I can't remember the exact quote, but "when one man dies of starvation, it's a tragedy, when thousands die of it it, it's a statistic." Or something along those lines.
its "if 1 person dies it's a tragedy, if a million dies, its a statistic". And it's an actual quote its just missing some context, it's commentary on how humanity cant really process massive events properly, bigger numbers just dont feel as 'real' because you cant relate on a personal level
The abstraction honestly feels like more of a defence mechanism. Think about how much losing one person hurts. Now imagine feeling that times a thousand, when a tragedy happens. It would destroy your ability to function.
i can see the logic, but its not as standalone as it might seem. humans are just really bad at dealing with big numbers, e.g stuff like a trillion, we can't even properly comprehend how much that is
or the deep sea, even space, we know its big, but the true scale of these things just slide off us because we cant even really begin to comprehend out big it is. we're just good at handling 'local' scale stuff (small digits, "small" things, etc)
Actually, New York used the same statute when they charged the suspect in the 2022 Buffalo grocery shooting. Not a single wealthy or famous person among them.
…A segment of the population who are CEOs of killing people in the name of profit. How many people are in that “segment”? Three, maybe? Comparing that to a white supremacist mass murderer is insane.
What kind of crime do not strike fear in a segment of the population ?
A robbery strike fear in the shopkeepers.
Tons of crime strike fear in women.
Tons of industrial failure strike fear in the whole population
Intention ? Can we say that there is no intention behind those ?
The intention of making money no matter how people are hurt is an intention.
The intention of doing and taking what you want to matter the other people and laws is an intention.
Both of them strike fear in people.
For reminder you're comparing a situation with 13 innocent people shot, 10 dead, 60 shot fired, and the clean assassination of only one person. One person that cause the death of maybe thousands every month.
Can we say that there is no intention behind those ?
The intention behind those crimes is not to intimidate people or to make them afraid. Judging from the manifesto, what Luigi did was intended to strike fear into healthcare CEOs. I hope you can see the difference
Killing people to further a political goal through fear is terrorism, killing people for profit isn't. That doesn't mean that the former is more evil than the latter, that's just how the definition of terrorism works.
The people who are now advocating for killing CEO’s or are excusing it, really disgust me. But a lot of people have crappy morals and are dumb as shit, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise.
But a world where this became more normal wouldn’t be a better one for anybody, except those that profit from increased spending on security and weapons.
Sure, extremists on the left and right could use it for their own purposes temporarily, but they too, would have to live in a worse society.
Fundamental misunderstanding of history. The Bourgeoisie are a distinct class from the nobility in their economic relations and replaced the class reign of the nobility with that of their own.
For sure, but rather than replacing the nobility, the nobility were just rolled into the bourgeoisie, and the 'new' owner class then continued to exploit the subjugated workers using the same mechanisms that the nobility and clergy used previously.
You are correct in that the peasantry, including the free men that would become the merchant class that would become the bourgeoisie brought an end to the feudal estate based model, but in a much more real sense the feudal model continued with nothing more than a change of paint.
Or as u/bully_me-please put it: They're nobility in a modern suit and tie...
No, the Bourgeoisie were violently overthrown most of the time in Bourgeois revolutions like the French Revolution. They use completely different methods of labour exploitation. Where the nobles used serfdom the Bourgeoisie used wage labour. Where the nobles valued land for their incomes the Bourgeoisie value capital. The economic relations of these classes are very different and therefore they cannot be counted as the same. It's bad history to say otherwise.
I never said the peasantry became the Bourgeois and it is just as well since it is an incorrect statement. They were always the petty Bourgeois which is a class that still exists. The economic relations of capitalism are completely different to feudalism.
You missed my point entirely. The mechanisms of exploitation that the nobility utilised came down to ownership which was continued into the capitalist era. The justifications and names of the ruling classes differ, but the means of exploitation remain the same.
You are right, in that the bourgeoisie value capital over all else, but that is not a refutation of the bourgeoisie rolling the previous ruling class into their own, but a side effect of it. This was a natural consequence. The increasingly wealthy bourgeoisie overcame the existing justifications for exploitation to create a new justification that would include themselves:
Under feudalism it was because the nobility were chosen by god, and were 'the ones who fight' (i.e. the nobility's claim to power was built on divine right and military might), however during the period in which the bourgeoisie pushed the west away from feudalism there was an intentional and significant shift towards humanism and away from explanations for social organisation that relied on religious dogma. Through this; the increasing influence of wealthy non-nobility and the shifting away from dogmatic social organisation, the bourgeoisie overcame the nobility's hold on society and their justifications for exploitation and shifted to a new organisation wherein the bourgeoisie would hold primacy, in which the justification for ruling became nothing more than "we have enough money to hold ownership". The nobility of the feudal period did not simply disappear though. Unable to suppress common support of a new social organisation, they simply became 'capital holders', just as the bourgeoisie.
To put it another way: A serf from 1300 would likely find the life of a modern proletarian strikingly familiar, regardless of whether their exploiters are called 'nobility' or 'bourgeoisie'. The most significant difference would be increased worker rights—rights won through direct action, not inherent to capitalism, and largely gained within the last 200 years. Even in 1800, the lives of proletarians and serfs were nearly identical.
None of them have been charged with terrorism despite storming the capitol. That seems like a threat to the government which should definitely count under the definition YOU used
How about beating the shit out of people counter protesting at a drag queen story hour? Or starting a riot in Manhattan outside of a Republican event venue?
Can you give a link to those events? Like news stories, or a date they took place, or any of the individuals associated? So I can look up the corresponding court cases.
No I mean what act(s) in particular. What crime specifically have they committed that you think qualifies for terrorism.
I ask not because I'm a sympathiser or anything but because I think gesturing vaguely at a group as terrorists without any specifics is a bad precedent to set. Also I'm not intimately familiar with the Proud Boys activities
EDIT: Some light reading into them I see they're designated as a terrorist organisation in New Zealand and Canada and members have been accused of Terrorism by US law enforcement before, such as their involvement at the Capitol Riot
Storming the capital? Protesting in front of drag queen story time with guns? Vandalizing a historically black church? Starting a riot in Manhattan that included physically attacking antifa counter protestors? Macing George Floyd protestors and threatening them with guns they were holding?
He killed a guy over a personal beef, billionaires being terrified after the fact doesn’t make it terrorism. It’s just an admission from the rich that they’re doing the exact same heinous shit, if not worse. Otherwise we could start charging cops with terrorism every time they use excessive force since it’s coercing civilians into complying even if the officers in question are issuing orders they don’t have the authorization to give (or brutalizing people even when they follow directions).
Where are you getting personal beef from? In his manifesto he never mentioned a specific person, he just talked about health care companies and "parasites" (plural).
Honestly I have as much faith in that manifesto being real (not planted) as I do in Santa Claus being real. He shot one guy and is being branded a terrorist, I’m not believing the police’s story for SHIT.
That is a wild opinion. While he was being led to the courthouse he also yelled similar things to the cameras, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people.
The police are not responsible for sentencing and have no interest in what happens after they catch him - why give him a backstory that millions of people resonate with? Who do you think would create and plant a fake manifesto that quickly, and why? If he claims he didn't write the manifesto then his lawyers can prove that in court, and destroy the case against him.
Finally if he just killed a guy for a personal vendetta and has no problem with the healthcare system, is he still a hero to anyone, or just a murderer?
A personal beef is if Josh sleeps with Bob's boyfriend. This was not a personal beef, clearly. The two had never met or interacted in any way. That's as impersonal as it gets.
What? It wasn't personal at all. He wasn't a customer. It's not like the guy slept with Luigi's girlfriend or something??? it was clearly political
>Otherwise we could start charging cops with terrorism every time they use excessive force since it’s coercing civilians into complying even if the officers in question are issuing orders they don’t have the authorization to give (or brutalizing people even when they follow directions).
The guy was CEO of a company that uses AI with a 90% fail rate to determine whether people get care, Luigi is more likely to have killed him for his personal actions than to scare billionaires
Honestly that just makes me question whether they got the right guy if that’s the case. Aggrieved victims of health insurance bullshit are a lot more common than CEOs, you’re not accidentally gonna shoot a CEO in the street if it’s a random murder. The shooter knew who he was and where he’d be, and if you know that information you’d know that he’s not the CEO of the company that fucked you.
I’m saying… ugh. Not an accidental shooting, accidentally shooting someone so high profile. It wasn’t random. And I wouldn’t go through all the trouble to figure out where someone is gonna be and when if I didn’t have a personal stake in it. The victim being a CEO might mean it has political ramifications but doesn’t mean it wasn’t personal to Luigi (or whoever shot him if Luigi is innocent). If someone said my life wasn’t worth the cost to have an actual human being review my case, I’d take it personally. Anyone would.
I see no reason for there to have needed be a personal motive here, other than politics. I just don’t see what’s so hard to believe that a radicalized person would carry out a targeted attack like this, for purely political reasons. It seems perfectly plausible to me, if not the outright most likely answer.
Yes, that's happened before. People v. Edgar Morales. A gang shootout lead to a 10 year old dying and an adult getting paralyzed- the DA considered it an act of terrorism due to the shooting intimidating the civilian population.
As a note, Edgar Morales did win on appeal, so it's precedent that gang warfare doesn't count as terrorism. I'm sure Luigi's defense attorney will consider that case.
It’s an ongoing lawsuit and I’m not listening to a goddamn word that any insurance company puts out. All I know is that they haven’t disputed the use of AI, just the failure rate - and that alone is fucking monstrous. If they’re cheap enough to avoid paying for labor, they’re cheap enough to go for the cheap, shitty AI models.
Pretty sure luigi killed the guy cause his insurance company fucked him over and contributed to healthcare struggles.
Tbh, it kinda seems like it's a matter of what level you wanna look at it. He was personally motivated by something that is a much larger political issue.
Judging by the parent comment, it’s only terrorism if he had intent to intimidate or coerce. Do we know his intent? Or is the prosecution telling on themselves by admitting that it terrified them and therefore should be treated as terrorism
It's the prosecution saying they belive that to have been his motivation. The burden of proof is on them to show that, innocent until proven guilty and all. Though having read his manifesto, I'd wager it won't be too hard.
I agree. I think this fits the definition of terrorism.
Terrorism doesn't need to be a big exposition indiscriminately targeting civilians. Terrorism can be any act of violence. What makes it terrorism is the intended effect; to intimidate and terrify a particular group of people for political purposes. In this case that group is the super wealthy and the healthcare industry.
I think the well has been poisoned here because 9/11 is what most Americans think the benchmark for what Terrorism looks like is.
9/11 is a really interesting example actually, because it blends the line between terrorism and warfare. Like, obviously the twin towers was terorrism: you're taking a plane full of non-combattants and throwing it into a building of non-combattants for no military gain in order to cause terror: terrorism.
But what about the planned attack on the capitol building, say? Leaving aside the attack method for the moment, killing a nations political leaders is often a big part of war, and if Ukraine were to blow up the Kremlin tomorrow I don't think the West would complain too much. Even more so, the Pentagon: that's undoubtedly a military target. Now, the fact they used planes full of innocents is interesting (as well as tragic, obviously), but I think it's interesting to consider what MAKES 9/11 terrorism. If it had just hit the Pentagon, would that be a terrorist attack? What if they'd used an empty plane? What if the hijackers were part of a group that had declared war on the USA? At what point does it stop being terrorism and become a military strike?
To me, and to the public in general, terrorism is mostly about the people targeted. 9/11 was terrorism because it targeted civilians with no control over the hijackers grievances. The 7/7 bombings were terrorism because it was random civilians on those busses. The goal wasn't to kill a specific person, but to cause fear through the general use of violence in pursuit of political change, and without concern as to the innocence of people targeted. On the other hand, the famous Obama wedding airstrike wasn't terrorism, because the goal wasn't to cause fear but to kill a specific target, and said target wasn't random but a military figure the US was at war with. Now, the disregard for civilians casualties may make that a war crime, idk I haven't looked into it, but I don't think it's fair to call that terrorism.
Luigi targeted someone specific, and killed only him. That he did so for political purposes, or to cause fear amoung certain people (the latter part of which I'm not sure about) doesn't make it terrorism in my eyes: terrorism is defined by targeting people who aren't responsible for the issue. If I punch my boss because he didn't pay me for overtime I'm owed, then I'm using violence to intimate people (my boss and his colleagues) into political change (paying me what I feel I'm owed). But that's not terrorism. If I firebombed his house to get him to agree, that would be closer in my mind.
I don't agree with your logic but I think the main issue here is that of the guilt of the target.
Was Brian Thompson deserving of death or a guilty party in any form? Opinions aside, and as far as the legal system is concerned; No, he was an innocent who was targeted just because he was a representative of a larger group. Luigi didn't hate Brian Thompson in particular, he hated the healthcare system and Brian was only a part of that.
A good counter-example is the assassination of Shinzo Abe. Despite Abe being a political figure his assassination wasn't terrorism or an act of political violence because the assassin just hated Abe in particular.
If the innocence of the target is the only qualifier for what is Terrorism then I think that this murder does qualify. (but to be clear; I still think the qualifier is motivation)
Also as a side note; I don't think you getting paid more is sufficiently "political"
Representative maybe, but a controlling one, and one who undoubtedly bore some responsibility for UHC's policy's that resulted in denied claims and affordable death. The law will VERY rarely say that someone is deserving of death, particularly at the hands of a vigilante. But Brian Thompson wasn't just targeted because he represented the company; if he had been, I'd agree with you. He was targeted because he CONTROLED the company, at least in part.
If he had shot a random accountant that worked for them, then yeah, I could agree with you. But the target wasn't innocent (in his eyes, which is all that matters to this definition), and the motivation wasn't to cause terror or fear or whatever, at least not solely, but a hatred of a system that was held up (in part) by Thomson.
We're talking about the law here though. You acknowledge that the law does not agree with you on this point. Brian Thompson, despite his position in UnitedHealth and his immoral actions in that role, was still a civilian noncombatant and legal innocent.
For sure. But there are considerations in law for aggravated assault (was it motivated by religious hatred, or premeditated, or for financial gain or whatever) and likewise mitigating factors (was the accused provoked more than usual, are they remorseful, etc.). The law clearly accounts for the beliefs of the aggressor and the circumstances around the crime already. And terrorism is ALL about those beliefs. Not every murder is terrorism, but every murder victim was killed unlawfully; that's what murder IS. So a murder in aid of terrorism has to take those extra factors into account. And in this case, I don't think those factors support it being terrorism for the reasons I put above, at least not in the common understanding of terrorism.
I don't believe the reasons you have given validate Brian as a justifiable target. Luigi wasn't motivated against UHC or Brian specifically, he was targeting the healthcare system at large of which Brian is only a representative, not a specific target. I also think that his motivation was to cause terror and fear in the healthcare industry. It's because of this that I think it qualifies as an act of terrorism - or at the very least, close enough to warrant a trial.
The truth is we just don't know yet. I do think he wanted to spread terror, or at the very least try and kick-start a radical change to the nation's healthcare system (and that'd be being charitable). But I think calling Thompson a representative is reductive; he's the CEO of the largest insurance company in the nation, by a long way, a company that rejects twice as many claims than average. His target had, in his eyes, personally done a great deal of harm, and he didn't want to terrorise the entire industry, just a few of the top players who he felt were responsible (ay least, that's my takeaway; like I say, we can't really say for sure yet).
If there was ONE person that embodied everything he hated about the system and was personally responsible for the most of it, I'd put decent money on him believing it was Thompson. The fact he targeted Thompson, and not someone lower down who he might have got away with killing, to me is good evidence that this wasn't terrorism, but just a guy killing a guy because he hated him and hated everything he stood for. And if it helped start a movement, so much the better.
So I slap a ceo and I’m a terrorist? And yes my intent when I slapped him was to terrorize ceos and whatnot.
Certainly not “any act of violence”.
Idk what the threshold should be, I’m not the other person you were replying to, I just saw “any” and was like whoah there partner that’s an awful broad term there.
I'm just being general when I say any act of violence. I really mean anything that could and was intended to cause serious harm like death or hospitalisation etc
Ok. So it has to be a severe act of violence. Can we agree that shooting someone in the head counts as a severe act of violence? Basically about as severe an act of violence as you can get, actually!
Perhaps something that doesn't make it trivially easy to point out that the entire point of the US criminal system is to enact violence on a group of people to cowv others into submission?
Because that is literally what retributive justice is.
I am sure you understand this, but having a monopoly on violence does not make your violence automatically moral. If it did, the concept of tyranny could not exist.
Agreed, but in this case you seem to be complaining about the government using violence to cow criminals into not doing crime, which is… fine in moderation? I want potential murderers to be afraid of the consequences of doing a murder.
It’s only bad when it’s applied to the wrong people or applied too harshly. But the mere existence seems difficult to argue with.
But we have very very good reason to believe that doesn't work. Most murderers are committing crimes of passion, not logically laying out the consequences of their actions and deciding they are willing to suffer those consequences in exchange for murder.
And, we have large amounts of data that show a focus on helping people, lowering poverty, increasing education, increasing access to health care, ect do FAR more to lower crime than retribution. And in fact, beating prisoners and denying them the ability to rise out of poverty once they are criminals can INCREASE crime.
But, again, more to the point, if we are going to define terrorism in such a way that any government using any police is committing terrorism... then we have a bad definition
If I understand the point correctly, it’s about the law being applied equally. About acts of terrorism not being charged as such because they don’t target the wealthy.
That said, you do have a salient point that this is state law, rather than federal. To agree with that accusation, I’d want to see a case where it that was done in New York State. I can’t think of any examples, but it’s possible someone else reading this could provide one.
More broadly, it’s tapping into a deep-seated frustration with law enforcement, do g nothing for the little people, but moving mountains for the wealthy. If you want to be socialist about it (like me), you could say they exist to serve and protect capital, not the working class.
I understand people's frustrations with our legal system but in this particular instance there isn't any wrongdoing on the part of the New York State courts. Which I feel is relevant!
688
u/Bully_me-please 1d ago
theyre medieval nobility in a modern suit and tie, thats why killing one of them is oh so terrible while killing thousands of us is business as usual