“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.”
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this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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They really messed up when the whole squad got together for that photo op. That's a powerful image.
Accidental Renaissance had a field day
It's laughable they even threw in the helicopter pilots. I don't know what message they were trying to send but to say it failed is an understatement.
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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.
Infinite growth within a finite system is literally cancer.
I'd argue that this wasn't mob rule. It's not like a chaotic group that went a too far. This was a targetted attack on an evil aggressor. This was the people getting a little bit of justice.
Fair, but I think our understandings of mob rule differ
To me, mob rule isn’t just mobs with pitchforks, it’s when people get so upset by injustice, they turn to violence. Humans are naturally very averse to killing, even in war, with their lives on the line, most people struggle to kill (hence the psychological techniques like dehumanization and tearing people down until they can follow orders without thinking much)
Imagine a feudal lord who works his people to death. To me, a knife in the back or poison in the wine is mob rule, assuming it’s organic and/or the people tacitly support it by closing ranks around the assassin
It’s anarchy, which is not the absence of rules, but the absence of explicit laws. Is the natural human state - we don’t need laws from the state or from sky daddy to get along.
Laws create clear lines (theoretically), which say “if you’re on this side you’re safe”
Mob rule means “if you piss people off so bad they turn on you, you suffer the consequences”. You don’t get clear lines to exploit, you don’t get to hide behind bureaucracy…you’re just responsible for your actions in a very organic way
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Vigilantism is horrible, and it's it's a symptom of a system that is failing. It means people feel that other non-violent options don't work.
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.
The US spent trillions to chase one guy who caused less US citizen deaths than this CEO. I think a Bin Laden makes for a much better example of the hypocrisy than Nazis.
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.
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As for your family discussion, generally it's advised to avoid bringing up controversial topics because it almost never ends well.
That being said, I've found that the following statement is pretty universally agreeable:
Thompson led a company that was number one in the industry in denying coverage for routine and life-saving healthcare to people who had paid good money for and were legally entitled to coverage, meaning it's almost certain that multiple people have died as a result of the policies he oversaw the execution of in the name of profit. So while I don't condone murder as a method to solve problems with the healthcare system, it's difficult for me to feel any sympathy for the victim.
Plus, you can't deny the results; insurance claims immediately started being approved at higher rates.
Not disagreeing, but do you have sources? I wouldn’t even know where to start looking.
I can't find where I saw it, but stories went around from pharmacies where they usually see like 1/3 claims denied or needing extra proof having 100% approvals the next day. I'll try to keep looking when I can.
It's anecdotal, but i remember those stories floating around the first couple days after, as well.
On Lemmy?
Lemmy has a bias against the ceo so you'll just have a thread of everyone (including me) agreeing with the sentinment that the ceo deserved it, so it wouldn't really be a debate.
Reddit will have less of a bias, but then reddit doesn't really like you talking about this topic, and your thread will mysteriously get deleted. Honestly I'm not sure theres really a place on the internet where you actually have an unbiased audience to debate this, and not get censored. You'll have to look IRL for people to debate.
You can try [email protected]
~~or [email protected]~~ actually nvm, they don't like overtly political posts... 🤷♂️
but, again, you'll get a very biased audience
AskUSA is actually going to be terrible for that, as it will just be biased sentiments. It will be better to discuss in a place that contains both US and non-US views.
Reddit definetely has a bias, just not the same as lemmy
Reddit the company does. Reddit's users are celebrating with the rest of the country while their posts get deleted.
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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.
Would you kill a mass muderer? Because that's what an insurance CEO is. I'd argue the existenc3 of any millionaire CEO begets mass social murder
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!actual_[email protected] Let's get that community back up and running
Good idea
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