Seriously though, don't do violence.
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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Why not? It's a perfectly fair response to the violence perpetuated upon millions of "customers" annually, made "legitimate" by paid off lawmakers. Why should we not be allowed to respond in kind when they're allowed to kill us - just because it's in a more roundabout method? Fuck 'em. I've never been a gun type, but right-wingers have really been getting me to rethink that stance.
I'm mostly saying it because I don't know the mods on this sub or if/when they're gonna start nuking posts and comments like the News mods did. But also, I don't want to be responsible (or at least feel responsible) in the unlikely event that an unhinged person sees this and does something stupid.
Like...look, am I weeping because a man who profited by denying people healthcare is dead? No. Am I happy to see billionaires suddenly afraid of the people they're exploiting? Yes. But does that mean I want people who see this meme to start gunning people down in the street? In all seriousness, no, don't take this as a call to violence.
I know there's some hypocrisy in that statement, but that's kinda the point I was getting at with the post: "I can't condone this action, but damn, it appears to have been very effective at enacting change."
I couldn't have said it better, tho we have yet to see if it's effective at change. It's really too early to tell.
murder is in general bad, fed-posting is inadvisable
also there's a broader boring argument about the dangers of violence being normalized as means of political change, but those arguments are boring
Self-defense (or defense of others) is not murder.
Brian Thompson killed thousands, and contributed to the suffering of millions more. The judicial system was both unwilling and unable to stop him.
What choice was there? What alternative to stop him?
I didn't make any arguements about this specific situation? Murder in general is bad
The problem is that there's no clear endpoint of that thought process. The number of people that exact thought process applies to would require a level of violence that I doubt anybody sane wants.
Edit: to be more precise here. I'm leery about trying to apply the logic of individual self-defense to broader questions about social murder. The entire system is complicit, but if we go to burn the system down without a replacement ready we'll end up sorrounded by nothing but ash and corpses
You’ve been propagandized to hell. Both in defense of systemic violence, and the belief that these systems would cease to exist without a financial class to absorb profit from them.
You need to wake the fuck up.
Wow very convincing. thank you, directly calling me an idiot without addressing the core of my argument really has brought me over to your way of thinking
I very deliberately said "in general", i did not say "in all cases whatsoever".
For health insurance there is a replacement ready, the answer is to have Medicare do everything.
Didn’t call you an idiot. Just propagandized.
So then expand on your comment about burning systems down without a replacement. What systems do you believe will cease to function without a layer of financial class to soak up the profits?
I dont care about the difference between "propagandized" and "idiot". You attacked me instead of my argument.
Its not the hypothetical removal of the evil and waste of a system, it'd about the process of removing the undesired elements. The problem wasnt just with Brian Johnson was an interchangable empty suit, the problem is with the entire culture and system of incentives. Killing one bad person doesn't do enough to fix things, targeting enough people to make the change that's really needed will need a bureaucratic structure to actually get done, target selection, weapons supply, training, validation, paperwork. Very rare for breaucratically enabled violence to ever be good.
For healthcare in particular is pretty much is just as simple as nationalizating health insurance and have everything done by medicare (or state/local govt health plan) But targeted assassination doesn't automatically translate into an act of congress.
So all of the revolutions I’ve read about were all made up?
I dont understand where you found that in what I said
False dichotomy is a common tactic used to radicalize people and instigate violence.
Brian Thompson was the head executive of a corporation. He likely spent his days looking at spreadsheets and BI reports, going to meetings where he was held accountable for making a profit for the shareholders and playing golf. If he is responsible for deaths related to the 30-something percent of claims that the company he ran denied, then he is equally responsible for any lives saved by the 60-something percent of claims they approved.
I'm not mourning the guy, but I know his friends and family are. If his murder was justified, is mine justified for not feeling bad he died? Is my daughter's murder by a Palestinian justified because I pay taxes that buy bombs my government sells to Israel?
There are lots of alternatives to murder (or whatever euphemism for murder you choose to use). Murder certainly feels easier in the short term, especially when you have no connection to the guy who pulled the trigger. His life is likely ruined now as well.
Hiding behind a desk and ordering others to commit your crimes for you does not make them any less disgusting. Not for Brian Thompson. Not for Netanyahu. No one. We will not give anyone a pass for murdering people indirectly.
Is his family going to return the blood money?
After digesting your comment some more, I’m thinking it’s either extreme boot licking by someone profoundly propagandized, or you were projecting and feeling your own moral hall pass being challenged.
Which is it? Have you been giving yourself a pass for a morally reprehensible career of indirect harm?
Neither. I'm actually pretty well aware of the harms caused by places I've worked, including in the US military. I've even left places when I couldn't square that circle. I figured the comment would get some heavy down voting because I know how most of the world is looking at the scenario. I felt some schadenfreude watching the guy get gunned down, too. My perspective is that I see the left committing a lot of the same logical fallacies typically committed by the right in this scenario. It feels a little too close to "well, the cops wouldn't have shot him in the back if he just complied" or "Palestinians elected terrorists so they're all terrorists and gldeserve whatever they get" arguments to me. I try to practice the Principal of Charity, and I don't have any good evidence that this man was cackling with glee while personally slamming a big red "DENIED" stamp on grannies chemo medicine claims. If he'd approved every claim, he would be fired, and they'd bring someone else in to deny the claims. I'm not defending the insurance industry or capitalism for-profit healthcare, but I worry more generally about society normalizing or celebrating violence.l and where that's moght take us.
society already normalizes and celebrates violence plenty. it just doesn't tend to normalize it or celebrate it against the people who actually deserve it, pretty much apparently until a couple days ago when everyone sort of collectively seems to have realized that they all agree.
You are absolutely defending them. You’re defending them from individual accountability for their part in mass murder and suffering. As if them working to spread out the blame erases individual accountability.
And you comparing this monster to victims of police violence and genocide is fucking disgusting and shameful. The ‘reverse victim and offender’ piece of DARVO.
It sounds like you still haven’t figured out how to square that circle.
The intent of the 2nd amendment was for states to maintain a military force that could be easily called on. George Washington used the national guard to put down rebellion of American citizens. It was never about government oversight.
Yeah, and the Supreme Court was never intended to solve Constitutional conflicts, either. The purpose of things changes over time, and I'm pretty sure the hero who brought this CEO to justice didn't ask whether doing so was really what the founding fathers meant when they said 'a right to bear arms'.
I didn't say it, man, you did. Just letting you know that's misinformation.
I did not say that at all, so I don't know why you're claiming I did while talking about misinformation.
Violence towards the evil power can be good. See the French Revolution.
The French Revolution ate the nobles, sure, but then it ate itself, then went on to try to eat the rest of Europe. It was a loooong time before it had positive results.
For the most part, the French revolution really only took down the royal family. A large portion of land owners and business people made it out perfectly fine with both their assets and heads.
Is it weird that I'm ok with people in the $50 mill range? Like yeah, they're stupid rich. But they're still closer to us than to people with $100 billion. And also, a lot of them just inherited it. Which is also bullshit, but they may not have done any evil to become that rich, necessarily. The question is whether or not they keep up with the evil. Bezos ex wife is a great example as she has spent tons of money on charitable organizations that opposed her ex husbands bullshit. There's a handful of good, rich people out there, but they're few, and far between.
We can put a number on the difference between "rich" and "filthy rich". It's about $10M.
I say this with regard to the Trinity Study, which backtested a retirement portfolio to see how long it would take for a given withdrawal rate (and adjusting for inflation each year) to fail. It went all the way back to 1925, which means it would have seen boom and bust, high inflation and low. What it comes out saying is that if you withdrawal 2.5% per year of a balanced portfolio, you can live on that indefinitely.
2.5% of $10M is $250k. That's enough to live very comfortably anywhere you want. Yes, even Manhattan and San Fransisco--lookup median household income for those areas and you'll see that $250k is far above it. Also, you can live basically anywhere if you do this, so maybe don't live in a high cost of living area. There's plenty of nice places to live that are cheaper. That said, if something is keeping you there, you can do it and still live pretty well.
So that's the limit. Anything above that is just hoarding wealth.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
But dead nobles were positive results
I agree is justified in many situations, the French revolution ain't a good example for that, namely that it didn't work in the long run with all the Napoleon-ing. The people most adept at violence, who will be most empowered by violence as normalized political tactic mostly don't promote the interests of most people if they get into power. Napoleon and such
also every time there's been prominent "propaganda of the deed" it's backfired by inciting a HUGE state crackdown, Tsar Alexander II and William Mckinley come to mind ~~though both were relative reformers, which would make this about target selection and not alienating potential allies rather than the use of the tactic in general~~
Violence is clearly justified. There's only a question of it being the most effective means.
I'm currently reading "Why Civil Resistance Works", which strongly suggests that non-violent means of protest are far, far more effective.
Oh yeah all the peace marches ended slavery. All the peaceful sit-ins that took down the Nazis. I remember all of those... never happening.
Kill your masters and oppressors. Full stop.
Yes, someone who worked at the state department wouldn't have any motive to push for "civil" protest.
The opposition to the south african apartheid did a campaign of sabotage because it wanted to reduce casualties. I would say it was very effective.