo box. The men who wrote our founding documents fought a grape shot, musket ball and bayonet war for the chance to write them; the idea that - when all else fails - things sometimes have to get fucking ugly was on their minds. Hence the constitutional right to bear arms in this country, with the implication being sometimes you’ve got to walk up to a rich and powerful person who is doing a lot of harm and catastrophically damage his vital organs.
I’ll leave this topic with this: I’ve seen topics of discussion here on Lemmy that read something like “You say marriages used to last before no-fault divorce? Naw, it’s just women used to murder their husbands a lot more.” And the comments section of these were nothing but cheers and applause. The overall Lemmy community is perfectly fine with that. A person in a lower position of power and an intolerable position takes the opportunity to end the life of a person in higher power over them to escape that intolerable position. It’s okay when a wife kills her husband because he’s beating her, right Lemmy? So it must also be okay when an ordinary citizen kills an oligarch because the oligarch has been denying them necessary healthcare. “He was beating me so I killed him.” “He was keeping me from getting treatment, so I killed him.” The difference I see is there are people who aren’t saying “You go girl” to the second one.
- Probably but whatever.
The killing of Brian Thompson was cold blooded murder and should not be celebrated. No one is saying we should celebrate any other average person who gets gunned down like that.
The only way it is “worse” (or better) than typical, everyday violence was the motivation. It wasn’t just someone getting mad and acting in the heat of the moment. It was someone getting mad who wanted to send a message. There was a legitimate, culturally relevant reason Brian Thompson was killed, and it could very well lead to other killings for the same reason unless the status quo sees significant changes.
“What is so much worse than vigilante violence without accountability is systemic violence without accountability. The most prolific vigilante in the world, hell the most prolific serial killer in the world, could not kill as many people per day as the CEO of United Healthcare is responsible for.”
via Tumblr
They really messed up when the whole squad got together for that photo op. That’s a powerful image.
For the first….
Honestly, it’s probably less offensive and more justifiable than most shootings.
Is it still murder? Yes, imo.
Vigilantism is bad. It’s horrible. If you add up all the Brian Thompsons that get taken out, vs, all the others who didn’t actually do anything- Ahmaud Arbery, comes to mind…
Guess what I’m saying is that Luigi did something awful, but his target selection was most appreciated.
The way I see it, this was just another shooting. Except, instead of targeting innocents or literal children, it was someone who actually played some part in making them so desperate
And in the first 48 hours, the adjuster did more to shake the health insurance racket than decades of the public demanding change.
They say we need the rule of law, otherwise we just have mob rule… But maybe it’s worth wondering if mob rule isn’t as bad as it’s cracked up to be
It’s been said that those that make change via peaceful means impossible, invite violence.
I don’t like that someone was shot, but this is the direction we’re heading unless we can get this fixed.
It’s not just health care either, it’s every large corporation trying to get more from their employees and more from their customers without giving back anything in exchange … or realizing that they have enough.
The infinite growth mindset is out of control and ridiculous.
I’ll go a step further and say that, while I agree that vigilantism in general is bad for society, I don’t think that’s a universal truth. Targets and motives and effects matter. Sometimes vigilantism is both necessary and good. And that happens when the system itself becomes badly biased against true justice - where things are so bad that the people perpetrating the mass injustices aren’t even considered to be breaking the law, let alone just not being prosecuted for it. Not to Godwin things so quickly on purpose, but it would have been considered vigilantism to kill nazis as a German citizen in the 30’s and 40’s. I think most people today would agree that it would nonetheless have been completely justified. I’m not saying we’re that far gone just yet - but I’m saying when things get to the point where vigilante justice is the only justice, and when the system itself is structured to support injustice…
I’m also not sure what Luigi did fits a strict definition of 'vigilantism", but that’s kind of irrelevant to the point. In a way he’s kind of an anti-vigilante? Using crime to handle horrible people who technically aren’t legally criminals?
Either way, there are a lot of things deeply wrong with the US currently, on a systematic level, and it’s clear to almost everybody that the justice and healthcare systems are are major parts of that unwellness. The system as a whole has been getting worse and worse for decades. It’s frankly surprising that it took this long for something like this to happen - but I’m sure it won’t be the last time.
It’s clear that a lot of people are feeling the same sort of way - it’s not often that a law-abiding citizen is publicly murdered and the nation, as a whole, celebrates and sends their well-wishes to the shooter. People wouldn’t react that way if they already felt the system was serving justice acceptably.
It’s very much in the “cool motive, still murder” category. I’m not living in the US but I heard the healthcare horror stories and I can relate to someone just snapping. He who sows wind, reaps the whirlwind.
Its more in the catagory of “killing the murderer of my child”, but replace child with millions of US residents who couldn’t afford treatments due to arbitrary denial of coverage
It may be murder, but this then brings the question: “Should a jury be allowed to be instructed to, not only being the judge of facts, but also the judge of law?” (aka: should a jury receive the instruction that they are allowed to acquit even if they technically committed a crime, but the jury feels the law should not be applied in this circumstance? They are technically always able to to that via Jury Nullification, but they never are allowed to receive that instruction that they are allowed to.)
People say violence is never an option and that you should use your words. Those people are lying violence is ALWAYS and option (not always the best) this violent act of murder has done more towards equallity of healthcare for americans than thousands of people speaking could have hoped to achieve.
The french did not get liberty by asking the lords, the rich, and the king for rights. They took their liberty by forcfully exercising violence to remove the heads of the ellite.
Is murder inherently wrong? I would argue no (its ok to murder hitler etc) so where do we draw the line on accepted murder? By applying a utilitarian perspective of least harm then it could be argued that the murder of this ceo and potentially others is mortally required.
Remeber the best definition of a country is the group who holds a monopoly power for a specific area. Violence is the only message that has reliably worked throughout history.
Ps. I do not support or encourage anyone in enacting violence upon anyone else.
I think the issue I’ve been grappling with is, where do we draw the line as to what is an ‘acceptable’ murder? Like what if another Healthcare CEO is killed, but they’re violently knifed to death? Are we still celebrating then? What if they’re shot, but raped first? Are we still printing t-shirts? What if they’re shot, but so is their family? What if innocent passers by also get caught in the cross fire? Do we still cheer for them? What level of mental gymnastics do we have to do to justify something as ‘justice’ vs just plain old ‘murder?’ Where does this take us? Where does that reasoning end?
Its a classic conundrum and one you have to decide for yourself based on your own morals. I tend to take a ends justify means approach to things but that has been critiqued extensively by people far smarter than I.
These ceos are responsible for killing thousands of people and will kill thousands more in the future. The maths would argue that any action that reduces harm in the future is justified. That then changes ur question into one of what do u value more? Thousands of people dying preventable deaths due to corporate greed or another healthcare ceo being violently stabbed to death after being raped and their family shot and innocent bystanders getting shot?
There is no right answer. All u can do is decide for yourself in a manner u believe is congruent with ur personal morality.
Knifed to death is still good. The others are two-parters and should generally be avoided if possible.
this violent act of murder has done more towards equallity of healthcare for americans than thousands of people speaking could have hoped to achieve.
What exactly did it do to help with the equality situation? It’s delusional to think UHC hasn’t simply replaced its CEO and increased security. Business as usual.
It has united the people in two ways.
- Yes, we all are suffering in the same ways and for the same reasons (oppression by the ruling class).
- Here we collectively see a solution.
The killing of this CEO did very little directly. But indirectly it unified the people, and that is a big big thing.
