Everyone seems shocked at this. I personally felt a lot less shocked and more like I’d been waiting for this shoe to drop for 20 years. I’ve been waiting for people to notice the tools of the Iraq War being turned against American citizens for over a decade now.
I spent the better part of 2001 and on arguing against the PATRIOT Act and its codification of terrorism as a crime. Lots of people were against it (we were in the minority, obviously), pointing out how the PATRIOT Act would consider the Founding Fathers terrorists. They committed violence to achieve political ends.
Did everyone just forget that at one point there was actually a nascent conversation on why this was a bad idea, especially considering people warning that they would soon use these laws against their own citizens?
Why did these conversations stop? More importantly, now that Mangione is being charged with terrorism, why aren’t the conversations beginning anew?
I think, it’s because this case is so big, that the amount of people talking about can’t really increase, but also there’s so much more to the case than this aspect. Which makes it difficult to focus conversation on this.
I also wanna say that it makes sense for him to get charged, even though a lot of people don’t like it. Killing another human is an issue no matter what it is. And just because we think this crime stands for something bigger, that doesn’t justify the killing in the first place. It’s just shades of immorality.
That said, healthcare is a huge issue and I hope this changes things finally. I also don’t agree with the charging of terrorism, as it says “terrorism” in it, and even though there’s a small chance it fulfills the requirements, I have no angle to personally view this as terrorism.
Does it instill terror? Everyone gets scared when someone is killed, but this does not exceed it to the point that there is now a present danger. There’s no furtherance to the terror, only vigilance in the crime.
Some lawyers even argue this is a pile-on to the charges, which might be the case, although I’m not an expert.
But I do think it’s gonna be hard to prove the terrorism as opposed to everything else. Truly, the only threat to the prosecution of the other counts is jury nullification, which poses completely different risks.
But that’s a story for another day.