Once we start tacitly approving of extrajudicial killings, it doesn’t stop with just those you dislike or even just the outspoken figures. Consider how many completely innocent civilians died during the Troubles or the French Revolution, or how easy it would’ve been for someone completely innocent to get harmed here.
It’s easy to approve of this in a vacuum, it’s just a path full of extreme cognitive dissonance.
But the path to solving that has to involve adjustments to the system that address this mismatch, not just condemning the act or creating some huge diversion in the hope people will forget about it.
If that starts to break down, people in power need to wake up and fix it. The system does not, cannot, protect them from the masses entirely by force. I fear that they have forgotten.
I don’t think we should rejoice that justice has failed so miserably that people are applauding extrajudicial killings.
It’s a really, really, really bad thing.
I don’t think we should be so keen to embrace that.
I’m not keen to embrace it. But I think the finger-wagging is idiotic. Chastising people will accomplish nothing except for making them think you’re out of touch.
Folks disturbed by this outpouring of support for this murder should instead be asking why people feel that way. Maybe it’s because of a system that treats their lives as an expense to be minimized and gives them no recourse. If wide support for Luigi Mangione worries you, maybe look at fixing that.
Right now, Daniel Penny is being celebrated by half the country for killing Neely, and the other half wishes something like this would happen to him.
It’s especially bizarre here because I haven’t even expressed an opinion about the killing. All I said is that love of killers is nothing new, and if you want it to stop then you need to change the circumstances that make people like killing, rather than just telling them that they’re bad.
Not a good state to be in.
Stated another way, the law's job is to act in accordance with right and wrong, not to define it.
Considering the other side is a minority of top-level executives and media outlets, I wouldn't bank much on that.
People are going to celebrate killers regardless, as they always have, when the perpetrator shares the viewpoint of the majority. It happened with Jesus and Barabbas, it happened with Cromwell and Charles I, it happened with Louis XVI and the French revolutionaries.
In fact, I'm not surprised that Luigi has a bigger fanbase than the Trump shooter. The majority then were in awe of Trump, if not openly cheering him. Here, they're cheering Luigi, with some even insinuating that it was his plan to get caught (something which might as well be true).
The other side is often 50% of the country. Whatever controversial figures you like, near 50% of the country would gladly applause or at least quote Clarence Darrow if they were brutally murdered.
Something to keep in mind.
It should be noted that the context with Jesus and Barabbas is probably the failed Jewish revolt against Rome that led to the destruction of the temple in 70CE, with the gospel accounts looking to separate the emerging gentile Christian movement from the Jewish rebels.
Every person with a 401k probably owns UHC somewhere, and they expect it to increase every year. He is merely part of the system to help make that happen.
Try going into work tomorrow and saying “boss I think our VP’s initiatives are wrong and I’m going to take us in a different direction”.
The interesting question to me is where murder is justified in your ethics. You came in with absolutes, after defending him.
Yeah, we saw that defense at Nuremberg. Didn't work.
You’re also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi organizers. Reality check.
The serious point is that blaming individual moral character is not going to fix healthcare. We need systemic change.
I mean, I can quite confidently state I've not received tens of millions of dollars for my role in denying medical care to millions of people.
> You’re also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi organizers. Reality check.
I'm saying "I'm just a little peon in the system!" isn't a good defense. Doubly so for C-suite level folks. This wasn't some call center drone following a script.
> The serious point is that blaming individual moral character is not going to fix healthcare. We need systemic change.
Systemic change often requires individual people to be ashamed of the current setup.
> I'm just a little peon in the system!" isn't a good defense.
I agree. It’s not a good way to morally justify to yourself why you killed someone.
I think if the system keeps refusing to change something breaks. We just saw that in Syria. I think people are unsympathetic in this case because health insurers have already broken the social compact they’re supposed to operate within.
Who is saying that? I’m advocating for the change that will fix the system. Not the one that gives warm fuzzy feelings from righteous bloodlust.
> You’re also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi organizers. Reality check.
They're comparing an excuse. It would be the same correct comparison if it was about someone parking illegally. And accepting and enabling suffering and death of people for profit rather than out of fear of being shot isn't exactly better.
1. Wanting to determine blame, and assign good and bad morality labels.
2. wanting to make healthcare better.
1. is merely psychosocial. It’s ultimately to make you feel better by constructing a revenge justification narrative.
Murdering administrators does nothing to fix 2. They will just replace him with the next guy in line.
No matter how you construe it, he didn’t make healthcare bad and he is not empowered to fix it.
If this murder doesn't change anything, was it justified? I just don't know.