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.
Nope.
If Trump can get alway with almost all of his bullshit, if the Supreme Court can just hurr durr away a hundred + years of legal precedent, then this whole system is bullshit.
Anybody that is charge of or oversees the systemic application of violence toward great numbers of people, who is legally allowed to do so, in a system where the common person has 0 chance of ever altering this system to police itself and actually enact justice by preventing said person from doing that and prosecuting them for their crimes against the people…
Anyone in such a position should be afraid, should keep suffering consequences until theyfinally figure out that they need to acquiesce to a reformation of the system, need to stop fucking over millions for the grotesque enrichment of thousands.
When the game is rigged against you, play by your own rules, otherwise you guarantee your own defeat.
No. I hope he’s never found. I hope it destroys the careers of all the cops and politicians blowing shitloads of resources looking for him while they barely look at crimes against normal people. I hope all these insurance executives wake up in a cold sweat every night worrying that they’ll be next. That’s what’s best for the world.
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.
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.
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.
Trinity: what is he doing?
Morpheus: he’s beginning to believe…
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)
Exactly. :)
Population Health needs a regulated definition.
I’ll take that trade
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Sounded like self-defense to me.
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.
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.
yes, of course. and found not guilty, to send a message.
I want the executives, boards, and shareholders that effectively murder millions every year to be prosecuted.
No, because I don’t see any point to it. If they manage to catch him, they may as well just kill him on the spot when they get him, as I have no faith that his trial would be anything more than a farce to try and present some sense of following process and norms, while guaranteeing he gets some insane sentence, only to be found mysteriously to have hung himself. I’m sure that, somehow, a jury of his peers will be comprised solely of the 12 most ghoulish residents of NYC one could find, and they’ll probably try to shop around for the worst judge they can to hear the whole thing.
Hear me out before you rage:
In theory? I believe that killings warrant investigation, prosecution and trial, no matter their intention, though the intention should factor into the result of the process. I want him to be prosecuted with the same intensity as any other killing would be, and if found, given a fair trial, convicted for whatever charge applies, as would be proper for a functioning judicial system. But then I’d want to see him pardoned as political expression of his popular support (and the fact that his victim was part of a deeply inhuman complex of exploitation).
In practice? I hope they never find him. Appropriate intensity of investigation? Orderly arrest? Fair treatment as prisoner? Fair trial? Fair charges? Fair conviction? Fat chance. Pardoned? Not even a chance.
I want him to go without punishment more than I want to hope for a fair process, and I couldn’t believe in the latter in any case.
Maybe get a fine for .0005% of their net worth. You know, so they don’t do it again.
That’s how it works, right?
Even if he’s caught. Dudes going to get off if he demands a Jury trial. Not a single middle class or poor individual in America has a positive relationship with health insurance. Hell how does a prosecutor even screen jurors for this type of trial?
Bribery
Jury selection question to weed out biased jurors: “Have you ever had a claim that was unfairly denied?”
Weeks later: “We have been unable to find enough jurors to try the case.”
This is a good question from the wrong angle. This event is cathartic for many people because the ultra rich who ruin countless lives never get punished. When they see “consequences” it’s a golden parachute. This event is frustrating because the media, legal, and security apparatuses expect us to treat this assassination as a grave act, but actively normalize the acts of harm Thompson and other leaders like him commit every day.
This event is revealing in stark terms the divide between the elite and the average person. Should murderers be prosecuted? Sure - in a world where justice and the rule of law matter for everyone equally. Doesn’t feel like we live in that world.
If murderers got prosecuted equally this CEO should have had a day in court years ago.
ITT: Nobody understands the difference between being prosecuted and convicted.
He should absolutely be prosecuted, he murdered someone. Should he be convicted of this murder? Fuck no, and I actually think a jury might agree with me.
Do you want to see the people who killed Osama Bin Laden prosecuted?
Because the United Heath CEO killed far more people, including many more children, than Bin Laden did on 9/11.Absofuckinglutely not. I want him to never be found and continue to off health insurance CEOs one by one until we get universal healthcare like the rest of the developed world. And after he’s through with them there’s a whole list of other rich assholes that the world would be better off without, starting with the defense contractors.
Yes, hell yes.
Get this man in a court room. Let the prosecutors spend weeks trying to find a jury where no one (or any of their relatives and friends) has been fucked over for life because of shitty insurance.
Let them talk about how unstoppable, determined, and committed the defendant was.
And then have the jury nullify the case.
It would be a good day to be alive.
