Is Mangione idolized solely by the left?
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This is my perspective.
I agree. Certainly, there are major problems. I don’t think murder was the solution.
I disagree rather strongly. The amount of support shown for him by so many people is a very clear and very loud message. He killed one CEO. Now, all the other CEO’s are scared, and they have good reason to be. Based on the obvious amount of anger directed at insurance companies, and the widespread support for Mangione, I expect actual reforms to happen.
I don’t think people are saying that it’s acceptable to commit murder. It’s more of a recognition that there are people dying or becoming destitute every day because of health care costs or insurance companies fighting their claims tooth and nail. It isn’t like people have a choice of paying for expensive drugs out of their own pocket when claims are denied, it’s dying because they can’t afford drugs that their insurance company denied. The companies make record profits and their shareholders demand more, leading the companies to become more aggressive in denying claims and the vicious cycle continues. The stockholders go to these meetings and applaud the terrific returns on their investment, not knowing or caring about the human carnage it takes to produce them. At some point this becomes intolerable. Mangione may not have had the perfect way to give a wakeup call, but he has struck a nerve in the people. If gun proponents are willing to accept the deaths of dozens of school children each year in the defense of their “rights”, why is that so different than accepting one CEO’s death in the cause of reining in the insurance companies?
After all, he’s not the Messiah.
True, not that I’mma knock him.
Remember Ice T’s Cop Killer?
A lot of people, IIRC mostly white people were shocked. A lot of black people were thrilled. I forget how old I was at the time. But I knew that if that many people identified with and supported the song, there had to be a lot of mistrust and anger toward the police. Rather than attacking Ice T and the song (as Charlton Heston did), the right thing to do was examine why there was so much mistrust and anger and then work to fix it.
Again if there is this much support for Mangione and this much hatred toward insurance companies, we need to find out why and fix things. Otherwise, there will just be more people comitting acts of violence.
No. Tucker Carlson tried to turn this into a left versus right issue, but his own viewers were telling him he was missing the mark. People are frustrated with health care and other issues, and if Carlson wasn’t so shortsighted he’d understand that same frustration is one of the reasons people like him are able to peddle their bullshit in the first place.
Don’t pit the player, pit the game.
There’s a reason millions of people felt positive thoughts when a healthcare CEO got gunned down in the street. That is the thing that deserves pitting.
I’m still pissed about my friends being driven near to bankruptcy by COBRA back in 2008, mostly because getting any positive change is like pulling teeth. Dragging the industry inch by inch with continuous threats of improvements being taken away so that CEOs and big time investors can reap the benefits.
A problem with idolizing murderous violence against preferred targets is that innocent victims get caught up in the crossfire. What if the effusive praise and support that some dimwits are lavishing on Mangione results in copycats advancing to arson or bombings?
I’m reminded of the French writer Laurent Tailhade, who wrote in the wake of a spate of anarchist bombings in France in the 1890s, " "Qu’importent les victimes, si le geste est beau?" (What do the victims matter if it’s a beautiful gesture?)
Some months later, Tailhade was in a Paris restaurant when another anarchist bomb was set off. Tailhade lost an eye due to the explosion. Beau geste and all that.
Anarchist violence of the period led to severe repression, rather than the ideal society anarchists were hoping for.
What is this mini-revolution in caring health insurance company policies that I’ve missed?
Can’t say the current Administration seems too worried about violent outbursts, putting Medicaid and Medicare policies on the chopping block. One goodie is cutting off funding for telehealth visits for the elderly. From now on, grandpa and grandma will have to make forays to their docs’ offices no matter what the weather or their infirmities, or pay for the privilege of telehealth visits.
Thanks. Hadn’t noticed this was a partisan issue.
This is a reasonable answer to my poorly asked initial question. I should have said that I doubt his actions will have any long-term effects.
Before Mangione there were definitely copycat CEO’s. They saw somebody else getting away with things to maximize profits, They did the same. How many people died from practices that made it more dificult to get necessary care? How many people died because of an outright refusal to provide care? I don’t know the figures. I would be stunned if it was zero.
I don’t condone bombings or arson. I don’t condone what Mangione did. But, people were already dying.
For those who still have not caught on, the above is an example of waste, fraud, and abuse by their definition.
I see no point in trying to publicly poison the jury pool against him.
It’s ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in our adversarial legal system.
And passed the cost of all that increased security on to you (and me). Thanks, Luigi!
As an aside, does anyone else think Luigi looks like he regularly bursts into Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment without knocking?
This, to me, is the biggest reason to decline to follow in his footsteps. There are vanishingly few examples in history of terror acts resulting in a positive change. Whether the murder was justified is almost beside the point, when we look at its likely consequences.
If I really believed it’d lead to a more just society, that’d be one thing. But overwhelmingly likelier is a more repressive police state than we already have.
“I was framed, Jerry! Framed! Call Jackie Chiles!”