CEO Assassination Draws a Bright Moral Line Across American Culture

The shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson stunned me. But the general reaction to the shooting absolutely shocked me almost beyond belief. Instead of unequivocal universal condemnation, equivocation seems to be the dominant reaction. The murder is said to have “triggered” a debate on America’s healthcare system, implying that maybe the probable shooter, Luigi Mangione, had on some level a justification or did us a favor by highlighting some flaw in American healthcare. CNBC, which should know better, actually exploited the shooting by airing a segment on healthcare.

I’ve had people say to me things like “I’m not saying it’s right, but I understand his frustration. Our healthcare is out of control.” This is to say, “It’s not right, but it’s right.” In a statement of that sort, the words before the “but” are repudiated by what follows.  

This is shocking and sickening to me. And it’s not just regular people. A sitting U.S. Senator, Elizabeth Warren, essentially justified the murder in the same vein, saying “The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system. Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far." Translation: “Violence is not justified, unless you are pushed too far.”

Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch emphasized what I’m saying in an excellent piece. In Against ‘But …’ Goldberg writes:

There’s an old idea, most recently popularized by Game of Thrones, that says “Everything before the word ‘but’ is bullsh-t.”

“I really like Todd, but … ”

“I don’t believe in censorship, but …  ”

“I’m not gay, but … ”

The idea that everything after the “but” is BS in the case of Luigi Mangione is both true and false simultaneously. The people saying, “Murder is wrong but …” feel the need to say the right or responsible thing, but what they really desire is to talk about how the murderer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thomposon had a point. “Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren insists. (In fairness, she backtracked, a bit,  after people accurately interpreted her statement.) 

My point here is that murder is wrong and everything after the “but” is BS. I’m not saying that the complaints about health insurance companies in general or UnitedHealth in particular are entirely untrue or unfounded. I’m saying that the conversation people want to have after the but is appalling and grotesque. 

The people who think Brian Thompson had it coming because some people are angry about their health care are in profound moral error. The . . . “murder is wrong, but …” . . . mob whisperers . . . are rationalizing [the] profound moral error.

Here is my Facebook Statement:

Jonah Goldberg is the first public intellectual I have come across who has strongly validated my thoughts regarding the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione (allegedly, I suppose I should say).

The murder—in fact, assassination—of the health insurance CEO has triggered a “debate” on America’s healthcare system. This is utterly shocking! It is an indication of how the morals of America’s culture has sunk. One would think that any debate over some flaw in healthcare would end at the line that (should) separate legitimate debate from cold-blooded violence, especially murder.

It’s not just that some people are celebrating the killing. 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 a strong enough 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.

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. 

The other side—the evil side—is where the monsters who cheer are, 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. 

Count me on the side of moral good. There is no place in America for the politics of assassination. No political or economic grievance justifies it. We have freedom of speech to settle those.

Related Reading:

Elizabeth Warren, CEO-Assassin Cheerleader by Liz Wolfe for Reason

The CEO killing is awakening the ‘yes, but ...’ brigade by Megan McArdle for WAPO

AOC's Justifications of Violence by Liz Wolfe for Reason

Contra Hugh Hewitt, America Does have a Shared Morality

In a Washington Post op-ed, Hugh Hewitt asks “Without shared moral values, how can we call Putin evil?” After listing a litany of Putin’s war crimes, Hewitt asks:

In an increasingly secular age, where can we ground the moral consciousness that supports the value judgment “evil”? More and more Americans find appeals to Judeo-Christian teaching unpersuasive.

Does Hewitt mean Judeo-Christian teachings like “love your enemy?” Unconditional forgiveness? “Turn the other cheek?” Grant love, forgiveness, and cheek-turning to a monster like Putin? No thanks. 

Hewitt obviously clings to the religious dogma that morality comes from a supernatural realm. That belief therefore blinds him to the true source of the shared moral consciousness upon which we, as Americans, can support the value judgment of Putin as “evil.”

America does in fact have a unifying morality—the revolutionary morality strongly implicit in its Founding ideals. It’s best implied in the nation’s originating legal document, the Declaration of Independence—the equal, inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The social application of each individual’s right to the freedom to pursue one’s own personal happiness is best summed up by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration. In a letter, Jefferson explained 

Liberty then I would say that, in the whole plenitude of it’s extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will: but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.

This conception of liberty is derived from the Enlightenment philosophers, led by John Locke, the Founders’ most consulted philosopher. Locke and Jefferson established the right of the individual to actively pursue his own happiness in any way he deems appropriate so long as he respects the same right of all others. 

This is a deeply pro-egoistic moral principle. It is also the moral code that underpins the Natural Rights principle that the United States of America is built on. Indeed, the pursuit of happiness is America. It is an individualistic morality. There is no America without it.  It is a moral code derived scientifically from the study of man’s nature. This idea does have connection to Judeo-Christian teaching, Natural Law Theology. But that is an Enlightenment-inspired ideal. It is not a morality that rests upon or needs any religion. Regardless of whether or not one believes in a Godly origin of nature, it is an objective natural, not subjectives mystical, morality. If we’re looking to nature to inform our conception of morality, then the truths of the Declaration of Independence can just as easily stand even if all references to God, a Creator, and divine Providence are stripped from that document. The same goes for Christianity’s individualist orientation. Individual rights can be explained independently of the Christian version of individualism, the unique soul of every person, by reference to natural law.

For a long time, that uniquely American egoistic moral code was largely implicit in American ideals. On this point, America clashes with the Christian ethics in the most profound way. The pursuit of happiness simply does not jibe with the ethics of altruism and self-sacrifice at the core of Christian ethics. It would take until the 20th Century for a philosopher to explicitly identify and explain America’s moral code. The moral code implicit in these ideals was best identified and justified by the American philosopher Ayn Rand as “rational self-interest.” Rand explained the moral right to make the most of your own life, so long as you respect the same moral rights of all others, and proved it with reference to facts of reality. The Founders told us we have the political right. Rand told us we have the moral right. The American Revolution was completed.

Contra Hugh Hewitt, America does have a unifying moral code, and always has. It’s true that it seems to have been lost or abandoned by a large segment of America. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You won’t find (or rediscover) it in Judeo-Christian teaching. You will find it in our own Declaration of Independence. And the moral values embedded in that document is the basis of judging Vladimir Putin and any other collectivist monster. Putin is systematically denying countless Ukrainian and Russian people their rightful liberties to pursue their own happiness as they see fit. That is the basis for declaring Putin to be evil.  

Related Reading:

America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson

Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness

The Mount Vernon Statement - Conservatism's Unilateral Moral Surrender

Where does Morality Come From?

The Roots of Morality: Primordial "Intuition" or Human Nature?

Contra the NY Times, a SCOTUS Case Does Not ‘Pit Gay Rights Against Religion’

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which a merchant’s refusal to service a gay wedding against Colorado’s law forbidding business from discriminating against people based on sexual orientation. As the New York Times reported,

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Monday [12/5/22] in a First Amendment battle pitting claims of religious freedom against laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

A web designer in Colorado, Lorie Smith, said she was happy to create graphics and websites for anyone, including L.G.B.T.Q. people. But her Christian faith, she said, did not allow her to create messages celebrating same-sex marriages. A state law forbids this kind of discrimination.

According to the New York Times, this is a Case Pitting Gay Rights Against Religion. 

But it is no such thing. The web designer, Lorie Smith, has the fundamental right to live by her own conscientious convictions, just as the gay couple does by marrying each other. The gay couple, however, does not have the right to force Smith to service their wedding against her will. 

So, there is no conflict of rights. Smith is violating no one’s rights. She does not have the power to prevent the wedding, or to prevent the gay couple from getting the service from another designer, or doing it themselves (if they are capable), or, for that matter, of having the wedding ceremony.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor, the Times reports, objected that the same premises would, “in essence . . . enable discrimination of all kinds. So there is no line on race, there is no line on disability, ethnicity, none of the protected categories,” Sotomayor observed. In essence, she’s right. But such discrimination, though morally despicable, would be a private matter between free individuals. Discrimination should only be banned for the government in the execution of its laws and policies. It is not up to the government to legally bar private discrimination. That is up to private individuals acting in their capacity as members of the culture. Social pressure, such as public shaming through free speech and press, marginalization, isolation, and boycotts of the offending enterprise, or simply ignoring the discriminator is the way irrational, immoral discrimination  is opposed and minimized. America could never have been racially segregated without government force, in the form of Jim Crow laws. Culture alone could not do it. Indeed, racists turned to law to enforce segregation in the South because they couldn’t impose it privately and voluntarily. This is not to say racism didn't exist. It is to say racism doesn't have the power without government force. It is no accident that the color barrier in major league baseball was broken in the North, by private individuals from both the National and American leagues: There were no Jim Crow laws to forbid it.

Personally, I think Smith’s action is despicable. Ancient religious dogma is no justification for bigotry. And yes, a SCOTUS decision in Smith’s favor could have ramifications far beyond this case, involving all laws infringing the private right to discriminate. Forcing business owners to serve customers it chooses not to is involuntary servitude, a form of soft slavery. The 13th Amendment explicitly outlaws such servitude, as it should—regardless of how that Amendment has been miss-interpreted and/or ignored to justify the outlawing of private discrimination.

To be sure, Smith’s lawyers have narrowly defined her case as one of freedom of speech. The Times explains:

At the heart of the case the Supreme Court is hearing on Monday is a First Amendment principle that the government cannot force people to express ideas against their will, and how it applies to a website maker who wants to be able to sell wedding site services to heterosexual couples but not same-sex couples — despite a Colorado anti-discrimination law.

Under what is known as the compelled speech doctrine, the First Amendment’s free speech protections extend beyond generally keeping the government from suppressing people from saying what they want: It also generally bars the government from compelling people to express things they do not want to say.

That the First Amendment supports the ban on compelled speech is certainly of monumental importance. But the broader principles behind Smith’s case go beyond religion and free speech.. Why should only religious objections be considered? Religion has no monopoly on moral values. More broadly, freedom of association, also explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment—and the related freedom of contract—is clearly at stake here, as much as freedom of religion/conscience and speech.

There is a lot at stake in this case, and it will be interesting to see how the Conservative-dominated court decides and, more crucially, its reasoning. But one thing is certain: The case does not involve any conflict of rights. The solution is the consistent, equal application and protection of the individual rights of all. Thomas Jefferson eloquently identified the heart of the rights issue: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."

Offensive? Definitely. Outrageous? Absolutely. But Lorie Smith is neither picking anyone’s pocket nor breaking anyone’s leg. Put another way, she is initiating neither fraud nor force against gay couples. The gay couple incurs no injury for Smith not agreeing to providing the service they requested. Indeed, the shoe is on the other foot: It is they, and the anti-discrimination law in question, are the one's who want to inflict injury on Smith, violating her rights. *

Jefferson uttered those words in the context of defending religious liberty rights. But the principle applies to all fundamental inalienable rights. Gay rights are not at issue here. Gay rights were at the heart of the fight to overturn laws banning gay marriage. There is no gay “right” to force involuntary servitude on a web designer, or anyone else.

* [It should be noted that the gay couple is hypothetical. Smith has not actually launched her business yet, CATO reports, and has not actually refused to service any gay wedding.]

Related News Coverage, presented only as an FYI:

Supreme Court seems to side with web designer opposed to same-sex marriage by Robert Barnes for The Washington Post, 12/5/22

Web designer’s case may impact same-sex marriage itself by Taylor Jung for NJ Spotlight News --[This headline is highly misleading, to put it mildly. Whatever the ruling, the case will not impact the institution of same-sex marriage in any way.]

Supreme Court Debates Whether Web Designers Can Be Forced To Make Gay Wedding Pages by Scott Shackford for Reason

Related Reading:

Freedom, not Laws, is the Answer to Defeating Bigotry

Individual Rights is the Solution to the Gay Marriage Conflict

Gay Marriage, Freedom of Association, and Equal Protection of the Law

Does rescinding laws banning private discrimination make a moral statement in support of bigotry?

Gay Marriage: The Right to Voluntary Contract, Not to Coercive “Contract” by me for The Objective Standard

'Religious Freedom Restoration' Laws and Tim Cook's Misunderstanding of America's Founding Principles

The False Alternative of Religious Rights vs. Gay Rights—Michael J. Hurd

‘Bigotry Motivated by Religion is Still Bigotry’—True, but Still an Individual Right

Court Violates Cake Baker’s Right Not to Serve Gay Weddings—Ari Armstrong for The Objective Standard

Arizona Governor's "Religious Freedom" Veto Was the Right Move

Two Views on Religious Exemptions from Anti-Discrimination Laws

Kim Davis vs. Liberty Ridge Farm

Title 2: Government vs. Private Action

Court Should Strike Down Compelled Speech In Website Design Case by Walter Olson for CATO

Conservatives’ Christianization of Christmas and the Left’s Multiculturalism Are Both Un-American

David Greenberg of Rutgers posted a guest editorial in the New Jersey Star-Ledger just before Christmas 2017 lamenting the battle over holiday greetings. He writes, in part, in an article titled ‘“How Christmas Became a Political Hot Potato” published in the print edition [but not, to my knowledge, online] on December 23:

The holiday season is here again, and as a break from arguing about sexual harassment, we can all look forward to a lovely spell of denouncing and unfriending one another over which holiday greetings to use.

With Donald Trump as president, we can be sure that no cultural scab will go unpicked. After all, among his many pioneering achievements, Trump is our first president to win the White House— at least in part — on a pledge to roll back the freedom to say “Happy Holidays.”

“I’m a good Christian,” he insisted on the campaign trail. “If I become president, we’re gonna be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ at every store. ... You can leave ‘Happy holidays’ at the corner.”

How on Earth did such an innocent gesture become so politically charged?

Of course, the Christian Right has been railing about “Happy Holidays” for a long time. It’s part of their campaign to fight an imagined “War on Christmas” and to lecture us to “keep Christ in Christmas.” But Greenberg makes the point that valid point Christmas has become increasingly secular:

The secular consensus gained strength in the 1960s and ’70s, as the Supreme Court ruled prayer in public schools to be unconstitutional and otherwise reinforced the traditional wall between church and state.

As recently as a few years ago, Trump bade his fellow Americans “a wonderful holiday” and “happy holiday season” — precisely the sort of inclusive messaging that he would assail as a candidate. 

This is true. I would add that, since Christmas was made a legal holiday by both the Federal and state Governments, it is by definition a secular holiday. How can a religious holiday be a legal holiday in a nation dedicated to the separation of religion and state? It can’t—not without violating the constitutional protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience. This issue went before U.S. District Court in Ganulin v. United States, in which the Court ruled that the recognition of Christmas as a legal holiday for purposes of a paid day off did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because “the Christmas holiday has become largely secularized” and that the government was “doing no more than recognizing the cultural significance of the holiday.” The attempt by any political leader to Christianize Christmas is therefor un-American. People are free to celebrate the Christmas season in any way they like, with or without Christ, with or without religion, and with or without the greeting “Merry Christmas”. That’s America.

But the Left’s “solution” to the Christian Right’s pushback against “Happy Holidays” is at least as bad, if not worse. Greenberg goes on:

As the Republican Party adopted a right-wing populism on cultural issues, it was only a matter of time before this delicate balance was upset. The country grew polarized.

Democrats championed multiculturalism and drew on their civil libertarian bona fides to paint themselves as the natural home for Muslims, Hindus and members of other religions whose ranks were swelling. On the right, Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson led evangelicals into the political fray, forming a bedrock of a new GOP coalition.

Multiculturalism is a rejection of American culture, which is rooted in individualism. 

More precisely, multiculturalism obliterates the very idea that America has its own culture. It rejects the idea that all people are created equal by virtue of our common humanity as beings possessing the capacity for reason, for which it follows that every single one of us should be judged on the content of our character, not our race, cultural background, national origin, or other insignificant attribute. Under a veneer of “inclusiveness”, multiculturalism sneaks in collectivism by tribalizing America into racial, cultural, or ethnic group identities, undercutting American culture and the individual rights that automatically flow from that individualist culture. The corollary of this is to undercut the principle of inalienable individual rights, held equally by all individuals, and protected equally at all times by government under the law—and to switch the concept of rights from the individual to the group, paving the way for government to favor some groups over others at the expense of political equality.

Whether the religious conservatives’ attempt to Christianize the secular end-of-year Christmas season is a reaction to the Left’s multiculturalism, or the other way around, both are an attack on Americanism. I reject both viewpoints. America is neither a Christian nation nor a multicultural nation. It is an American nation—a nation of the Enlightenment including the values of reason, individualism, freedom of conscience, and free market capitalism. 

Related Reading:

A ‘War on Christmas?’ No: A War on non-Christians

Move Over, ‘Happy Holidays’: Starbucks’ Cup Opens a New Front in the ‘War on Christmas’

Christmas: A Holiday for All

"Learning Experience", or Anti-Americanism?

QUORA: ‘Why do Democrats contend that Republicans benefit from low voter turnout? Where is the evidence for that?’

 QUORA: ‘Why do Democrats contend that Republicans benefit from low voter turnout? Where is the evidence for that?’

I posted this answer:

For as long as I can remember -- and that’s a long time -- so-called conventional wisdom has held that high voter turnout is bad for Republicans. It turns out, the evidence refutes that myth. The 2020 election exploded that conventional wisdom convincingly. 

As the New York Times’s David Leonard reported on 12/23/21, On the Myth that High Turnout Benefits Dems,

In 2020, turnout soared, yet Democrats did worse than expected. Yes, they defeated Trump, but they failed to retake the Senate (for now) and lost ground in the House and in state legislatures.*

The Associated Press made the point that lower turnout may even hurt the Republicans as much as, or more than, the Democrats, noting:

In Iowa, 76% of eligible voters cast ballots last November, among the highest rates in the nation, as Republicans swept races up and down the ballot. Trump easily won the state in what had been expected to be a close race, Republican Joni Ernst won reelection to the U.S. Senate, and Republicans flipped two U.S. House seats with no major problems or fraud reported. 

In an article for Commentary, Republicans, Stop Believing Your Own Election Myth, Chris Stirewalt observes that high turnout does not favor Democrats, and provides several examples to back up the claim:

Both sides attribute President Biden’s victory to this increased turnout, but this is probably false. In their book The Turnout Myth, political scientists Daron Shaw and John Petrocik put to rest the old saws about the subject. In 2006, Democrats swept in a low-turnout vote, but they got crushed in the midterms four years later when turnout increased dramatically. Turnout climbed from 2000 to 2004—but Republicans performed better at every level. Like those cycles, 2020 offered no evidence that bigger is bluer. Even as Biden was winning, Republicans defied expectations, gaining House seats and keeping a lock on statehouses across the country. It was not a blue wave that swept Trump from office. Rather, it was the nudge from moderate voters in the suburbs of big cities in swing states. Nor was it mail-in voting that made the difference. A study from Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy research presents very strong evidence that mail-in voting itself did not drive the turnout surge, nor did it constitute any significant partisan advantage.

Jon Ward makes the same point for Yahoo News, adding:

And this gets to the second major implication of the turnout myth: Republican fears [that] a more diverse country [favors Democrats] appear to have been largely unfounded.

The 2020 election was a perfect example of this. The GOP lost the presidency but won most of the competitive U.S. Senate races and gained seats in the House. It also did much better in state legislative races than expected.

And while we’re at it, let’s take a look at another myth that got tarnished in 2020 -- that the Democrats have a lock on the urban vote. As The Washington Post reported, Trump wasn’t just a rural phenomenon. Most of his supporters come from cities and suburbs:

Folks who talk about President Trump’s rural base are missing something.

Are rural Americans Trump voters? Yes, many of them. Trump voters outnumber voters who supported Joe Biden 2 to 1 in rural counties.

But are all Trump voters rural? Absolutely not. Voters in rural America accounted for less than a fifth of all votes cast for him.

Biden won a bit more than half of the urban vote, but it wasn’t a blowout victory — Trump had urban majorities in 21 states.

For the record, I do not have a political ax to grind here. I am an Independent not just as a registered voter but also philosophically. 

* The Democrats eventually won two Georgia’s two senate seats in a January runoff, giving them a tie in the Senate and effective control. But I believe it highly likely that Donald Trump’s voter fraud conspiracy rantings against Georgia’s election process discouraged enough GOP voters from voting that he swung that election to the Democrats.

RELATED READING:

QUORA: ‘What's wrong with automatic voter registration?’

Democracy Doesn’t ‘Win’ When Free Speech is Suppressed, Voting Rights or No Voting Rights.

Statistical Disparities Don’t Proof Discrimination in Voter ID Laws

The Vote: Get Off Your Butt and Register—But Keep the Nanny State Out of It

Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right

16 Year Old Voters? How About 21?

Memo to John D. Atlas: How About Let's Not Suppress Anybody's Vote, or Voice

Freedom Is Not About the Right to Vote, So I’m Voting Anti-Democrat Across the Board

HR-1 is An Assault on Free Speech, Property Rights, Freedom of Conscience, and Privacy

QUORA: 'I haven't heard any valid reason to restrict [Voting] other than felony crimes. Why are so many state legislatures trying to put restrictions?'