Okay, I've scanned the penal code, and based on my reading, I'm gonna assume(as per my question) that its in-house concept of terrorism does, more or less, have as a sine qua non the intention to influence government policy.
As such, I'll go to the point I originally wanted to make, and say that applying it to a case like the CEO shooting, ie. a crime targeted entirely at private actors, is pretty vulnerable to an ad absurdum.
But that's usually the way terrorism operates; creating terror in the general population (or some subsection of it) as a lever to force policy change. 9/11 was also targeted at private actors but very few would claim it wasn't an act of terrorism.
But that's usually the way terrorism operates; creating terror in the general population (or some subsection of it) as a lever to force policy change. 9/11 was also targeted at private actors but very few would claim it wasn't an act of terrorism.
I see what you mean about 9/11. Though two of the targets WERE public-sector(the Pentagon and the aspirational White House attack), and that, combined with the fact that the WTC doesn't symbolize any one corporation, but rather American capitalism generally, could lead one to conclude that the overall statement was against the US political-government system.
(But the necessity for this kinda disentangling is one reason why I think "terrorism" is pretty much bullshit as a legal concept.)
As a much noted aside; the Charleston shooter, who intended to start a race war, was not charged with terrorism.
Point of information. Ryan Roof, the Charleston shooter, was federally charged with 33 hate crimes and murders in Federal court. He was sentenced to death. (There might be a possibility that Biden will grant clemency for all those who have been sentenced to death for federal crimes).
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Maybe some historical perspective will help calm your nerves.
Ito Hirobumi was the Japanese governor of Korea, assassinated in Harbin, China in, by a young Korean patriot named Ahn Jung-geun, in 1909.
Now, the assassination took place a year BEFORE the full annexation of the Korean protectorate, IOW Ahn's crime did nothing to prevent it. And Hirobumi was actually an anti-annexationist, agreeing only reluctantly to go along with his superiors, and, as far as the era goes, was almost certainly less of an imperialist than Teddy Roosevelt.
For its part, Japan considered Hirobumi respectable enough to keep on its currency until the mid-1980s.
But none of that has stopped Koreans from putting up multiple statues in honour of Ahn, including one where he's just portrayed as aiming his pistol at an unseen Hirobumi. And I've got photos of murals portraying him as a cute little cartoon character, also with gun in hand. (Imagine Cuba giving the same treatment to Lee Harvey Oswald!)
I once asked a Korean employer if she thought there was anything amiss about honoring an assassin, and she answered as if she thought my question was without logic.
So yeah. Depending on which relatively innocent individual you gun down, it's possible to get a pretty respectable place in posterity. So, nothing new under the sun.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Alternatively it's just making visible the violence already inherent in the system, albeit in a way that creeps you out as opposed to one that apparently doesn't or to which you've become innured.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Maybe some historical perspective will help calm your nerves.
Ito Hirobumi was the Japanese governor of Korea, assassinated in Harbin, China in, by a young Korean patriot named Ahn Jung-geun, in 1909.
Now, the assassination took place a year BEFORE the full annexation of the Korean protectorate, IOW Ahn's crime did nothing to prevent it. And Hirobumi was actually an anti-annexationist, agreeing only reluctantly to go along with his superiors, and, as far as the era goes, was almost certainly less of an imperialist than Teddy Roosevelt.
For its part, Japan considered Hirobumi respectable enough to keep on its currency until the mid-1980s.
But none of that has stopped Koreans from putting up multiple statues in honour of Ahn, including one where he's just portrayed as aiming his pistol at an unseen Hirobumi. And I've got photos of murals portraying him as a cute little cartoon character, also with gun in hand. (Imagine Cuba giving the same treatment to Lee Harvey Oswald!)
I once asked a Korean employer if she thought there was anything amiss about honoring an assassin, and she answered as if she thought my question was without logic.
So yeah. Depending on which relatively innocent individual you gun down, it's possible to get a pretty respectable place in posterity. So, nothing new under the sun.
The "just following orders" defence of an oppressor is not very convincing. Now, clearly Ahn's action was ineffective, but given the behaviour of Japan as an imperial power, one has to ask what should have been done to resist. It's not like Japan would have been amenable to peaceful protest or non-violent civil disobedience. Targeted assassination of very senior colonial officials seems like the least-worst form of violent resistance.
The profile of the (unpopular) target makes it an assassination (by folk hero; not terrorism), not the grandiose grudge motive by a privileged loner. JFK was hugely popular, so no folk heroism. LHO also had issues. As with Trump & Crooks, Reagan & Hinckley.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Maybe some historical perspective will help calm your nerves.
Ito Hirobumi was the Japanese governor of Korea, assassinated in Harbin, China in, by a young Korean patriot named Ahn Jung-geun, in 1909.
Now, the assassination took place a year BEFORE the full annexation of the Korean protectorate, IOW Ahn's crime did nothing to prevent it. And Hirobumi was actually an anti-annexationist, agreeing only reluctantly to go along with his superiors, and, as far as the era goes, was almost certainly less of an imperialist than Teddy Roosevelt.
For its part, Japan considered Hirobumi respectable enough to keep on its currency until the mid-1980s.
But none of that has stopped Koreans from putting up multiple statues in honour of Ahn, including one where he's just portrayed as aiming his pistol at an unseen Hirobumi. And I've got photos of murals portraying him as a cute little cartoon character, also with gun in hand. (Imagine Cuba giving the same treatment to Lee Harvey Oswald!)
I once asked a Korean employer if she thought there was anything amiss about honoring an assassin, and she answered as if she thought my question was without logic.
So yeah. Depending on which relatively innocent individual you gun down, it's possible to get a pretty respectable place in posterity. So, nothing new under the sun.
The "just following orders" defence of an oppressor is not very convincing. Now, clearly Ahn's action was ineffective, but given the behaviour of Japan as an imperial power, one has to ask what should have been done to resist. It's not like Japan would have been amenable to peaceful protest or non-violent civil disobedience. Targeted assassination of very senior colonial officials seems like the least-worst form of violent resistance.
That's a point. Though I'm not sure how much further I can go in comparing the two assassins(Ahn and the NYC shooter) without skirting the limits alluded to by @Doublethink in her recent post. Perhaps I'll ask in Styx.
I am happy to say I have not witnessed a terrorist attack up close. On the other hand, we had a school shooting at my university in 2008. A person came into a lecture hall (where I had been at one time or another both a student and a lecturer) and started shooting.One young man died standing in front of his girl friend to protect her. This whole event came as a huge shock to us, but by now it is hard to find in the lists of school shooting because only a handful of people died.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Alternatively it's just making visible the violence already inherent in the system, albeit in a way that creeps you out as opposed to one that apparently doesn't or to which you've become innured.
They’re actively supporting someone who committed murder, so I don’t think it’s “just” making something visible.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Maybe some historical perspective will help calm your nerves.
Ito Hirobumi was the Japanese governor of Korea, assassinated in Harbin, China in, by a young Korean patriot named Ahn Jung-geun, in 1909.
Now, the assassination took place a year BEFORE the full annexation of the Korean protectorate, IOW Ahn's crime did nothing to prevent it. And Hirobumi was actually an anti-annexationist, agreeing only reluctantly to go along with his superiors, and, as far as the era goes, was almost certainly less of an imperialist than Teddy Roosevelt.
For its part, Japan considered Hirobumi respectable enough to keep on its currency until the mid-1980s.
But none of that has stopped Koreans from putting up multiple statues in honour of Ahn, including one where he's just portrayed as aiming his pistol at an unseen Hirobumi. And I've got photos of murals portraying him as a cute little cartoon character, also with gun in hand. (Imagine Cuba giving the same treatment to Lee Harvey Oswald!)
I once asked a Korean employer if she thought there was anything amiss about honoring an assassin, and she answered as if she thought my question was without logic.
So yeah. Depending on which relatively innocent individual you gun down, it's possible to get a pretty respectable place in posterity. So, nothing new under the sun.
The "just following orders" defence of an oppressor is not very convincing. Now, clearly Ahn's action was ineffective, but given the behaviour of Japan as an imperial power, one has to ask what should have been done to resist. It's not like Japan would have been amenable to peaceful protest or non-violent civil disobedience. Targeted assassination of very senior colonial officials seems like the least-worst form of violent resistance.
That's a point. Though I'm not sure how much further I can go in comparing the two assassins(Ahn and the NYC shooter) without skirting the limits alluded to by @Doublethink in her recent post. Perhaps I'll ask in Styx.
Okay. Valid point that Hirobumi had, in fact, signed off on annexing the protectorate by the time he was shot. I'll still say that I think(as @Martin54 alludes) popularity and realpolitik come into play in deciding which assassins it's okay to honour, and which ones it's not.
From the POV of an Irish independence activist, Queen Victoria would probably have been as valid a target as Ito Hirobumi was to Ahn Jung-geun. But I can't see the Irish government putting up a statue of Arthur O'Connor, the independence fighter who tried to kill Victoria in 1872(*), if only because the British currently hold Victoria in higher regard than the Japanese hold Hirobumi.
Old-school perp walk in NYC. Seeming overkill on the number of cops, but at least one commentator said that was done to prevent rescue attempts.
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Alternatively it's just making visible the violence already inherent in the system, albeit in a way that creeps you out as opposed to one that apparently doesn't or to which you've become innured.
They’re actively supporting someone who committed murder, so I don’t think it’s “just” making something visible.
Well, then, let's say that Mangione was actively doing to an insurance exec what insurance execs have passively been doing to their unfortunate customers for decades now?
Not saying I neccessarily agree with that equivalency(see my much earlier point about Americans evidently WANTING a for-profit system), but I think it might be what @chrisstiles was getting at.
Stetson wrote: Well, then, let's say that Mangione was actively doing to an insurance exec what insurance execs have passively been doing to their unfortunate customers for decades now?
Caissa opined: I think there is a moral equivalency.
Stetson wrote: Well, then, let's say that Mangione was actively doing to an insurance exec what insurance execs have passively been doing to their unfortunate customers for decades now?
Caissa opined: I think there is a moral equivalency.
Well, my point was that, going by election results, it seems pretty clear to me that most Americans WANT health-insurance to be run predominantly as a for-profit enterprise. So, that means that anyone going into the business is gonna try and make a profit, and the way they do that is by maximizing sales of their policies, while minimizing payouts. If Americans don't like that, they should have demanded a different kind of health-care system a long time ago.
Well, what would you think about someone in Belfast 1979 who cheered on the murder of Lord Mountbatten, but voted Conservative, because there's more than one issue at stake, and he doesn't neccessarily prioritize republicanism?
I mean, maybe he's got a bunch of other issues more important to him than the one that he thinks justifies murder?
Well, then, let's say that Mangione was actively doing to an insurance exec what insurance execs have passively been doing to their unfortunate customers for decades now?
Not saying I neccessarily agree with that equivalency(see my much earlier point about Americans evidently WANTING a for-profit system), but I think it might be what @chrisstiles was getting at.
Right, and sentiments of interest belong to those expressing support for this action (and I suspect the polling may if anything be underestimating the level of popular support, because it seems likely that some would be less willing to be vocal about it).
A parallel I was reminded of was Hobspawm's idea of 'social banditry', where in his reading popular support usually indicated a lack of political avenues for change (rather than a ringing endorsement of the actions themselves).
Well, my point was that, going by election results, it seems pretty clear to me that most Americans WANT health-insurance to be run predominantly as a for-profit enterprise.
Republicans have been poisoning Americans' faith and confidence in the government for more than 40 years, and Democrats have in that time only pulled their collective thumb out of their collective ass on a few occasions to show what well-run government might be capable of doing, so it's more accurate to say that many Americans don't trust the government to administer healthcare insurance. Except of course when they are old enough for Medicare, they all promptly sign up for it and for the most part really like it.
Your jermiads of impending barbarism only started after the second.
Like, seriously, what’s the point of this comment? When someone guns someone down in the street, and people start cheering this on, why would someone not be worried about impending barbarism? Especially after events in this country like January 6?
Your jermiads of impending barbarism only started after the second.
… so?
Well, again, assuming, as @chrisstiles does(and you seem to accept), an equivalency between murder via coverage-denial and murder via gun, why did you only start complaining about the impending barbarism after the one gun murder?
Is, I think, where @chrisstiles was going with his point. (Again, I'm undecided about the equivalency myself.)
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
So, if there's no Heaven or Hell, only Purgatory, and gunning down a law-abiding health-care exec will get you X years in Purgatory, what percentage of X will the health-exec get for using the types of questionable but legal methods employed by Brian Thompson to minimize payouts?
By the way, anybody see Colin Jost's interaction with the audience after saying Luigi's name on SNL? I've seen both criticism that assumes he was seriously chastising them, and criticism that assumes he was going along with the fun.
And, while no section of the political establishment is really grooving with the issue particularly well, right-wingers are proving themselves particularly inept. No one is interpreting this as a pro-cop melodrama with Thompson as the loving suburban dad gunned down by a sociopathic street thug on his way to work.
And there's no effing way they're gonna spin his literary and social media footprint as Democratic in orientation. Sure, he's got AOC and the left-coded Unabomber in there, but a lot of other people from across the spectrum, including the right.
In other news...
I've seen Mangione's defense-lawyer praised for her early performance in court, which IIRC correctly, included a rather hard-nosed bashing of the perp walk. And quite a few people mocking the quartet of cops surrounding the defendant.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
So, if there's no Heaven or Hell, only Purgatory, and gunning down a law-abiding health-care exec will get you X years in Purgatory, what percentage of X will the health-exec get for using the types of questionable but legal methods employed by Brian Thompson to minimize payouts?
I don’t know. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Where he ultimately winds up is between him and God.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
Is this a personal attack? Or are you accusing someone else of sophistry?
I think he means the AI uses sophistry to decide which claims to deny.
Oh, my apologies, @chrisstiles. No, I’m not okay with any of this.
And do you believe there to be an absolute moral equivalency between, on the one hand, using that AI to deny claims, and, on the other, gunning down a law-abiding citizen?
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
So, if there's no Heaven or Hell, only Purgatory, and gunning down a law-abiding health-care exec will get you X years in Purgatory, what percentage of X will the health-exec get for using the types of questionable but legal methods employed by Brian Thompson to minimize payouts?
I don’t know. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Where he ultimately winds up is between him and God.
I know. I'm asking you to imagine a scenario where there is ONLY Purgatory, and YOU have the godly power to decide how long everyone spends there.
(Though so as not to an annihilationist, you can assume that after Purgatory, everyone goes to Heaven. Or, I can just refer you to my question above.)
Do you believe there to be an absolute moral equivalency between, on the one hand, using that AI to deny claims, and, on the other, gunning down a law-abiding citizen?
I've seen Mangione's defense-lawyer praised for her early performance in court, which IIRC correctly, included a rather hard-nosed bashing of the perp walk. And quite a few people mocking the quartet of cops surrounding the defendant.
And she tore into NYC Mayor Eric Adams, for positioning himself in the photo op and not including the word "allegedly" when he gave a press conference saying why he did so. When there is such concerted effort to convict someone in the court of public opinion, I wonder what the eventual jurors know about jury nullification.
I've seen Mangione's defense-lawyer praised for her early performance in court, which IIRC correctly, included a rather hard-nosed bashing of the perp walk. And quite a few people mocking the quartet of cops surrounding the defendant.
And she tore into NYC Mayor Eric Adams, for positioning himself in the photo op and not including the word "allegedly" when he gave a press conference saying why he did so.
Yeah, I had either missed the dig at Adams, or had forgotten about it, when I wrote my little summation above.
This is definitely dragging a lotta people from a lotta different sections of government into the fray.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
Is this a personal attack? Or are you accusing someone else of sophistry?
I think he means the AI uses sophistry to decide which claims to deny.
Oh, my apologies, @chrisstiles. No, I’m not okay with any of this.
And do you believe there to be an absolute moral equivalency between, on the one hand, using that AI to deny claims, and, on the other, gunning down a law-abiding citizen?
I didn’t say that I thought there was anything of the kind—just that two wrongs don’t make a right.
I didn’t say that I believed in the equivalency of those two things. Just that two wrongs don’t make a right. There can be all different levels and kinds of wrongness.
So, if there's no Heaven or Hell, only Purgatory, and gunning down a law-abiding health-care exec will get you X years in Purgatory, what percentage of X will the health-exec get for using the types of questionable but legal methods employed by Brian Thompson to minimize payouts?
I don’t know. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Where he ultimately winds up is between him and God.
I know. I'm asking you to imagine a scenario where there is ONLY Purgatory, and YOU have the godly power to decide how long everyone spends there.
(Though so as not to an annihilationist, you can assume that after Purgatory, everyone goes to Heaven. Or, I can just refer you to my question above.)
Good thing I don’t have the power or responsibility of God. All of that is between God and each one of us, and I think it has more to do with the state of our souls rather than the severity of our individual acts of sin. Some people who are terrible sinners may repent and be redeemed more easily than people who seem to be more decent. That’s the sort of thing we’re going to find out once we get there, especially about ourselves.
Do you believe there to be an absolute moral equivalency between, on the one hand, using that AI to deny claims, and, on the other, gunning down a law-abiding citizen?
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But that's usually the way terrorism operates; creating terror in the general population (or some subsection of it) as a lever to force policy change. 9/11 was also targeted at private actors but very few would claim it wasn't an act of terrorism.
Isorni-like defences aside, you are assuming motivation based on an outcome. I don't think we are going to agree.
No, we probably won’t, just based on prior discussions about justice on this thread. But such is life.
(After looking him up, I’ve got no idea how Jacques Isorni relates to this.)
I see what you mean about 9/11. Though two of the targets WERE public-sector(the Pentagon and the aspirational White House attack), and that, combined with the fact that the WTC doesn't symbolize any one corporation, but rather American capitalism generally, could lead one to conclude that the overall statement was against the US political-government system.
(But the necessity for this kinda disentangling is one reason why I think "terrorism" is pretty much bullshit as a legal concept.)
Point of information. Ryan Roof, the Charleston shooter, was federally charged with 33 hate crimes and murders in Federal court. He was sentenced to death. (There might be a possibility that Biden will grant clemency for all those who have been sentenced to death for federal crimes).
I'm not sure how to interpret this.
A. "I've seen a terrorist attack, so I know what they're like, and let me tell you, this NYC shooting sure doesn't qualify."
B. "I've seen a terrorist attack, so I know what they're like, and let me tell you, this NYC sure qualifies."
C. ????
Gotta say, from everything I've been seeing, that perp walk really backfired. I've lost track of the number of dashing DC supervillains I've seen I've seen invoked in descriptions of Mangione's appearance among his nemeses.
Ya know the ineptly authoritarian teacher who tries to turn the whole class against the recalcitrant cool-kid, and just gets laughed at himself and fails miserably? That's kinda how the authorities and their media allies are coming off if their campaign to put the kibosh on the popular murder cult that's got itself going.
That’s worrisome.
Well, if it's any reassurance, so far, there haven't been any copycats, and the one civilian we know of who was in a pivotal position, the fast-food worker, sided with the authorities.
So, seems like it might mostly be just a cathartic scream from a fed-up American public, with a slight, and by no means unprecedented, overlay of killer-chic.
I hope so. I’ve seen people write whole treatises on Facebook suggesting that they genuinely support the murder. (I’ve basically quietly unfriended people who post things like that.) It creeps me out and makes me worry about what we might get down the line.
Maybe some historical perspective will help calm your nerves.
Ito Hirobumi was the Japanese governor of Korea, assassinated in Harbin, China in, by a young Korean patriot named Ahn Jung-geun, in 1909.
Now, the assassination took place a year BEFORE the full annexation of the Korean protectorate, IOW Ahn's crime did nothing to prevent it. And Hirobumi was actually an anti-annexationist, agreeing only reluctantly to go along with his superiors, and, as far as the era goes, was almost certainly less of an imperialist than Teddy Roosevelt.
For its part, Japan considered Hirobumi respectable enough to keep on its currency until the mid-1980s.
But none of that has stopped Koreans from putting up multiple statues in honour of Ahn, including one where he's just portrayed as aiming his pistol at an unseen Hirobumi. And I've got photos of murals portraying him as a cute little cartoon character, also with gun in hand. (Imagine Cuba giving the same treatment to Lee Harvey Oswald!)
I once asked a Korean employer if she thought there was anything amiss about honoring an assassin, and she answered as if she thought my question was without logic.
So yeah. Depending on which relatively innocent individual you gun down, it's possible to get a pretty respectable place in posterity. So, nothing new under the sun.
Alternatively it's just making visible the violence already inherent in the system, albeit in a way that creeps you out as opposed to one that apparently doesn't or to which you've become innured.
The "just following orders" defence of an oppressor is not very convincing. Now, clearly Ahn's action was ineffective, but given the behaviour of Japan as an imperial power, one has to ask what should have been done to resist. It's not like Japan would have been amenable to peaceful protest or non-violent civil disobedience. Targeted assassination of very senior colonial officials seems like the least-worst form of violent resistance.
That's a point. Though I'm not sure how much further I can go in comparing the two assassins(Ahn and the NYC shooter) without skirting the limits alluded to by @Doublethink in her recent post. Perhaps I'll ask in Styx.
They’re actively supporting someone who committed murder, so I don’t think it’s “just” making something visible.
Okay. Valid point that Hirobumi had, in fact, signed off on annexing the protectorate by the time he was shot. I'll still say that I think(as @Martin54 alludes) popularity and realpolitik come into play in deciding which assassins it's okay to honour, and which ones it's not.
From the POV of an Irish independence activist, Queen Victoria would probably have been as valid a target as Ito Hirobumi was to Ahn Jung-geun. But I can't see the Irish government putting up a statue of Arthur O'Connor, the independence fighter who tried to kill Victoria in 1872(*), if only because the British currently hold Victoria in higher regard than the Japanese hold Hirobumi.
(*) Open to correction if there is one.
Well, then, let's say that Mangione was actively doing to an insurance exec what insurance execs have passively been doing to their unfortunate customers for decades now?
Not saying I neccessarily agree with that equivalency(see my much earlier point about Americans evidently WANTING a for-profit system), but I think it might be what @chrisstiles was getting at.
Caissa opined: I think there is a moral equivalency.
Well, my point was that, going by election results, it seems pretty clear to me that most Americans WANT health-insurance to be run predominantly as a for-profit enterprise. So, that means that anyone going into the business is gonna try and make a profit, and the way they do that is by maximizing sales of their policies, while minimizing payouts. If Americans don't like that, they should have demanded a different kind of health-care system a long time ago.
Well, what would you think about someone in Belfast 1979 who cheered on the murder of Lord Mountbatten, but voted Conservative, because there's more than one issue at stake, and he doesn't neccessarily prioritize republicanism?
I mean, maybe he's got a bunch of other issues more important to him than the one that he thinks justifies murder?
I'd probably assume that Booth, in his day, was second, with everyone else tied for a distant third.
Right, and sentiments of interest belong to those expressing support for this action (and I suspect the polling may if anything be underestimating the level of popular support, because it seems likely that some would be less willing to be vocal about it).
A parallel I was reminded of was Hobspawm's idea of 'social banditry', where in his reading popular support usually indicated a lack of political avenues for change (rather than a ringing endorsement of the actions themselves).
Your jermiads of impending barbarism only started after the second.
Republicans have been poisoning Americans' faith and confidence in the government for more than 40 years, and Democrats have in that time only pulled their collective thumb out of their collective ass on a few occasions to show what well-run government might be capable of doing, so it's more accurate to say that many Americans don't trust the government to administer healthcare insurance. Except of course when they are old enough for Medicare, they all promptly sign up for it and for the most part really like it.
… so?
Like, seriously, what’s the point of this comment? When someone guns someone down in the street, and people start cheering this on, why would someone not be worried about impending barbarism? Especially after events in this country like January 6?
Well, again, assuming, as @chrisstiles does(and you seem to accept), an equivalency between murder via coverage-denial and murder via gun, why did you only start complaining about the impending barbarism after the one gun murder?
Is, I think, where @chrisstiles was going with his point. (Again, I'm undecided about the equivalency myself.)
So you were fine as long as sophistry was the killer? https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/12/18/unitedhealth-ai-insurance-claims-healthcare
So, if there's no Heaven or Hell, only Purgatory, and gunning down a law-abiding health-care exec will get you X years in Purgatory, what percentage of X will the health-exec get for using the types of questionable but legal methods employed by Brian Thompson to minimize payouts?
And, while no section of the political establishment is really grooving with the issue particularly well, right-wingers are proving themselves particularly inept. No one is interpreting this as a pro-cop melodrama with Thompson as the loving suburban dad gunned down by a sociopathic street thug on his way to work.
And there's no effing way they're gonna spin his literary and social media footprint as Democratic in orientation. Sure, he's got AOC and the left-coded Unabomber in there, but a lot of other people from across the spectrum, including the right.
In other news...
I've seen Mangione's defense-lawyer praised for her early performance in court, which IIRC correctly, included a rather hard-nosed bashing of the perp walk. And quite a few people mocking the quartet of cops surrounding the defendant.
Is this a personal attack? Or are you accusing someone else of sophistry?
I don’t know. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Where he ultimately winds up is between him and God.
I think he means the AI uses sophistry in deciding which claims to deny.
Oh, my apologies, @chrisstiles. No, I’m not okay with any of this.
And do you believe there to be an absolute moral equivalency between, on the one hand, using that AI to deny claims, and, on the other, gunning down a law-abiding citizen?
I know. I'm asking you to imagine a scenario where there is ONLY Purgatory, and YOU have the godly power to decide how long everyone spends there.
(Though so as not to an annihilationist, you can assume that after Purgatory, everyone goes to Heaven. Or, I can just refer you to my question above.)
Yeah, I had either missed the dig at Adams, or had forgotten about it, when I wrote my little summation above.
This is definitely dragging a lotta people from a lotta different sections of government into the fray.
Or maybe they're pushing themselves in?
I didn’t say that I thought there was anything of the kind—just that two wrongs don’t make a right.
Good thing I don’t have the power or responsibility of God. All of that is between God and each one of us, and I think it has more to do with the state of our souls rather than the severity of our individual acts of sin. Some people who are terrible sinners may repent and be redeemed more easily than people who seem to be more decent. That’s the sort of thing we’re going to find out once we get there, especially about ourselves.
See above.