I've always found that so stupid yeah. "Cop killing" is always painted as this ultimate evil and so much worse than killing a regular person, especially in all the copaganda shows. But theoretically the whole reason cops have so much legal leeway and can use so much force and whatnot is because they're taking on a risk by putting themselves in the line of duty (even though you're actually more likely to die as a pizza delivery driver).

I'd honestly even say killing Bin Laden was less morally acceptable than killing Thompson tbh. One had 0 additional casualties, and one was preceded by a war which fucked the entire middle east, created multiple power vaccuums, killed thousands of civilians, and involved literal warcrimes.

Saying the crime was "broadly condemned" in the same article about the flood of money and support he's received, with a large section of said article being about the praise given online, is an interesting way to frame things.

I think he's just kinda an ordinary person who grew up privileged. He has fairly standard techbro style libertarian beliefs, but he also has criticisms of some of the influencers he watches, and didn't seem to like Peterson very much. He also seems to be an environmentalist, and I think he seemed to have become more anti-corporation based on the manifesto released (obviously assuming he did it).

Him being a privileged but ordinary guy who still got radicalized reflects a lot more strongly on the plight of everyone who isn't one of the owner class. It doesn't matter that he was relatively wealthy, he still wasn't one of them.

Yeah, the point of a peaceful protest is meant as a neutral option, just to show that a large group exists who has some demand, and if the demand is not met it will escalate, either via disruption to the economy with strikes or disruption to society with violence. It shouldn't be blamed on protesters if it ends up escalating that way, because the protest was meant as the warning. Most people wouldn't blame a country that has repeatedly warned a neighbor to stop annexing it's land for fighting a war with them. If the country never went farther than warnings then they would all be empty threats. Somehow protests are thought of differently though, and if one turns violent it's blamed on the protesters and not the government for basically completely ignoring every protest movement in recent memory.

Like I said in another thread too, every state (as in nation, not US states), uses violence as an answer all the time. Police violence against criminals or protesters, military violence against other states, death penalties against those deemed too dangerous to live, prisons in general. So what is it about state sanctioned violence that is considered moral by most people who would also decry individual violence as immoral? Even Brian Thompson oversaw an increase in claim denials from ~10% to ~30%. How many people did that kill, or torture, or cause suffering? Obviously a lot of people have already talked about social murder, but again, why is social murder more justified? Just because it's legal and allowed by the state?

Laws aren't some inherent measure of morality, and states don't have some inherent sense of justice that is superior to that of their people. Just look at slavery, it was fully legal and rescuing slaves was a crime. That didn't make it moral, or the abolitionists who ran the underground railroad immoral. Or look at prohibition, or the current version we have with the war on drugs. What makes someone indulging in a vice like weed, or mushrooms, or honestly even something more addictive like cocaine be guilty of a crime, when someone indulging in alcohol, or cigarettes, or caffeine, or sugar isn't? And what makes someone doing that on their own, assuming they don't harm others because of it, worse in the eyes of the law than someone who gambles?

In order to see the imbalance of power and violence, you only need to look at the recourse each party has for violence by the other. Look at what happened when an individual committed violence against UHC by killing the CEO. There was a national manhunt, tens of thousands of dollars offered in rewards for finding them, and once a suspect was arrested they were humiliated by the police, put in jail to be held until trial, and are likely facing life in prison if they are convicted. None of that would happen to any of those responsible for a wrongful death due to an illegally denied claim. In that case, in order to get recourse, the family would need to sue the company, which takes a crazy amount of time, money, and effort. And if by the end of it they win, what punishment would UHC face? The CEO wouldn't be given jail time for murder or manslaughter. The company wouldn't be broken up or shut down. At most you'd get some money, and they'd maybe have to pay a fine to the government. During the lawsuit the CEO and board would be free to continue business as normal, killing or hurting who knows how many people while doing so.

So obviously the government, corporations, politicians, and billionaires will denounce this as a "tragedy", a "horrible act of violence". Those celebrating in it are "advocating violence" or simply the minority, existing in "dark corners of the internet". Because admitting that violence is an acceptable strategy means they'd accept it turned upon them, instead of being the sole group allowed to use it as they see fit.

This isn't necessarily me advocating for violence either, as I think in general neither one should be accepted, no matter if it's done by an individual or a state. But the legality of that violence is also not what should determine its morality, and there are exceptions to every rule. Personally I consider myself a pacifist. I'm vegan, I would go to jail before being drafted because I would never want to serve in a war, and obviously like most people I would always prefer a non violent answer to a conflict if possible. But things don't always work out that way, and it's nonsensical that anyone would consider Brian Thompson, or any other CEO of a major company, better or more morally acceptable than the one who killed him. State approved violence, legal violence, is not and should not be seen as any more acceptable or moral.

With Mangione's action having the "capability to inspire a variety of extremists and grievance-driven malicious actors to violence," the NYPD encouraged companies to increase precautions and security for executives.

Isn't this straight up saying that Mangione is the assassin? Obviously innocent until proven guilty has always been bullshit, but where's the bare minimum "alleged" at?

I can definitely see why someone not as well versed in anarchist history could believe that, or if they specifically meant against the insurance industry. Either way though, I think it's important for people to know about that history of violence that led to meaningful social reforms. So many Americans think that workers rights, civil rights, and everything short of the ~~abolishment~~ rebranding of slavery was won through voting or peaceful protests.

Too many people believe that somehow a state has some divine morality granted to it, and justice can only happen within the confines of said state. No moral act can be carried out without the government sanctioning it, and any miscarriage of justice by the state is an abnormality.

There may be a monopoly on violence held by states against their people, but this doesn't give them some inherent right to be the ultimate arbiters of justice. Something being legal does not make it moral, and just because an act is illegal doesn't make it immoral.

I mean .world 100% sucks lol, and people should definitely move off it, but I'd also like people to move off .ml or any other general purpose instance since centralization on any one instance can cause issues imo. I'm considering switching off of .ee for the same reason. I think it makes more sense to have specific instances for specific things, so that the admins of one instance can have more domain specific knowledge ideally.

.world specifically does seem like they can't go more than a few weeks without some kind of drama though lol.

Yeah based on his goodreads and other social media he's definitely more of US style Libertarian or conservative. He tweeted some stuff about wokeness and DEI, some of the new athiesm junk about how athiests replace Christianity with worship of social issues, and seemed to like Elon Musk. He also didn't seem to be fully committed to the ideology though, he had real criticisms of Jordan Peterson and he seemed to be an environmentalist. He honestly just kinda seems like a normal, if privileged, person. He has a mix of political ideas, some which don't necessarily mesh, and is willing to criticize some of the people he agrees with.

But if anything him being someone who seemed to like CEOs, who grew up pretty wealthy, being radicalized by the industry is kinda a stronger message about how unless you're one of the corporate elite you don't matter to them.

Yeah, I don't actually know too much about him, this is the first I've seen of him afaik (though I definitely could have read his stuff and not realized), but as far as I can tell he's pretty consistent with factual reporting. It did strike me as weird it was removed, like I get it's technically a substack page and all, but it's not like some random guys blog, and it's still the only reputable source for the full manifesto I've seen.

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto

Klippenstein is an independent journalist who has been really good at reporting on this whole story, so I trust that this is the actual manifesto the police have.