akosinski wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 8:36 pm we are through the looking glass, people.

HoF.

This shit made my night.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 8:47 pm

eephus wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 6:41 pm If you think normalizing murder is some kind of balm or even solution for your very real suffering, I don't know what to tell ya.

Homie, it's already normalized in the form of war, policing, prison, capitol punishment, and limited access to healthcare, housing, food, and water. These are all things that can and do cause death, are socially accepted and legally sanctioned. While I believe that education and cross-cultural communication can improve some of our circumstances, there is no educating those whose livelihood and wealth depend on our exploitation and suffering. We aren't going to win over our oppressors by appealing to their compassion. Nothing is left but to either find a safe place to hide (which only the privileged can access) and look the other way while the misery continues), or to defend ourselves, or to die. I am lucky enough to have a place to hide, which is why I am not out merking the ruling class. But if you think that murder isn't already normalized and provided as a solution to many problems, then I have a bridge to sell you.

ok man, good luck. you have a place to hide so i'm sure you'll be fine.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 5:49 pm

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 5:37 pmAll of these killers —regardless of their target, regardless of whether their intent is noble or misguided — think they're killing b/c it's "right" and for a greater good.

I don't know why you can't tell the difference between indiscriminate slaughter and targeted, justified excution. If your point is that all death is bad, then I have bad news for you; we're all going to die. Some of us have a choice as to how and when, but it's people like this CEO who decide when countless others will lose access to life. As someone else said, killing people like that is a form of self-defense.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 5:37 pm B/c hey, why not gun down Bezos and Musk while we're at it, and the list goes on.

I'll do you one better. Let's use way, way more cold-blooded examples than CEOs: Serial killers who sexually abuse and torture kids, then dismember them. Remorselessly and methodically, no insanity plea. In many states in this country, they would get the death penalty. Right?

Well, the death penalty is fucked, and I find it wrong and counterproductive. I am, in fact, totally against it. I don't care if the state or some vigilante ass is doing the killing. It's not ok, and ultimately, it causes societies to break down.

Same deal w/these corporate fuckos. Accomplishes nada in the long run. Otherwise, public executions would cure crime. They do not.

Make 'em pay, sure, just not like so.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 9:14 pmI don't care if the state or some vigilante ass is doing the killing.

Again, if you can't tell the difference between state-sponsored execution (of people who far too often don't get a fair trial and are victims of racial discrimination) and a lone wolf vigilante cutting off one of the heads of the hydra, then maybe you are part of the problem.

eephus wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 8:51 pmok man, good luck. you have a place to hide so i'm sure you'll be fine.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. My point about having somewhere to hide is that I have privileges and resources that protect me from homelessness and poverty, so I have little motivation to give my freedom away by taking this sort of action. That doesn't mean it's wrong for someone else to do so, and if they actually have something to lose besides their lives then it is especially brave to make that sacrifice in service of the greater good.

That's why we are supposed to revere our veterans, right? They fought killed and died for our freedoms, right? Except most of the time the only beneficiaries of this sacrifice are Exxon etc., and the people being killed are usually just other regular folks fighting to defend their homes.

While one CEO is just a drop in the bucket, it's more than any of us have done to disrupt or dismantle a truly cruel system. The bucket is thirsty.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 9:26 pm

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 9:14 pmI don't care if the state or some vigilante ass is doing the killing.

Again, if you can't tell the difference between state-sponsored execution (of people who far too often don't get a fair trial and are victims of racial discrimination) and a lone wolf vigilante cutting off one of the heads of the hydra, then maybe you are part of the problem.

That was not the example I gave at all.

I guess you'd say a white, sane, unrepentant serial murderer who gets executed by the state automatically doesn't get a fair trial or is the victim of racial discrimination somehow? Just b/c the state chooses to execute him or her? That's bullshit.

Most serial killers, child killers, and mass murderers (the example I used) are, in fact, white. Some are sane. Some are upper class and know exactly what they're doing.

I have clearly not been talking about some kid from the projects. More like Robert Chambers types.

And you know what? They shouldn't get the death penalty either. Nobody should. That's the whole point.

To use a recent and relevant example, executing a dude like say, Rex Heuermann (white guy w/means, seems sane, murdered sex workers), solves absolutely nothing. If he's found guilty, which he probably will be, let him rot in jail.

I'm part of the problem? Hahah! Well, then, I guess you should just come up to my place and... shoot me, baby!

So let's compare the number of white serial killers executed to the number of black men of questionable innocence; I'm sincerely interested in what that ratio is. Or better yet, let's stop comparing the use of violence by the state to violence by the individual because it's apples and oranges.

I don't think every individual should choose violence, but there are special circumstances. If someone was raping a child and I split their head open with a clawhammer, people would call me a hero. But if I kept that person in my basement and tortured them for a month, I'd be a sick fuck no matter who got saved in the process. But if it turned out that person did the same thing to me when I was a child, then people would go "ehhh, I get it." See how context matters, about essentially the same action?

I think we agree that the state shouldn't have the power to kill, but the state's very existence is founded upon its ability to kill. We didn't fight the Revolutionary War with Nerf bats, and the cop who (justifiably) shot Ashli Babbitt while protecting the Capitol didn't do it with a Supersoaker. If the state can kill us, then we should be allowed to kill back, and the corporations are part of the state apparatus (and/or vice versa). And we should be the ones who decide if we are allowed to, even if the state says no.

There's a guillotine on a tote bag, kind of eat-the-rich party going on across the internet about this. It's a perspective that isn't hard to appreciate and history would indicate that worsening circumstances would make that attitude more popular.

But you have to be pretty far up your own ass not to even be able to comprehend how someone would be categorically against killing. These are pretty classic positions for people to take in an ethics discussion. The purge party on here isn't actually training their scopes on douche CEO #2 right now and I'm not sure the rhetoric would keep their lunch down as they watched the life slowly drain from a person's body. I'm certainly not going to throw myself in front of a bullet flying toward them, so maybe it's not worth being a huge dick about this.

But if we're all still just having a conversation about how we're thinking of the ethics of this, the point that has been alluded to and not countered is this: the person who is willing to take a life for their ideology often forgets that it's not a thriving society that allows any person with passion to deputize themselves. Your perspective is not solid enough to claim a life. The militant have almost archetypally lost the plot no matter how virtuous their motives began since forever ago. The psychic trauma of violence seems to do that.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 10:14 pm So let's compare the number of white serial killers executed to the number of black men of questionable innocence; I'm sincerely interested in what that ratio is. Or better yet, let's stop comparing the use of violence by the state to violence by the individual because it's apples and oranges.

Not really. I just think murder is counterproductive. Whether it's by the state or by some vigilante, regardless of said vigilante's nobility or vileness.

The main reason: It pretty much fails to solve the problem at hand.

Most likely, the health insurance industry will not change at all.

Just as kids won't suddenly be nicer to one another after a bunch of bullies die in a Columbine-style school shooting. Did any of this really teach anyone some kind of "lesson"? No. Not any more than lethal injection for an unapologetic, methodical sadist teaches society a "lesson." If anything, it just makes society more all-around violent and normalizes crazy shit.

Better off going another route.

What's funny is that I have very little sympathy for Brian UnitedHealthcare. I shed no tears the other day. And I fucking hate healthcare more than you know, having had numerous terrible insurance experiences.

I just think this is all a sad waste, you know? It's not gonna be some great sea change.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 10:14 pmI don't think every individual should choose violence, but there are special circumstances. If someone was raping a child and I split their head open with a clawhammer, people would call me a hero.

Yeah, but that's a little different. You're actively saving the kid. This is a bit more abstract. Did Gunman Smiley's actions directly save any lives or will they cause a huge policy change? I would be jumping up and down if they did but uh, they likely did not.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 10:14 pmI think we agree that the state shouldn't have the power to kill, but the state's very existence is founded upon its ability to kill. We didn't fight the Revolutionary War with Nerf bats, and the cop who (justifiably) shot Ashli Babbitt while protecting the Capitol didn't do it with a Supersoaker. If the state can kill us, then we should be allowed to kill back, and the corporations are part of the state apparatus (and/or vice versa). And we should be the ones who decide if we are allowed to, even if the state says no.

But the state was founded on lots of other stuff as well. And a war is quite different and a much more complex issue than lone vigilante assassins or angry mobs, at least to me.

Again, I think you probably realize that I'm also having a little fun w/you to some extent. B/c we both probably agree that this guy represented utmost prickdom. I've actually morbidly joked about something like this happening for years. "Fuck, why don't any of these mass shooters go after the insurance guys?"

I just think his fate solved nothing and I don't dig vigilante justice. Not a believer in eye for an eye.

Gramsci wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 12:26 pm Yeah, I’m just trying to come up with reasons for people to not murder people.

Some people choose to be in the crosshairs. They almost always get away. Don't waste your energy.

Are any of you gonna answer the fucking question of why you only have this reaction to violence when it’s taken against people in power? You go on and on about how vigilante justice is unequivocally bad and but you leave no fucking other option for marginalized people. In what fucking universe do these fascists give up their power without force? They fucking *use* force (police, military) to hold onto it. Your best “strategy” is that trans people just shut up and fucking suffer and die. Which, I hate to inform you, isn’t going to fucking happen in a country with this many guns. So the question becomes, what are you gonna do when shit goes down with some of us? Are you gonna join in? Are you gonna voice support? Are you gonna sit by in silence? Or are you gonna expressly do the fascists work for them, demonize those who stand up, those who, I can tell you right now, a huge portion of the trans community if not the vast majority, are going to stand by.

Why the *fuck* do you care about vigilante violence by marginalized people more than the systemic violence by these manipulative assholes who lie and paint us as monsters? Why the fuck do you think the strategy is to concede vulnerable people after people to them, how the fuck does that impede their power? How well did that fucking work out in Germany, you dipshits? It’s beyond clear to me that some of you view people like me as lesser, as expendable, as not worth the trouble, and yet you want to claim moral high ground. “Sorry, too many people are bigoted, it sucks but them’s the breaks” just tells me you will side with fascists when push comes to shove. Why the fuck do you even *want* to live in a world like that? Why the fuck do you think things won’t get worse, why are you ok with people living under perpetual oppression? The fucking threat of violence is literally all that keeps them from killing us, they are goddamn clear about how they want to exterminate us—if they knew they could get away with it scot free they would so gleefully.

I will go down fighting with my community if I have to and if you have a problem with that, go fuck yourself