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Even if we do accept that this executive was responsible for many deaths, you will need to find a law that lets you prosecute him or get one passed. There's a r

Even if we do accept that this executive was responsible for many deaths, you will need to find a law that lets you prosecute him or get one passed. There's a reason we don't just let people murder murderers, even if they have very good moral justification for it.

dtjb 2y ago
In the last 50 years, over 1600 murderers have been murdered by the state. It's a question of authority, not justification, and I think that's a much less meaningful distinction. The fact that there's so little sympathy for the death of a CEO who, in their view, callously discards human life tells us the authority is a much smaller dealbreaker than the justification.
- allturtles 2y ago
  > It's a question of authority, not justification, and i think that's a much less meaningful distinction. On the contrary, it's the crucial distinction. Without process and authority we have mob violence, vengeance killing, and vigilantism. Lynching, clan blood feuds, gang violence, all proceed from this same theory that "getting back" is more important than following the rules. In that world, Brian Thompson's killer should expect to be shot by one of his children for taking away their father.
  - dtjb 2y ago
    seems like we're ok crossing the line of "some people need killing," we just have rules on who's allowed to do it and the paperwork needed.
    - allturtles 2y ago
      I don't know who "we" is in your comment, but the question of whether capital punishment exists or not is a totally different question from whether the rule of law exists or not. It's perfectly self-consistent to support the rule of law while believing that some of the rules are wrong (e.g. that the state shouldn't kill people as a punishment). In fact that's essential to the whole thing working, since there's no way everyone will agree on the best set of rules for society.
silverquiet 2y ago
> you will need to find a law that lets you prosecute him or get one passed When this proves impossible, and a gun is trivially easy to obtain, what do you think happens? The president-elect himself is alive today only because a bullet was off-trajectory by a centimeter or two.
- allturtles 2y ago
  Accepting that such things happen is different from condoning or celebrating them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cogman10 2y ago
I agree with you. A law/regulation should be passed to stop this behavior. I also agree that I don't want people murdering CEOs. But, I also understand why this happened and frankly don't feel to aggrieved by the death of this CEO. The issue with US politics is that no law is forthcoming to address anything that happened. We won't see silencers banned or gun control laws enacted. We certainly won't see regulations on health industry to stop them from bleeding leukemia patients of every cent they own. So, I'm apathetic. If some of these CEOs are going to die as a result of their greed and the lack of justice against the wealthy, so be it.
voisin 2y ago
> There's a reason we don't just let people murder murderers, even if they have very good moral justification for it. It remains to be seen whether this will be allowed. The jury may be unable to agree that this person should be found guilty despite the video evidence.
impossiblefork 2y ago
The problem is that you can't allow certain things to be done to you, and it doesn't matter whether there is no law or if the person in question has immunity, and this means that you must do something about certain sufficient harm to you or collectively to groups in which you are part, whether that harm was inflected legally or not. But the purpose of courts is to substitute for private vengeance. If they are not willing to do so, this doesn't mean that you have a right to just roll over and die. If a court says they will not hear you because the person who killed or severely harmed somebody has immunity, or because it has made itself some rule that it feels prevents it from hearing your complaint, then it has made itself irrelevant.

dtjb 2y ago

In the last 50 years, over 1600 murderers have been murdered by the state. It's a question of authority, not justification, and I think that's a much less meaningful distinction. The fact that there's so little sympathy for the death of a CEO who, in their view, callously discards human life tells us the authority is a much smaller dealbreaker than the justification.

allturtles 2y ago
> It's a question of authority, not justification, and i think that's a much less meaningful distinction. On the contrary, it's the crucial distinction. Without process and authority we have mob violence, vengeance killing, and vigilantism. Lynching, clan blood feuds, gang violence, all proceed from this same theory that "getting back" is more important than following the rules. In that world, Brian Thompson's killer should expect to be shot by one of his children for taking away their father.
- dtjb 2y ago
  seems like we're ok crossing the line of "some people need killing," we just have rules on who's allowed to do it and the paperwork needed.
  - allturtles 2y ago
    I don't know who "we" is in your comment, but the question of whether capital punishment exists or not is a totally different question from whether the rule of law exists or not. It's perfectly self-consistent to support the rule of law while believing that some of the rules are wrong (e.g. that the state shouldn't kill people as a punishment). In fact that's essential to the whole thing working, since there's no way everyone will agree on the best set of rules for society.

silverquiet 2y ago

> you will need to find a law that lets you prosecute him or get one passed When this proves impossible, and a gun is trivially easy to obtain, what do you think happens? The president-elect himself is alive today only because a bullet was off-trajectory by a centimeter or two.

allturtles 2y ago
Accepting that such things happen is different from condoning or celebrating them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cogman10 2y ago

I agree with you. A law/regulation should be passed to stop this behavior. I also agree that I don't want people murdering CEOs. But, I also understand why this happened and frankly don't feel to aggrieved by the death of this CEO. The issue with US politics is that no law is forthcoming to address anything that happened. We won't see silencers banned or gun control laws enacted. We certainly won't see regulations on health industry to stop them from bleeding leukemia patients of every cent they own. So, I'm apathetic. If some of these CEOs are going to die as a result of their greed and the lack of justice against the wealthy, so be it.

voisin 2y ago

> There's a reason we don't just let people murder murderers, even if they have very good moral justification for it. It remains to be seen whether this will be allowed. The jury may be unable to agree that this person should be found guilty despite the video evidence.

impossiblefork 2y ago

The problem is that you can't allow certain things to be done to you, and it doesn't matter whether there is no law or if the person in question has immunity, and this means that you must do something about certain sufficient harm to you or collectively to groups in which you are part, whether that harm was inflected legally or not. But the purpose of courts is to substitute for private vengeance. If they are not willing to do so, this doesn't mean that you have a right to just roll over and die. If a court says they will not hear you because the person who killed or severely harmed somebody has immunity, or because it has made itself some rule that it feels prevents it from hearing your complaint, then it has made itself irrelevant.