Short preamble: I am European. Here, people rarely die or go bankrupt from healthcare. They will just get worse treatment and longer waiting times than the richer. So, I definitely lack personal anger and grief.
But I still don’t understand the support for the shooter. Do you want to live in a world of vigilantism, where live and death is decided by whoever is deranged enough to be able to directly take someone’s live. That would just end in a brutal police state or complete anarchy where the most violent survive.
I also don’t understand people saying that that ceo was a murderer. For murder you have to plan and wish for the death of an individual. He, at worst, did not care.
Why did he specifically deserve to die? People could have decided to use a different insurance or pay for treatment themselves.
The ceo of the insurance company is not the one driving up the prices for healthcare. It’s pharma companies and their stockholders.
So, how much in stocks do you need to have for a death sentence. A million, a thousand a hundred dollars? What about the lawyers defending the patents on drugs? Kill them or just cut off an arm? How do you punish their assistants and interns? What about the scientists that make the drugs. They decided to work for a company that raises prices instead of one that sells cheap biosimilars.
Off with their head, I assume?
The politicians that allowed this system to flourish surely get a bullet through their head, but what about the people who voted for the status quo instead of protesting? This list could go on and on.
Murder is not such a heinous act because of the loss of a live. It’s because once people start deciding who deserves to die, the spiral goes down lower and lower till it reaches everyone who does not 100% support your cause.
The ceo was probably an asshole with no regard for human life. But just because he was paid better does not make him more responsible. It is a broken system, and killing one person does nothing. Instead of supporting a murderer go on strike or be nice to your neighbors. Protest for a better system instead of idolizing a poor soul that has been driven to do an understandable but still unforgivable act of violence.
Imagine supporting a mass murderer CEO
People are losing confidence in the systems of law, order, and justice. The social contract is being broken by the ruling elite. When people lose confidence in these things and see no advenue for justice, they turn to extreme measures.
Killing someone is always a terrible and avoidable outcome, but there are cases where we consider it just: defense of yourself or others, to prevent greater harm, etc.
People are seeing great injustices and great dangers and they have no confidence in the systems that are supposed to address those things. Naturally, they’re behaving accordingly.
The social contract requires good faith and consent and can’t just be taken for granted.
It’s not. Just your tiny little bubble.
My tiny little bubble is slightly strained by it, too.
Report and block what you can.
America was founded on the murder of british, and native americans.
The french republic was founded on murder
The soviet republic was founded on murder
Assassinations/murder etc will never be legally plausible. To allow someone to die in such a way goes against the very fundamental reasons why the rule of law exists.
That being said: When someone becomes so wealthy/ powerful that the rule of law can no longer punish them adequately, they have essentially escaped the system and are considered “above the law”. Well if they are above the law then perhaps the law should no longer protect them either?
"Murder is not such a heinous act because of the loss of a live. It’s because once people start deciding who deserves to die, the spiral goes down lower and lower till it reaches everyone who does not 100% support your cause. "
We’ve been well past that stage for decades at this point, if not centuries. The very people who were targeted have done and have specified verbally that they will continue to do just that. The act in itself, in this case, is self-defence, I’d argue. I’m not condoning murder, just as I wouldn’t encourage anyone to fatally shoot a home intruder even if it’s legal! But things are so bad, that it is expected we’ll start seeing more and more of this.
It’ll also start being more and more visible in Europe, too. It’s just that European oligarchs haven’t yet taken the leap of saying the quiet part out loud, because we’re slightly better off in terms of education (averaged accessibility with curriculum).
It is an unreasonable reaction to VERY unreasonable conditions, which makes it actually pretty reasonable. I mean, it’s in keeping with the “take power into your own hands” ethos of Capitalism, but even simpler than that, it’s a textbook example of a toxic relationship. What we’re seeing is just the expected development of the abuser-abused interaction.
Edit: to anticipate the potential question of why the abused doesn’t “do better” than the abuser, that’s exactly like asking a victim of domestic abuse why they don’t just kill their abuser with kindness. As for leaving… I mean… go where? Mars?
If people keep expecting change without having to get some grease on their hands, then we can just bury ourselves in drugs now and spare ourselves the effort of even trying.
