This is a genuine question.
I have a hard time with this. My righteous side wants him to face an appropriate sentence, but my pessimistic side thinks this might have set a great example for CEOs to always maintain a level of humanity or face unforseen consequences.
P.S. this topic is highly controversial and I want actual opinions so let’s be civil.
And if you’re a mod, delete this if the post is inappropriate or if it gets too heated.
Actions have consequences. It’s important we have precedents that the world is just
Prosecution is required since otherwise it would set a precedent for revenge killings, but holy shit even serial killers did less harm than this one person
but my pessimistic side thinks this might have set a great example for CEOs to always maintain a level of humanity or face unforseen consequences.
I feel like that’s your optimistic side speaking. My pessimistic side thinks this just encourages CEOs to hire more stringent security details, making themselves even more untouchable. I very much doubt that the intended lesson will be learned here.
The fictional outcome that might work best - the shooter has a terminal condition, escapes punishment until their final weeks, publicly admits what and why they did it and dies before the courts can really do anything. That way there’s closure, justice is left in limbo, and the shooter doesn’t really escape either. No happy ending, it’s not a happy story.
Don’t give a shit if he’s prosecuted for it, I’d be a bit pissed if a jury convicts him.
If he gets caught, then I’d say yes. Murder should be treated as murder regardless of what the reason is. Making exceptions is never a good idea.
I just hope he doesn’t get caught.
2 or so years ago I’d have agreed with you.
But it’s become clear that the wealthy and powerful are beyond the reach of our justice system. coughdementedfeloninthewhitehousecough
So fuck 'em.
I understand why they will prosecute him if they catch him, but I wish for him to never get caught, and I feel really confident (given the other signs of planning) that the phone, water bottle, and very public appearance at Starbucks in recognizable clothing are nothing but a red herring.
Then all of the healthcare companies that allow people to die because they will not cover them need to be prosecuted, every executive, every decision maker.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Population Health needs a regulated definition.
Exactly. :)
I’ll take that trade
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.
CS Lewis - Screwtape Letters (preface)
Trinity: what is he doing?
Morpheus: he’s beginning to believe…
Sounded like self-defense to me.
I hear and understand your point, and I can’t say that I disagree with it.
That being said, I sure as hell wouldn’t convict the guy.
I just hope he doesn’t get caught.
he will get caught. they already have his photo, he is not professional hitman, he can only evade for so long when there is the whole country’s law enforcement after him.
Except the photo they have of him with his face visible isn’t even the same guy. Doesn’t even have the same clothes or backpack. So unless this dude is proficient at changing his clothes and ditching a backpack all while riding an electric scooter down the street in New York, then they have the wrong guy in that photo.
wtf are you talking about? they have multiple photos and it is obviously the same person
The multiple photos with a face showing, has a different coat, hood, and backpack. Go look again.
can you link what you mean?
Sure thing:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/29120957
The hoods don’t even match. And the backpacks are different too, one had light gray straps, the other is black. And basically 50% of NYC dudes carry black backpacks.
you do understand that these photos are from different place and different time, right?
the black backpack seems more like some shoulder duffel bag to me i assume it is from the hostel checkin. people don’t travel around the city with the same luggage they used for inter-city travel.
people also can have different clothes for different occasion, like putting on some light rain or wind-proof jacket. it can also be shitty compression from some shitty camera.
it is the same person ffs, look at his face, that nose could have passport of its own.
Brian Thompson and his co-workers murder hundreds of thousands of people with systemic neglect, spreadsheets, and lawyers. They murder in broad daylight, during business hours. And yet they’re comfortable, well paid, successful people who will never see a day in jail. What they’re doing isn’t even considered a crime.
I hope he doesn’t get caught, also. Because the same laws that protect those fucking ghouls will crush him for bringing attention to the grift.
they’re comfortable, well paid, successful people who will never see a day in jail.
They also run the risk of getting assassinated by the people who they have exploited, so we’ll see how comfortable they remain in the future.
Like I said, making exceptions is always a bad idea. It’s how these fuck heads even get away with it. But at the same time I can’t agree with exceptions even if I agree with the reason behind it.
The point is that there are already exceptions.
Which is bad, and needs attention.
This IS the attention.
From whom?
Like, all of humanity in the US?
I’m confident that someone will get caught and be made into an example.
Whether they were the one that actually did it is immaterial.
Making exceptions is never a good idea.
Why not? The whole reason we have judicial discretion is that every crime departs from the platonic ideal in one way or another.
The working class has been losing a class war for decades without ever properly noticing that it was happening. Working Americans have been dying in that war, and now someone struck back.
I’ll be sold on the “no exceptions” ideal when we haul in the corporate murderers alongside the people who fought back.
Jury nullification is the other acceptable option.
Yeah, that’s kinda my point. The system is fucked beyond repair specifically because these people running the companies get exceptions. These people have basically let thousands of people die for the sake of money. So like I said before, murder is murder and should be treated as such.
Given the perspective you described, I would consider the actions of the company to be systematic mass murder who the legal system fails to stop, and the actions of the shooter to be community defense against a mass murderer. They’re certainly not equivalent, and I don’t see what the benefit is of treating that defense equally to even one callous for-profit murder.
The problem isn’t that exceptions are made and therefore all crimes should be treated in an ignorant vacuum. The problem is that the idealist legal system doesn’t even consider indirect suffering as the violence it is, because the legal system is ultimately beholden to the power of capital (money buys politicians and the media power to make them win, politicians write laws).
No
Do you want the murderer of the UnitHealthcare CEO prosecuted?
Nope. Killing a billionaire parasite doesn’t make one a murderer - it merely makes one a credit to the human race.
P.S. this topic is highly controversial
Not really.
An answer to a different question, but if he gets caught I hope that the media gives him the same treatment as school shooters; plastering his image everywhere, distributing his manifesto and transforming him into an antihero.
Update: It’s happening!
No. Not while there are people going hungry and living on the streets in the very same country those CEOs inhabit. If we have some semblance of equality I might just change my opinion.
I could see a certain amount of time in prison, like a decade.
Obviously this homicide was aggravated by the circumstance that the CEO was technically the administrator of.
Therefore I feel like the punishment should be somewhat lenient given that the CEO inadvertently escalated the situation resulting in his own demise.
Kind of like if somebody beats up your best friend and then you beat them up in retaliation, the punishment should be more lenient on you than it is on the original aggressor.
or face
unforseen consequences.FTFY
Jury nullification. If you’re called for jury duty, DO NOT LET THEM KNOW YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS WHEN INTERVIEWING.
I’ll never cheer for an act of murder. But I am not broken up about this one.
Genuine answer? He should be tried. Murder is still murder. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to catch the guy, given the chance.
Far greater acts of evil and murder happen every single day, but I’m supposed to be bother by this one because the guy who died played by the rules of our broken-ass system? Or am I supposed to still be so blinded by the myth of capitalism, that wealth inherently represents virtue, that I should believe this CEOs life is worth more than the suffering occurring in every other part of the world? Should I choose to believe that the people he neglected to help - in hischoosing to chase the Almighty Dollar - are worth less than his life, because someone pulled the trigger rather than just watching people suffer while holding back the means to help? What kind of fucked up trolley problem is this?
I’ll never cheer for an act of murder. But I am not broken up about this one.
Fun fact, murder means “illegal killing,” not an immoral one. There are plenty of unethical but legal killings, and vice versa. So to clarify, murder isn’t always “bad” by definition.
If he’s found, the jury should nullify. It’s their right as US citizens.
