[EDIT] Inb4 more people try to suggest that I’m mourning the loss of this scumbag capitalist fuck: No, I’m not sad he’s dead. No, I don’t think corporate murder is acceptable and no, I would not ever rat to police if I knew the shooter and yes, I believe the punishment fits the crimes he’s committed against untold thousands of people. THAT SAID…
I’m not down with vigilante murder or anything because it seems like the slipperiest of slopes toward chaos, but what other option is there in a situation where someone seeks to make an impact in this way? You can’t just beat up evil CEOs and let them go back to work. It would be naïve to expect them to change their ways when faced with consequences for their actions and then promptly let go. It just seems like the chances that it emboldens their penchant for exploitative behaviour and disdain for people in need are too high.
We’re just born into and strapped to this capitalist ride and expected to sit quiet and make these leeches their billions. How else can this cancerous greed possibly be dealt with? Is vigilante murder the only effective option? Honest questions. I’m terribly conflicted and I’m genuinely curious what more reasonable and intelligent minds than mine think about this because I can’t think of an alternative to murder in this case.
Ideally, we wouldn’t have to resort to vigilante killings to level the playing field but I 100% understand that we don’t live in a society where the rich will ever give a fuck about the rest of us or would ever sacrifice their power over us in the name of goodwill.
OP, can you please edit your question to make it clearer. Remember, open-ended and thought provoking.
I tried. Not sure how much clearer I can make it if this doesn’t do the trick.
Thanks to everyone that spent time writing in response to this. This added context from so many perspectives really clears a lot of things up for me. 🙏
If any other avenue existed: it would long have been tried and replicated. They have the judiciary, they have the legislative bodies, they have the senates, they have the presidencies/head of states whatever.
This situation is the result of them facing literally no consequences ever for tons of exceeding evil shit. It appears to be the only form of justice available
Thats what the comment above yours said.
For now… Eventually the bastards will basically be like D&D liches and can only be destroyed if you find their phylactery: Their consciousness uploaded to a computer kept in a fortified bunker, miles underground.
See: the recent fallout show
i don’t see violance as a first option but i’m not a pacifist, sometimes its going to be the only option. i don’t think dropping a random ceo or two is anything more than revolution larping though. this kind of thing is more likely to just make insurnace campuses a target for ramdom shooting in the same way american schools are. a bunch of people just trying to make a living in an economic enviroment where picking your employer is a privilage, will get get unalived along with maybe a low level exec who has little actual power. and we’ll see a whole lot of stories about why we should love insurnace companies. i’m not mourning this fucker or feeling sympathy for his family, but it’s not a long term plan for improving anyones life. we find ourselves with a fewer billionaire media tycoons and i’ll be less sceptical of people suggesting this practice.
When the justice system no longer provides justice, justice will be sought elsewhere.
All I know is that jury nullification is legal and is there for a reason.
If violence isn’t a solution then why does the government use it?
This is a very interesting question that would require so much more talk than is proper for a lemmy comment.
I’ll try and make a stupidly short summary:
In political philosophy, it is commonly accepted to define a state as a political community where the government detains the monopoly over legitimate use of physical force.
Basically what allows you to feel safe in such a community - as opposed to a more tribal one - is that you know that you can’t be harmed by your fellow citizen. When you buy your groceries you don’t want to worry that the shopkeeper will beat you up because he doesn’t want to give you change. When you are outside enjoying your sandwich you don’t want to worry about a random guy cracking your head open in order to steal it. You are not worried because you know that their violence would be considered illegitimate, and would be met by legitimate violence.
This only works if everyone agrees to delegate their use of violence to the state, who in turn executes that violence through the appropriate means (police etc) using the appropriate rules. If violence is taken into one’s hands the whole foundation of the political community breaks down, which means that the state has existential interests in prosecuting whoever does it.
States where violence is not really prosecuted are those commonly considered failed states.
Now I know this is rather abstract and the real world is more complex than that, but as I said this would require a lot more space than is available here. But there is your answer: [privately administered] violence is not the answer.
But there is the question of whom most people consider part of this political community - people aren’t going to crack each other’s heads open over a sandwich. But over denied healthcare… even in a world where most people support the lynching of these CEOs, you should be safe with a sandwich.
OK I get that, but the social contract has broken down.
“Health care industry” is a horrible, horrible concept. You and I both know that these corporations get in between doctors and patients. Why? Profit. Everyone knows this.
I’m not going to go out and murder a CEO but I’m sure not going to give a shit that this one got murdered. Godspeed, murderer.
I’m with you. I was just addressing the general question, which doesn’t get addressed as much as it should :)
I would rather see the conversation going towards reforming the broken system rather than going in the direction of “fuck the state it’s all broken anyway” which wouldn’t help anybody.
Let’s call this murder an act of political violence. If it’s the first, brutal step towards reform, then it’s one thing and we can “celebrate”. If it’s the first step towards Dodge City (which is the vibes I get from some comments) then there is very little to be happy about.
The threat of violence is the fundamental basis of all political power. Politicians act in self-interest, and will be exactly as corrupt as the people allow them to be.
I would rather see the conversation going towards reforming the broken system rather than going in the direction of “fuck the state it’s all broken anyway” which wouldn’t help anybody.
I mean there are people who want to reform the broken system. They’re sabotaged by the elites on both sides of the aisle, which is why it has continued being broken in the first place.
When you buy your groceries you don’t want to worry that the shopkeeper will beat you up because he doesn’t want to give you change.
True, but it used to be understood that he’d get beaten up if he didn’t give you change. Slowly that bar has been moved to where now they over-charge you, keep the change, and then have the cops arrest you if you try to get help from the institutions put in place to ensure a safe society. Figuratively of course.
Also government constantly approving selling violence of mass destruction
There are so many more of us than there are of them that a general strike would bring about swift change without us stooping to their level of harming others to gain and wield power.
Unfortunately, we’d have to stop all the infighting and work together. We couldn’t be bothered to do that for the latest US presidential election, so I’m not sure we’d do it in this case.
I have even less hope that violence and threats of violence will do any good at this point. They have so much money, they can buy invincibility. And that’ll be even easier under the next administration. Vigilantism is a feel-good revenge fantasy rather than it leading to anyone’s life improving. If it was effective it would be much more common. We’ve got the guns in America, but their use has not yet caused a utopia.
Best answer here
I mean the labor movement that lead to humane labor laws was very much violent. Compared to what insisting on nonviolence would’ve accomplished, the modern US is indeed a utopia. As for why, well, count the number of children you know who work in coal mines.
Unfortunately, we’d have to stop all the infighting and work together.
Given all the divisions in our society, it’s remarkable how unified people seem over cheering this CEOs murder. I think we may have unlocked a common cause.
They have so much money, they can buy invincibility.
There is no such thing. Even the secret service drops the ball sometimes. Also, more security means more potential for betrayal. If the demand for security personal goes up, the quality will go down.
The closest thing to a real answer that i can come up with is to remove money from politics. That itself seems near impossible a goal, but in order to start making better decisions you have to improve the decision making process that got us to this point.
Taking money from politics is like taking food from cooking. Not compatible.
The whole point of politics is power, influence, assignment of scarce resources. I don’t mean this in a bad way, it’s literally what politics is about: you want your government to make laws that influence your community, to collect taxes and use them in a certain way, to regulate certain things the way you’d like. Without those things politics are meaningless.
Money is just power that you can measure and trade, it will always be part of the equation. Removing money from politics is nonsensical.
The whole point of politics is compromise. Finding solutions that the most people can accept.
Compromise is the… point, of politics? Are you sure? At best it’s a mean to an end, and only in democracy. We’re not taking moral judgement here, just what is what.
There’s few countries where the effectiveness of electoral campaigns are measured in the amount of money raised.
It is possible to regulate the amount of money in politics, there’s plenty of examples.
Party funding and salaries are not “the money” that is in politics, those are peanuts. Do you think Elon musk is interested in a government job because he wants the paycheck?
I wasn’t taking about that at all.
I’m most countries there time of money in politics is way healthier than in the us.
So it’s possible to regulate that better.
Yes but you are talking about party funding. Politicians are not into it for the funding, that’s peanuts.
The relationship between politics and money is already regulated, that’s what embezzlement laws are about. They can be improved, but you’ll find it’s harder than you would think.
Surely decoupling money from politics is not possible, which is what I was answering about.
No I was talking about electoral funding, through super PACs and the like. How individuals and companies can buy their way into politicians favor.
I was talking about that the dollar amount raised during elections is a measure of success. That’s not the case in almost all developed countries. And it’s wrong.
Aha, gotchu now
Justice Thomas? Is that you on Lemmy?
Killing in the defense of others is a legal defense to homicide.
If the guy were attacking people with a machete, nobody would dream of prosecuting the person who put him down.
The fact that he’s doing it slightly more slowly, but on a massively larger scale should not change anything.
The fact that he’s doing it slightly more slowly, but on a massively larger scale should not change anything.
This is something that I hope society learns to comprehend and act on more effectively in the future.
A lot of today’s huge problems we’ve known about since I was a kid 30 years ago - climate change, corporate greed, housing crisis, immigration, etc. I spent most of my times growing up arguing with adults, having my lived experience questioned. I thought there would be a tipping point when I started working, or paying my own way through life, where the condescension would stop but it never did.
The current older generation has lived longer than any other in history, and they’ve clung to control for as long as possible. Even when younger leaders come in, they’re still trapped in these outdated values—Victorian at best—that keep pulling us backwards. Somehow, they’ve convinced themselves that investors deserve their returns more than people deserve to live. It’s soul crushing.
The current older generation has lived longer than any other in history, and they’ve clung to control for as long as possible
And they’ve used that time to change laws and tax codes to ensure their power and money will pass to their children, forming lasting dynasties who will continue their extortive behavior.
$1000 says Baron Trump will be president someday, no laws required (just idiots)
immigration
Is it really a big issue or are you just internalizing the language of the oppressing class, putting common people against each other?
The current older generation has lived longer than any other in history, and they’ve clung to control for as long as possible.
And now you’re adding ageism to the mix. It is not old people who are the problem! Keep your eyes fixed on the real enemies and don’t target your exploited fellows.
I’m not down with vigilante murder
Just why do you think the framers gave us the 2nd amendment?
Jefferson was all about the trees of liberty and the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Curiously he also imagined that an ultimate weapon would outlaw war forever. He was half-right: We just have war with no-nukes rules. But we should appreciate that nukes are difficult to make and are too messy to be actually useful.
I suspect he didn’t imagine that guys going amuck (a trope since time immemorial) would be complicated by a surfeit of semi-automatic weapons. I imagine his solution would not be to limit civilian weapons but to look at the problems that drive guys to go amuck.
And also Jefferson, while he believed in abolitionism academically he did so not enough to free (or pay) his slaves, which means he didn’t have a solution for shit (literal poop) mixed into the meals sent down his dumb waiter.
And the problem with the amuck thing is it can still scale, hence billionaires might make AI-controlled swarming armies of killer robots to dominate the world, and then have a trusted lieutenant decide to use the same army to just burn it all down like Mad King Aerys Targaryen.
And no amount of gun control is going to stop billionaires from making doomsday weapons.
Because standing armies was a no go in 1792.
And yet some groups still buy guns in large quantities because of this.
Then they’re delusional. The Army dismantled AQ. It’s not going to have a problem with Y’allqaeda.
Oh, they are delusional 100%. However most of these delutionals also end up going to work at the police or sheriff, the rest want to dismantle the government and fly their no step on snek flags
but what other option is there in a situation where someone seeks to make an impact in this way?
You can form an organization that gathers evidence and levies lawsuits in an effort to expose and stop their abhorrent practices. You just need to make it your sole purpose in life. It only took Rob Bilott 30 years to get DuPont to stop knowingly poisoning 99.9% of all life on planet earth. DuPont was even fined 3% of their annual profits from a single year. Other than that? Nothing. They have their hooks into the politicians, the legislators, the judges, the regulatory agencies, and the police forces. How do you fight that without making it your entire life’s work?
That is a great question. Thanks for the link. I only know the surface level basics of the DuPont story.
One would need to forge a dominant unified labor union or labor union network that has the sole purpose of representing the worker. Unions would need the power to cripple a company. It will cost everyone more at first, but it could eventually claw back the salaries of c-level executives.
I’m not down with vigilante murder or anything because it seems like the slipperiest of slopes
Study history of Ireland then
People vote for greed because schooling indoctrinates hierarchy: https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-public-schools-in-your-country-are-designed-to-make-kids-docile-obedient-workers-for-the-upper-class/answer/Harri-K-Hiltunen
How schools should be: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-one-thing-that-should-be-taught-in-school-that-isnt-already/answer/Harri-K-Hiltunen
Schools have leaned hard into producing victims over the last few decades. They promote policies that ensure nobody ever learns to defend themselves, or fight back against bullies or the system. They actively punish kids who recognize they have a right to defend themselves.
IN NO WAY AM I CONDONING, ENDORSING OR SUGGESTING THAT THIS BEHAVIOUR IS ACCEPTABLE, OK?
As a victim of the healthcare system, I must say, FUCK YOU for having this sentiment.
Last year UHC mismanged my rheumatoid arthritis medication. It left me bedridden for over a month. I lost my job. My life is in shambles now, my rent is being paid by my parents meager retirement. After what the US healthcare system did to me, I have little left to live for.
The slaying of social murderers like Brian Thompson is the only avenue we have left to reform this bloody system. The Hero’s deed is more than acceptable, it should be condoned and endorsed. Anyone, like you, who fail to do that are just siding with the insurance companies who are doing a holocaust for profit. Shame on you.
Bruh, chill out for a second. I’m not for a minute mourning Brian Thompson. You’re living in too black and white of a world if you don’t allow people to ask questions about complex topics like this. What is self-evident to you might not be to others.
Sorry I wasn’t able to crystal ball your perspective into my mind before posting. I’ll remind myself to read your mind in advance next time I dare to ask a question.
