The Perceived Right to Revenge Through Murder

[Buck_Mulligan]

I'm talking about using moral appeals to those oppressing you, the oppressed class being everyone that isn't rich that lives inside of a human body.

I'll just note that you didn't answer my questions.

[Buck_Mulligan]

I don't condone it either, perhaps I wasn't clear. I was meaning to say i understand and sympathize with the sentiment of being fed up with the inhumane American healthcare system that is being expressed by those who celebrate the shooting. I don't personally think such actions are productive, and I don't think Mangione should have shot the CEO. But I'm also not going to cry too hard about it and I'm not going to judge the moral character of the people who are victims of the disgusting inequalities in this country too hard either.

If you don't think the killing is productive and are also unwilling to criticize those who celebrate it you're sitting on the fence trying to have it both ways.

[tristan_geoff]

Yeah so like I said, if someone is seen as pissing you off it's okay to just shoot them in the street? Jesus Christ. I'm not saying the healthcare industry has not a lot to answer for, nor am I saying this guy didn't quite possibly condemn many people to death with the stroke of a pen. That's still not a reason for people to take the law into their own hands. So next it's this company is poisoning our air, let's shoot the CEO? Or any of the other, more minor examples given in one of my other posts? If you have a grievance take your Glock or AR-15 to the street? You don't think that sort of thinking will result in chaos and mass murder? Is that what you want?

I am not saying that someone should be able to kill someone simply for pissing them off, it seems that you have conveniently ignored a lot of the structural issues I brought up.  Are you familiar with the trolley problem?

As far as the law goes, well you see how police in America act.  The law at one point condoned slavery, and continues to marginalize many.  I don't think the law is or has ever been the standard of morality.

[tristan_geoff]

I'll just note that you didn't answer my questions.

My apologies, I thought that you had asked because you misunderstood what I was trying to illustrate.

I typed out a reply and it went away but basically, I don't think anyone has a higher or more inherently correct frame of morality, there are as many ways to interpret as there are people.

I also hope that thru so many historical examples proving otherwise, people won't just line up to die and give up.

[tristan_geoff]

Hold on a sec, who is the arbiter of morality, and how is morality defined? Is your morality different (better or worse) than mine or everyone else? Noting that morality and tolerance are not the same.

Also I have no idea what you're trying to prove or say by asking this, seems like a red herring

[Trollheart]

I am not saying that someone should be able to kill someone simply for pissing them off, it seems that you have conveniently ignored a lot of the structural issues I brought up.  Are you familiar with the trolley problem?

As far as the law goes, well you see how police in America act.  The law at one point condoned slavery, and continues to marginalize many.  I don't think the law is or has ever been the standard of morality.

No I haven't, but you seem to be condoning this because of a situation that exists in America where health insurance/care benefits the companies and the mega-corporations, and using that as an excuse to exult in - and, more importantly in your case, wish for further - murder of people. I mean, the system may be fucked, but that doesn't mean you can take it out on one man. He is or was a human, with a family and friends. It's not fair, in my view, to use him as a figurehead, symbol or scapegoat to assuage the anger felt in America at healthcare. You're as much as saying (well, you are saying) it's justified, so where does it stop? When does it not become justified? When is murder not murder and a form of vigilante justice on behalf of the "people"?

If your idea is that this, and (you hope) further deaths will push the healthcare sector into thinking more kindly and humanely about their business, a) you're wrong: all you'll get is more security around the buildings, bodyguards being hired and places like the healthcare centres moving online to stop having to deal face-to-face with people who may want to kill them and more crazies who think they can change things (if that's what Mangione was about, and I freely admit I don't know his motive(s)) and b) you'll end up with a form of terrorism. Be nice to us or we'll kill you. Perfect start to Trump 2.0! 

I assume the "trolley situation" is the same as ours here - people left on trolleys in ERs for hours/days before being seen? If not, tell me what it is, as I have no idea. But whatever it is, it doesn't justify murder and your cry for more of the same is, frankly, disturbing. Assuming you're not just trolling, which I don't think you are.

Hypothetical question for you: what if that had been your father, or brother? Would you still think it had been justified? In the furore and media attention to the killer, I've heard little about what this man was like. Maybe he was scum. He still didn't deserve to die, and his death is not going to change the situation that has persisted for how many decades now in America?

And frankly, to conflate this was slavery is beneath you. It doesn't even make sense.

[SGR]

This actually is an interesting discussion, but not necessarily on the morals of this particular case - more in the abstract. Murder is obviously morally wrong. But people can devise their own moral frameworks and justifications, if not to make a murder right explicitly, then at least to make it sympathetic and understandable. What many online have done to this health care CEO effectively is dehumanized him (always the first step to make killing someone morally justifiable). He is no longer a father of two children, a husband, and a person with very human dreams and aspirations, but rather a symbol of classist evil in a Marxist sense - a faceless cog in a machine who bears moral responsibility and guilt for not only the inadequacies of the health care company he served as CEO under, but for the inadequacies of the American health care system as a whole. His murder has been, by many, taken as an outlet or a proxy for frustrations with the American health care system as a whole, particularly by people who have their own horror stories with it (or know someone who has).

It's not fair to him of course - the system, its structure, its incentives and its results (or lack thereof) didn't start with this CEO, and it won't end or be resolved with his murder - or with his wife, children and family crying at his funeral and wishing the man they loved was with them for every Christmas they've yet to experience. Engaging in stochastic terrorism and wishing for these kinds of murders to continue may be gross morally, but it's not beyond explanation or understanding for why some might feel that way. But it also won't accomplish anything - as the faceless CEO you privately celebrate the death of is epehmeral, and will only be replaced by another faceless CEO who will ultimately serve the same purpose.

It probably goes sociologically deeper though. We like to think of ourselves (we humans) as sophisticated, moral, righteous, civilized - and we often look back at generations long since past as very primitive in comparison. They were but mouth-breathing moral troglodytes while we, in all of our 21st century wisdom, are arbiters of virtue. This of course is a lie we tell ourselves to, much like a large portion of our moral grandstanding and performative outrage, make ourselves feel better and find community and belonging. I think probably, in 200 years, people will judge us just as harshly as we judge people from 200 years ago today (which isn't to say we haven't made serious improvements since then).

We share almost 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Like them, we probably share some kind of inherent bloodlust that culture, religion, civilization, and the state monopoly on (lawful) violence has largely been able to suppress.

"Abstract"

Appetitive aggression describes a biologically-driven form of aggressive behaviour and violence characterized by positive affect. In contrast to reactive aggression, which has the function of resisting a threat, and reducing concomitant negative emotional arousal and anger, appetitive aggression underlies the pleasure of violence. A prototypical example is hunting, which can in turn transfer to the hunting of humans and can even result in bloodlust, and killing for its own sake. At the physiological level, this morally illicit pleasure is accompanied by an adrenalin surge, the release of cortisol and endorphins. In order to activate reward systems via appetitive aggression, their moral and cultural restraints need to be overridden. For example, armed groups work to dehumanize the enemy. Once initiated, a positive feedback loop is generated: As the individual commits more acts of violence with elements of positive affect, the tendency to commit them grows, and they begin to be perceived more positively. A latent passion for fighting and dominance can probably be evoked in almost all men and in some women. The cumulative outcome of whole groups, tribes, or communities enacting this aggression is war and destruction, to the point of trying to extinguish entire ethnic groups:"... and yes, human beings, hundreds of thousands of otherwise normal people, not professional killers, did it." (from "The Killers in Rwanda Speak" by Jean Hatzfeld, 2005). Thus, appetitive aggression, the disposition towards a lust for violence, is by no means a psychopathological anomaly but an intrinsic part of the human behavioural repertoire. Morality, culture and the state monopoly on violence constitute the guards that regulate aggression potential and to channel it into socially useful forms.

[close]

When a system is failing people (or at least, some people), I don't think it's difficult to understand why some would feel sympathy or some kind of kinship with a figure who breaks the rules of said system to attack, even with violence, a purveyor of said system (even if the analysis of the figure was wrong, morally or practically). In a sense, since we're talking about an American story, that's kind of how America as a country began in the first place. And if you know anything about Americans, we often make folk heroes out of outlaws - those who directly defy authorities, sometimes even with violence, skirt the boundaries of the law, even if they're driven by a Randian selfishness - and sometimes we even make folk heroes out of them just because they had the balls to do something crazy and give us a story we'd tell for generations. There is something very American about that. Some examples?:

DB Cooper:



Bonnie and Clyde:



John Dillinger:



Jimmy Hoffa:



Jesse James:



American pop culture has certainly helped too. People love anti-heroes, in real life and in fiction, especially if they're good looking:

Batman? Dexter? Travis Bickle? Michael Corleone? Walter White? There's a machiavellian aspect to them that Americans just eat up, especially if it's in direct defiance of government and the authorities. Need more proof? Look to who America just re-elected:

[Buck_Mulligan]

The NY D.A.has thrown the book at Mangione, upping the charges to murder one, because of an alleged terrorism component, the desire to create fear. The D.A. held up an NY Post front-page that referenced wanted posters for other CEOs and a deck of cards with the faces of CEOs.

Defense lawyers think terrorism is a reach too far.

[jimmy jazz]

The left like to think because they have the right beliefs, it entitles them to behave in a way that people wouldn't normally condone.

Killing people - wrong
Killing people because you don't agree with something - fine

You can find so many examples of this.

[Lexi Darling]

The left like to think because they have the right beliefs, it entitles them to behave in a way that people wouldn't normally condone.

Killing people - wrong
Killing people because you don't agree with something - fine

You can find so many examples of this.

This is not exclusive to the left lol. Look at the comments online every time a trans person is killed and you'll see countless right wingers celebrating.

[jimmy jazz]

This is not exclusive to the left lol. Look at the comments online every time a trans person is killed and you'll see countless right wingers celebrating.

Yeah usually very, very extreme people that basically everyone including the right would condemn. I didn't say nobody on the right acts like that. That isn't the point I'm making. The left definitely believes they can do bad things and be justified because they believe they're the 'good guys'.

[Psy-Fi]

The NY D.A.has thrown the book at Mangione, upping the charges to murder one, because of an alleged terrorism component, the desire to create fear. The D.A. held up an NY Post front-page that referenced wanted posters for other CEOs and a deck of cards with the faces of CEOs.

Defense lawyers think terrorism is a reach too far.

Most Wanted CEO's Playing Cards

[tristan_geoff]

No I haven't, but you seem to be condoning this because of a situation that exists in America where health insurance/care benefits the companies and the mega-corporations, and using that as an excuse to exult in - and, more importantly in your case, wish for further - murder of people. I mean, the system may be fucked, but that doesn't mean you can take it out on one man. He is or was a human, with a family and friends. It's not fair, in my view, to use him as a figurehead, symbol or scapegoat to assuage the anger felt in America at healthcare. You're as much as saying (well, you are saying) it's justified, so where does it stop? When does it not become justified? When is murder not murder and a form of vigilante justice on behalf of the "people"?

If your idea is that this, and (you hope) further deaths will push the healthcare sector into thinking more kindly and humanely about their business, a) you're wrong: all you'll get is more security around the buildings, bodyguards being hired and places like the healthcare centres moving online to stop having to deal face-to-face with people who may want to kill them and more crazies who think they can change things (if that's what Mangione was about, and I freely admit I don't know his motive(s)) and b) you'll end up with a form of terrorism. Be nice to us or we'll kill you. Perfect start to Trump 2.0! 

I assume the "trolley situation" is the same as ours here - people left on trolleys in ERs for hours/days before being seen? If not, tell me what it is, as I have no idea. But whatever it is, it doesn't justify murder and your cry for more of the same is, frankly, disturbing. Assuming you're not just trolling, which I don't think you are.

Hypothetical question for you: what if that had been your father, or brother? Would you still think it had been justified? In the furore and media attention to the killer, I've heard little about what this man was like. Maybe he was scum. He still didn't deserve to die, and his death is not going to change the situation that has persisted for how many decades now in America?

And frankly, to conflate this was slavery is beneath you. It doesn't even make sense.

[DJChameleon]

The left like to think because they have the right beliefs, it entitles them to behave in a way that people wouldn't normally condone.

Killing people - wrong
Killing people because you don't agree with something - fine

You can find so many examples of this.

This isn't a left vs right issue. The support behind Luigi is actually bipartisan because every American can relate to being denied coverage for a health procedure that they needed from an insurance company while others have had family members die because of this very act.

Your perspective is going to be different with your kush health system across the pond. Both you are TH wouldn't understand how bad it is over here.



If you don't know the image Jan 6th rioters who were on the right. They continue to this day to justify their actions as being okay even though one of their own was killed during this action. Trumpito is about to pardon all of them soon too.

[Lexi Darling]

This isn't a left vs right issue. The support behind Luigi is actually bipartisan because every American can relate to being denied coverage for a health procedure that they needed from an insurance company while others have had family members die because of this very act.

This is true, as is evidenced by the reaction Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh received after doing their usual tired demonization of the people cheering on Mangione.