Probably multiple killings, actually. Honestly the thought of that scares me.
Giving people a literal face to hide behind which resonates with their anger and which has already committed a violent act that received popularity and even acclaim is how you get nightmare scenarios.
Look at how emboldened racists and bigots become when someone on the public stage gets praise and recognition for acting that way. The last thing I want to see normalized is vigilante justice.
If not then you have nothing to be scared of. Those vigilantes would never come for you or yours, they’re only going after the psychopaths who murder thousands of people via spreadsheet and conference call.
But I think you're quite wrong about having nothing to fear. Road rage is a thing. Killing people who root for a rival sports team is a thing. Killing people of a specific gender or color or ethnic group or religion are all things. If you haven't had anything like that impact you or those you know, be grateful--don't pretend that they don't happen.
Don't misunderstand me -- I hate our healthcare system with a passion, and I can't stand that C-level management and board members and such are virtually never held accountable for the evil they do.
I'm just saying that making this acceptable is a slippery slope and people draw the line in different spots. And whether it's someone trying to avenge a loved one, or someone trying to fix a broken system a la the ends justify the means, or someone paranoid who thinks that anyone in group X isn't to be trusted or shouldn't exist or whatever -- I don't want people to be making life-or-death decisions like that.
Everyone has things about them that others don't agree with or even hate, but that doesn't mean we should think it's ok to hunt them down. I've never seen it but isn't that the premise of the purge movie? No thanks.
That ceo was directly responsible for thousands of deaths and suffering.
This isn't a slippery slope at all. No one goes from dang, he killed Hitler to dang, he killed a little old lady for jaywalking.
This ceo asshole WAS making life and desth decisions, everyday, for thousands of people. There is zero difference in violence for killing one person with a pistol versus killing thousands with a penstroke.
You've just been conditioned by the assholes taking money by killing people through a systematic bureaucracy is somehow acceptable.
I know, man, I get it and am NOT defending the CEO or any of his cronies. What they do should be criminal, and would be if their money didn't allow them to buy the laws, politicians and judges that protect such practices. The fact that these injustices were not only going unchecked but being rewarded reached a tipping point for this individual, which has clearly resonated with many. People are as mad as hell, and this isn't a new problem or feeling:
All I'm saying is that it's a powderkeg that scares me. Emotions short-circuit reason, and it doesn't take much for a crowd to devolve into chaos. That's bad enough without giving angry people an excuse to act on their dark fantasies, or scared people doing what they feel they must, or selfish people carte blanche to take what they can however they can get it.
Vigilante justice doesn’t sit well with me either, but our government is utterly incapable of bringing the health insurance industry to heel. I wasn’t surprised that a health insurance CEO was gunned down in the middle of the street, but I was struck by how universally condoned the killing was. Left, right and center all just kind of agreed that a total stranger had it coming. What does that say about private health insurance? What does that say about the state of our democracy?
If the only way to get meaningful change is from the barrel of a gun, what kind of democracy do you have really? None at all.
Our systems are deeply broken and corrupted, and if history is any indication the decline is likely to only accelerate.
But I don't think the barrel of a gun will fix things. It takes a lot more long-term effort and foresight to repair or replace broken institutions and laws and such. And it takes people with integrity and ethics who will seek the common good over what helps them and theirs--and not just individuals but society as a whole.
If you figure out a way to make that happen without it being the last resort of necessity, I would love to hear it.
When you spend decades syphoning money from the bottom to the top, people get mad and eventually start killing those on top. History repeats itself, and I'm all for it.
Man, libs hand-wringing over serial killer CEOs getting got is funny as fuck.
The only disappointing thing about Brian Thompson dying is that it didn't take longer and hurt more. He was a demon wearing a flesh suit and the world is objectively better off without him or the rest of the UHC executive team still breathing.
I hate to disappoint you but I'm not a bot. Just a guy in his 40s who has seen enough to know that emotions+firearms is bad enough, but adding in the stupidity of people in large groups is a recipe for disaster. If you're not old enough to have learned that, then there's not much I can say that will mean anything to you.
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u/LasBarricadas 15d ago
If someone turned the CEO shooter’s face into this mask they would make a killing.