Quora: Is Luigi Mangione, who shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a hero or villain?
I [posted this Answer:The fact that this question is even posed is an indication of how close to moral rock bottom many people have sunk—and how much of the evil poison of Marxism has moved out of the University Ivory Tower and penetrated into American culture. It also raises the suspicion that America is in much graver danger than previously thought.
Any discussion of the pros and cons of American healthcare in the context of Thompson’s murder would be to effectively endorse violence, including assassination and terrorism, as a means of settling disputes among citizens. This is not only a moral abomination. It is a repudiation of freedom itself—the Enlightenment values of individualism, rule of objective law, economic, political, and intellectual freedom—and the inalienable rights that define that freedom. In other words, a repudiation of the United States of America.
The Founders and their generation wrote a Constitution that creates the broadest possible field for settling disputes among its citizens, or between citizens and the government, peacefully and lawfully. Indeed, among the five freedoms listed in the most important amendment, the First Amendment, includes the right of the people “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” This indicates the critical importance the Founders attached to the peaceful settling of grievances and differences. To ensure this right, the freedoms of speech and assembly are backed up with Constitutionally guaranteed equal protection of the laws, a civil court system, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures and other property rights protections, a right to be represented by an attorney, free trade, and enforcement of the sanctity of contracts.
The framers understood that civil society cannot exist without the ability to settle disputes peacefully and satisfactorily, and thus without violence—and that violence can only be averted by offering citizens a robust means of peaceful dispute resolution. Think of how common it is for activist groups to organize in order to advocate for and against any issue. Exercising freedom of speech and assembly, activist groups seemingly spring up like weeds around every issue. Show me an even minimally controversial issue, and you will find activist groups fighting peacefully on the intellectual and political battlegrounds of ideas. For example, when the city council of Paterson, NJ, considered (and ultimately passed) an ordinance to “ban sleeping or setting up camps in public places” that block public access, which was inspired by the problems caused by homeless encampments, homeless advocates jumped to oppose the ordinance.
It’s not just that some people are celebrating the killing of Brian thompson. Those people are obviously monsters. There are always monsters. What’s so shocking is the apparently large number of people who are giving moral support to these cold-blooded monsters by simultaneously condemning the killing and in the same breath qualifying that condemnation with a “but . . .,” such as “but I can understand the frustration” or some variation. These people are effectively condoning the assassination of an innocent hardworking man through equivocation. The “It’s wrong, but . . .” equivocation is essentially saying that killing an individual who symbolizes some flaw in American healthcare is OK under some circumstances. Worse, this line of logic implies an endorsement of the broader idea that assassination can be a legitimate reaction of ANYONE with ANY grievance against ANY American institution. Equivocators, how do you think some would-be copycat assassin will interpret your “murder is wrong, but …” moral abomination? Likely, as a green light. I have a major grievance against the government’s K-12 education monopoly. If I took to shooting a random school superintendent or school board president as a symbol of my grievance, would the equivocators “understand” my “frustration?” If not, why not? Your feelings? Your opinions? Well, what about others’ feelings and opinions over other grievances? You’ve opened the door to violence as a legitimate means of expression. What limiting principle would prohibit my education assassination, or assassination relating to some other grievance over some other issue, once you’ve opened a “safe space” for political assassination, via the Luigi Mangione?
The CEO assassination has apparently drawn a bright moral line across America. One side represents the moral good, and the other the moral evil. The good side is where the people who firmly condemn this cold-blooded, premeditated assassination stand.
The other side—the evil side—is where the monsters who cheer stand, obviously. But it’s also the same side where the “It’s wrong, but . . .” equivocators stand. Of these two, the equivocators are the most morally guilty. Why? These are typically otherwise decent people who unwittingly give moral cover to the monsters. Nonetheless, they cannot be excused. Evil thrives when good people give it moral sanction. And sanction for evil is exactly what the equivocators give to the monsters.
We Americans love political, economic, and cultural debates, especially controversial—even rowdy—ones. But there is a line around debate that should NEVER be crossed or even blurred—the line where violence begins.
Of the two groups on the side of evil, the guiltiest ones are not the monsters. The guiltiest ones are the “it’s wrong, but” equivocators. It is they who are paving the way for the monsters, because it is they who are giving violence an opening into America’s robust, Constitutionally protected system of peaceful grievance alleviation and dispute resolution.
Those who now sanction the political assassination of Brian Thompson, a good, decent, talented CEO with a family who heroically chose to bear the responsibility and heavy burden of running a great American insurance company, are turning their backs on Americanism and civilization and pointing us back to barbarism. By the standard of the politics of assassinstion, there is now a pathway—a safe space—for any individual or group with any grievance against any American institution to engage in terrorist murders of whomever they see as symbolizing that institution.
Related Reading:
CEO Assassination Draws a Bright Moral Line Across American Culture
Against ‘But …’ by Jonah Goldberg
An Astonishing Level of Dehumanization By Peter Wehner: There is no defense of those who celebrated the murder of Brian Thompson.
Elizabeth Warren, CEO-Assassin Cheerleader by Liz Wolfe for Reason
The CEO killing is awakening the ‘yes, but ...’ brigade by Megan McArdle for WAPO
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