A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 4:39 am

Gramsci wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 4:24 am These aren’t bad people, they’re people trapped in a system that happens to advance them.

They're not trapped. Lost, you could argue, but not trapped. They choose to be where they are.

True. But the system we live in gives them every incentive to keep the system functioning as it is. It tells them they succeeded because of their hard work and they are being rewarded for it. The entire culture pumps this out 24/7.

Something I’ve also noticed with capital L liberals, basically centrist, is they really see no alternative. Things like taxing wealth or genuine changes to capitalism seem just invisible.

It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

The UK is reporting the “glee”…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... e-reaction

I also think this killing is completely unsurprising. I know enough about US healthcare without experiencing it, to know it’s is inefficient and cruel.

My first thought honestly was this is some JFK Jr disciple. Only because of the context of the recent election. But it’s likely one of this guy’s parents/spouse were denied something fundamental and he just snapped.

This quote from an NPR article says it all…

Americans generally say they're pretty happy with their health insurance, according to survey data from health policy research organization KFF — unless they're sick. Those with "fair" or "poor" health are nearly twice as likely to be displeased with their insurance compared to those with "good" health.

Of course you like insurance when you don’t have to do anything

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-heal ... cial-media

Gramsci wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 4:58 am True. But the system we live in gives them every incentive to keep the system functioning as it is. It tells them they succeeded because of their hard work and they are being rewarded for it. The entire culture pumps this out 24/7.

Something I’ve also noticed with capital L liberals, basically centrist, is they really see no alternative. Things like taxing wealth or genuine changes to capitalism seem just invisible.

It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

No sympathy for any of it. So there's a tough decision and your life will be harder, for a greater good. Well boo fucking hoo. You just do it.

Or you don't - fine - but then you've waived your rights come any reckoning.

Cunts.

This person took a job as a willing and active architect of a system designed to profit off of human loss. This is not a run of the mill working class person who just needed to put food on the table and deserves our forgiveness.

He's not a part of the system, he embodied the system. Wrapped himself up up in the system and derived personal joy while he directly caused suffering of humans.

Don't confuse him with a lost soul just trying to make it in the world.

I can understand relief, but I can’t get behind glee. Or at least, I don’t want to, though god knows I’ve felt it.

I just remember the sight of people celebrating and waiving frying pans in the hair when Ted Bundy was executed. That man was as evil a person as anyone who has existed, and yet the celebration of his execution debased everyone.

I mean, I think I made the point here - if you believe that this man is justified in using his power to harm other people just because our system allows it, then you have to ---- HAVE TO ----- accept that you're OK with killing as long as it's under the auspices of making money. I don't see any real way around it.

Frankie99 wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 9:31 am I mean, I think I made the point here - if you believe that this man is justified in using his power to harm other people just because our system allows it, then you have to ---- HAVE TO ----- accept that you're OK with killing as long as it's under the auspices of making money. I don't see any real way around it.

As I said, I understand relief or even a sense that it’s just. But breaking out party hats and streamers is ghoulish.

I work for an agency that, among other things, helps low-income folks apply, enroll, and maintain public program health insurance coverage as well as private insurance through our state's health care exchange. I have witnessed firsthand the confounding and infuriatingly confusing gears of state and county administered health care, as well as the crush of finding out that a person is newly just over the income limit for public program health insurance and now face the world of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurances, networks, denials, pre-auths, non-covered meds, all the shit. I've been doing this since the ACA came into existence. The boardrooms of stuffed suits making determinations of what to and not to cover while lighting cigars with flaming $100s boils my blood, especially when I see people who are in desperate need of things like insulin simply to live try to figure out how they are going to pay for their meds along with their premium and copays on top of their ridiculously high rent, food, clothing, etc etc. It fucking sucks, and it's only going to get worse.

Murder is still wrong.

Fuck the healthcare industry and fuck the healthcare system here. I have "decent" insurance and I spent something like five months negotiating away deductible-and-copay fees from a basic-screening procedure that was absolutely covered by my plan. Which, in the end, it was. But these fuckers just try to wear you out and confuse you. On purpose. So you'll pay. And that's a relatively benign scenario I'm describing.

You couldn't pay me enough to accept that dead guy's job. I couldn't look in the mirror and would blow my own brains out.

I also wouldn't cry much if this killer (and, based on that silencer, he's probably either a hired pro or elite military) took out the CEO of every other major insurance company. (I would, on the other hand, feel terrible for those people's families, from an emotional if not financial standpoint. Most of them probably had no say in their loved one's chosen career.)

But the system here is ridiculous. Always has been. Obamacare did not do much to solve it. (In fact, it was largely redundant in NYC and just made things more expensive.) People don't need health insurance, they need basic healthcare.

That said, crazy-ass vigilante behavior is never a great sign. Whether that's assassinating this dude or bombing an abortion clinic or blowing up a block in Oklahoma City or targeting shit over lefty causes a la San Francisco in the 1970s. It's usually counterproductive in the end. A bit like the death sentence, really.

That said, this did send a message of sorts. But let's see if it has any actual real-world effect and if people are even still talking about health insurance a month from now. It's a short, shocking news cycle we live in. And health insurance bores most people.

You know what might really make the insurance industry wake up? If consumers stopped paying their premiums en masse for a fixed period of time. Put the slug in their bank accounts instead.

OrthodoxEaster wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 11:38 am You couldn't pay me enough to accept that dead guy's job. I couldn't look in the mirror and would blow my own brains out.

And that, is that.