Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
The argument that this assassin would be found guilty in a court is not an argument that the act of killing the CEO is wrong. Hitler's assassin would likewise be charged, convicted, and shot. The UK would pardon Hitler's assassin and celebrate them as a hero.
This "double standard" (which is not a double standard, it's two different standards by two different governments) is simply because governments are not consistent in upholding the law. They punish innocent people and let criminals go free. Self-defense never becomes murder just because a government breaks its own law and decides otherwise. Self-defense is strictly self-defense.
For those who don't believe me that governments fail to uphold the law, watch this video. This is especially interesting because right-wingers are constantly railing against science, and I'll be curious to see which side they're gonna take in this instance. The government with its absurd "science" or the people with the truth on their side? The government which "upholds the law" or the people whose lives were/are being destroyed by criminal corporations?
The asbestos case is one of the most infamous instances of governments breaking the law to protect criminals, harm innocent people, and produce short-term profits. Don't worry about the video title, it's really about asbestos, which is supposed to answer the question of the title.
And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
On December 07 2024 22:29 justanothertownie wrote: And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
Keep telling yourself I'm the only one. The majority of people are celebrating this "murder".
On December 07 2024 22:29 justanothertownie wrote: And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
Keep telling yourself I'm the only one. The majority of people are celebrating this "murder".
It's not a slight majority either. I've never seen a consensus like this across the internet.
On December 07 2024 22:29 justanothertownie wrote: And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
Keep telling yourself I'm the only one. The majority of people are celebrating this "murder".
Ok, so there is a threshold # of people. So if let's say, a majority of people (Maga crazies + Republicans) would deem it self-defense to do the same to the next presidential candidate (because obviously that person would ruin the US by letting in all the evil strangers) that would be acceptable to you, correct? How large does the majority need to be in your opinion?
On December 07 2024 22:29 justanothertownie wrote: And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
Keep telling yourself I'm the only one. The majority of people are celebrating this "murder".
Ok, so there is a threshold # of people. So if let's say, a majority of people (Maga crazies + Republicans) would deem it self-defense to do the same to the next presidential candidate (because obviously that person would ruin the US by letting in all the evil strangers) that would be acceptable to you, correct? How large does the majority need to be in your opinion?
My argument why this is a case of self-defense doesn't hinge on the majority of people cheering for the assassin. You're conflating two arguments. One is the fact that people support the assassin, the other is that it constitutes self-defense. The former is a matter of popularity, the latter hinges on the context that a serial killer CEO was assassinated.
On December 07 2024 22:23 Magic Powers wrote: For those who don't believe me that governments fail to uphold the law, watch this video. This is especially interesting because right-wingers are constantly railing against science, and I'll be curious to see which side they're gonna take in this instance. The government with its absurd "science" or the people with the truth on their side? The government which "upholds the law" or the people whose lives were/are being destroyed by criminal corporations?
The asbestos case is one of the most infamous instances of governments breaking the law to protect criminals, harm innocent people, and produce short-term profits. Don't worry about the video title, it's really about asbestos, which is supposed to answer the question of the title.
On December 07 2024 22:23 Magic Powers wrote: For those who don't believe me that governments fail to uphold the law, watch this video. This is especially interesting because right-wingers are constantly railing against science, and I'll be curious to see which side they're gonna take in this instance. The government with its absurd "science" or the people with the truth on their side? The government which "upholds the law" or the people whose lives were/are being destroyed by criminal corporations?
The asbestos case is one of the most infamous instances of governments breaking the law to protect criminals, harm innocent people, and produce short-term profits. Don't worry about the video title, it's really about asbestos, which is supposed to answer the question of the title.
There is no country currently in a state of war with United Healthcare.
It is likely even countries without a formal treaty of extradition with the US would cooperate in bringing the coward who did this to justice, if that situation arose.
The number of Europeans likely born in the 80s/90s, who, unless they have an unusual confession to make that in someway resembles the TV show Quantum Leap, have no lived experience of either taking part in the Holocaust or being the victim of a genocide, thinking invoking the name of Hitler here is also appropriate because they've normalized it already with Blumpf as a part of virtue-signaling commentary to their peers on foreign politics that don't affect - is bullshit. Take a cue from your less reactionary compatriots.
The claim of "millions of lives ruined" repeated here made by a doctor - is from a loon. Doctors are humans. They can say anything, no matter how wrong it is. Chicago doctors went on TV complaining about gunshot victims to say repealing the 2nd amendment is a public health emergency. You can even find doctors saying Covid vaccines stop transmission. Q.E.D., some people will say anything.
There is not an infinite well of quality, free healthcare that any company has secured the oil rights to.
Insurance companies allow most people to pay more than they would otherwise if they were healthy ($0) to hedge against them possibly being very unhealthy. They are a contract where they will potentially pay a third party the cost of something while receiving less than the cost of it from you. The third party can sometimes try to extract more money than necessary - sometimes rising to the level of fraud, sometimes not. The company paying can sometimes try to save more or less money - sometimes crossing the line, sometimes not.
Without them, everyone would be paying out of pocket, leaving more people in the lurch. This is why the Democrat ACA mandated that people buy it. They help people. They also employ people, who support themselves and their families, and pay taxes to the government that you get to vote for and decide how it spends its money (if you aren't one of the above Europeans).
There is a value to human life. Everyone who knows the Ford Pinto case knows this. We could design cars such that nobody ever dies in them, but we don't. And not because Detroit are genocidal maniacs. I'm sorry if that fact breaks the youthful John Oliver enthusiasm of people who want to believe the world were rainbows and perfect. I wish it were, too. It's not. And it's not the result of capitalism. It's the result of the fact that resources (including human life and labor) are finite. That's also true in your best and worst single payer systems. It's also true in communism. Now you may not think a form of capitalism is the best way to manage those resources but you can't go around shooting people or even thinking that's a good idea without being prepared to be rightfully excised from society because every country that has taken that route has destroyed itself.
I also haven't had lived experience of the Holocaust, so I can't best anyone's perspective there. But I have been insured by United. From what I've read of history textbooks, it was nothing like what I should have been expecting.
On December 07 2024 22:54 justanothertownie wrote:
On December 07 2024 22:44 Magic Powers wrote:
On December 07 2024 22:29 justanothertownie wrote: And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
Keep telling yourself I'm the only one. The majority of people are celebrating this "murder".
Ok, so there is a threshold # of people. So if let's say, a majority of people (Maga crazies + Republicans) would deem it self-defense to do the same to the next presidential candidate (because obviously that person would ruin the US by letting in all the evil strangers) that would be acceptable to you, correct? How large does the majority need to be in your opinion?
My argument why this is a case of self-defense doesn't hinge on the majority of people cheering for the assassin. You're conflating two arguments. One is the fact that people support the assassin, the other is that it constitutes self-defense. The former is a matter of popularity, the latter hinges on the context that a serial killer CEO was assassinated.
How does it constitute self-defense though? Which immediate harm was averted through this death? Is the assassin now going to get his medication? Will the next ceo suddenly be a humanist? Your argument does not hinge on anything. On the contrary, I would argue it is unhinged.
On December 07 2024 22:54 justanothertownie wrote:
On December 07 2024 22:44 Magic Powers wrote:
On December 07 2024 22:29 justanothertownie wrote: And who decides in which specific cases executing unsuspecting people in the streets really is just an act of self-defense? I assume the almighty magic powers?
Keep telling yourself I'm the only one. The majority of people are celebrating this "murder".
Ok, so there is a threshold # of people. So if let's say, a majority of people (Maga crazies + Republicans) would deem it self-defense to do the same to the next presidential candidate (because obviously that person would ruin the US by letting in all the evil strangers) that would be acceptable to you, correct? How large does the majority need to be in your opinion?
My argument why this is a case of self-defense doesn't hinge on the majority of people cheering for the assassin. You're conflating two arguments. One is the fact that people support the assassin, the other is that it constitutes self-defense. The former is a matter of popularity, the latter hinges on the context that a serial killer CEO was assassinated.
How does it constitute self-defense though? Which immediate harm was averted through this death? Is the assassin now going to get his medication? Will the next ceo suddenly be a humanist? Your argument does not hinge on anything. On the contrary, I would argue it is unhinged.
As described earlier in the thread, the company withholds life-saving treatment from people. People died because of their claim denials. This CEO is one of the people responsible for that. I don't know how many lives will be saved because of this assassination. If only one person doesn't have to die I'm celebrating, that would be well worth it.
On December 07 2024 06:51 BlackJack wrote: What if we find out the assassin is actually GH who was spurred on by all of Kwark's badgering that he's a wanna-be revolutionary and he needs to man up and take action
Wouldn't be enough for Kwark to stop anyway. His petulance isn't rational.
It absolutely would be. If you took direct action I would stop accusing you of not taking direct action. My issue is that you exist in a nonexistent sweet spot where you’ve given up on elections but you’ve also not committed to actually taking power outside of elections. It’s a spot that does less than anyone but insists that doing nothing is a virtue.
We have the rule of law to avoid people taking Justice into their own hands, and to avoid that everyone who think someone else is terrible just go and kill them. Today it’s an evil CEO, tomorrow it’s a presidential candidate, or a journalist or whoever.
That guy was awful, but if we start cheering on people getting gunned down, we are no longer living in a civilized society, we are living in a war. Liberal democracy is based on the idea that we coexist, argue, fight, and debate within a frame and that we don’t just eliminate each other. There are other ways of addressing corporate greed and healthcare that butchering the bad guy, even if that’s a very American thing to do.
On December 07 2024 23:47 Biff The Understudy wrote: Your arguments are not very good, magic powers.
We have the rule of law to avoid people taking Justice into their own hands, and to avoid that everyone who think someone else is terrible just go and kill them. Today it’s an evil CEO, tomorrow it’s a presidential candidate, or a journalist or whoever.
That guy was awful, but if we start cheering on people getting gunned down, we are no longer living in a civilized society, we are living in a war. Liberal democracy is based on the idea that we coexist, argue, fight, and debate within a frame and that we don’t just eliminate each other. There are other ways of addressing corporate greed and healthcare that butchering the bad guy, even if that’s a very American thing to do.
The rule of law has not prevented UnitedHealth from mass murdering people. The rule of law has failed and a correction was made. This also puts UH into the spotlight and millions of people who previously weren't aware of the mass murder are now aware of it, so something might be done to prevent it. There's a reasonable chance now, when before there was no chance.
The idea that these assassinations are gonna spiral out of control if we cheer for one instance is unsubstantiated. If anything, CEOs are nowhere near scared enough.
On December 07 2024 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote: For the people supporting this, feel like compiling a list of jobs/positions in companies that are bad enough to justify being shot for doing?
*note that i recognize that being indifferent (this was just one guy being murdered and 170k people die every day and many of those deaths are certainly more tragic than this one) is an entirely different beast from being supportive.
I’ll play.
HR people/company lawyers/religious elders that target the victims of sexual abuse for coming forwards rather than the perpetrators can get on the list.
Corrupt cops.
Police union chiefs who protect corrupt cops which, as I understand it, is all of them.
Essentially the problem is the perverse incentives of capitalism. What we want is the profit motive to encourage a company to minimize their sexual harassment by applying penalties to companies doing sexual harassment. The big brain play is to not hire sexual predators and to have a strong culture against them. The galaxy brain play is to not get caught. What we want is a profit motive to drive insurance companies to provide medicine at the lowest cost. The big brain play is bulk buying, cost effectiveness studies etc. The galaxy brain play is to switch the medicine out with low cost sugar pills.
Did oblade just try to justify the American Healthcare insurance agency by saying it wasn't the holocaust? I got really lost in his werid tangent about how euros today don't have any lived experience of the holocaust and therfore have no valid perspective on it.
I get he doesn't know about what the aca is or why expanded risk pools were nessisary but the ending part is wild as fuck.
Anyway yeah this issue has gotten cuthrough on all facets of society. Everyone has some experience with the pain misery and death united is responsible for even Maga conservatives. Yeah they've also been responsible for my soccer club getting an incredible stadium and a giant loon statue but that doesn't make them less evil or have less blood on their hands.
On December 07 2024 23:47 Biff The Understudy wrote: Your arguments are not very good, magic powers.
We have the rule of law to avoid people taking Justice into their own hands, and to avoid that everyone who think someone else is terrible just go and kill them. Today it’s an evil CEO, tomorrow it’s a presidential candidate, or a journalist or whoever.
That guy was awful, but if we start cheering on people getting gunned down, we are no longer living in a civilized society, we are living in a war. Liberal democracy is based on the idea that we coexist, argue, fight, and debate within a frame and that we don’t just eliminate each other. There are other ways of addressing corporate greed and healthcare that butchering the bad guy, even if that’s a very American thing to do.
The rule of law has not prevented UnitedHealth from mass murdering people. The rule of law has failed and a correction was made. This also puts UH into the spotlight and millions of people who previously weren't aware of the mass murder are now aware of it, so something might be done to prevent it. There's a reasonable chance now, when before there was no chance.
The idea that these assassinations are gonna spiral out of control if we cheer for one instance is unsubstantiated. If anything, CEOs are nowhere near scared enough.
Ok but then you are saying we are in a civil war, and we give up on pretending we are in a liberal democracy. Everyone takes his gun and go shoot the perceived enemy.
I am not really ready or willing to live a civil war quite yet personally.
On December 08 2024 00:06 Sermokala wrote: Did oblade just try to justify the American Healthcare insurance agency by saying it wasn't the holocaust? I got really lost in his werid tangent about how euros today don't have any lived experience of the holocaust and therfore have no valid perspective on it.
Thanks for admitting to skipping to only my posts and not reading the ones at the very top of the same page you are posting on but if you see me saying I'm responding to someone else you might want to take 5 seconds to look for Europeans, like, Simberto and Magic Powers' posts, before going "what could this possibly mean."
On December 08 2024 00:06 Sermokala wrote: I get he doesn't know about what the aca is or why expanded risk pools were nessisary but the ending part is wild as fuck.
At no point did I make any argument against the individual mandate. Halloween's passed so we can do without the useless strawmen.
On December 07 2024 20:44 Liquid`Drone wrote: For the people supporting this, feel like compiling a list of jobs/positions in companies that are bad enough to justify being shot for doing?
*note that i recognize that being indifferent (this was just one guy being murdered and 170k people die every day and many of those deaths are certainly more tragic than this one) is an entirely different beast from being supportive.
I’ll play.
HR people/company lawyers/religious elders that target the victims of sexual abuse for coming forwards rather than the perpetrators can get on the list.
Corrupt cops.
Police union chiefs who protect corrupt cops which, as I understand it, is all of them.
Essentially the problem is the perverse incentives of capitalism. What we want is the profit motive to encourage a company to minimize their sexual harassment by applying penalties to companies doing sexual harassment. The big brain play is to not hire sexual predators and to have a strong culture against them. The galaxy brain play is to not get caught. What we want is a profit motive to drive insurance companies to provide medicine at the lowest cost. The big brain play is bulk buying, cost effectiveness studies etc. The galaxy brain play is to switch the medicine out with low cost sugar pills.
Has the whole world gone CRAZY!?!? AM I THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES?!?!