I've been thinking a lot about the unsettling murder of Brian Thompson. It is a murder and it unsettles me because I only have guesses, and they aren't very reliable ones, for its cause. Putting aside the possibility that it was done with no connection to what he did for a living (!), should we be comfortable with a murder done on a person whose fortune came from essentially deciding who lives and who dies? (The words inscribed on the bullet casings imply Thompson was killed because of his work, but we've all watched mysteries where such clues are red herrings.)
That is, when you come right down to it, the job of every insurance executive. Their decisions are based on what will generate the most money for their stockholders, and that isn't damning in itself, because that is the reason companies like United Health exist. The rules they operate under, admittedly mostly self-defined, are often Byzantine and designed for profit rather than an individual's health, and that is how capitalism works. Whether that's justifiable is a different topic.
This is the world we are in and we need to maneuver in it, preferably keeping our sense of right and wrong intact. So I guess the question is, How should we react to a murder possibly done for vengeance?
The overwhelming consensus expressed online is that the act is understandable, if not justified. That assumes a lot of background that we might find is wrong. But let's say all these guesses are true: That the murderer lost a loved one due, at least in part, to the unthinking juggernaut of the capitalist healthcare system, and he is acting, in the best Levitical tradition, on the basis of an eye for an eye. In this way he's acting as a stand in for justice, and I've seen him compared to the Lone Ranger or the Equalizer.
The Equalizer deaths are gorier and nastier than a quick bullet to the back, so let's say he's acting like the more romantic Lone Ranger, albeit with the caveat he shot Thompson in the back. The Lone Ranger, of course, never shot anyone in the back. In fact, according to canon, the Ranger never killed anybody, always aiming to disarm, sometimes by wounding.
But again, we're in the world in which guns are used more often to kill than to wound. We might not even be having this conversation if Thompson had only been wounded. There might have been a news blip, a short unsuccessful search for the shooter, and we'd hear no more about it. Presumably, executives would rest easier and there would be a lingering question whether their own insurance claims cover being shot, but in the end nothing more.
Instead we have what Aja Romano and Sigal Samuel in Vox call "people [who are] posting vitriolic comments about Thompson feel justified in being smug about the death of this human in particular." There are some funny ones, I won't deny it--the "thoughts and prayers" and "my empathy is out of network" memes being two of the most clever if also the easiest--but the overall response by many people I'd consider comrades is exactly that, a smug assertion that Thompson got what he deserved.
Here's why that gives me pause. Romano and Samuel recognize "The humanity we show each other is a complicated thing." Their solution suggests we expand our compassion so that we align with both Thompson's family and those families affected by his decisions, and that's one way to accept it. But in that rationale there's no reason to change anything, it's a "tut tut, isn't that terrible" response, and it's like saying everyone is responsible and no one is responsible.
Part of the reason I'd consider many of these smug posters comrades is because we reacted together in horror at the fact that Donald Trump won the popular vote (yes, I accept it), that a majority of people accept and relish his view that people they don't like need to be brought to justice in some way, that laws need to change to make them pay, either by exile or prison, fines at the very least.
Trump, on the other hand, was found guilty in a court of law of at least 34 felonies, and there might have been more had he not won the election and will definitely negate his convictions and trials to the extent he can, whether through Constitutional means or not. Trump is the opposite of what Lincoln called "the angels of our better nature." He has voiced his primary desire (and many of his supporters echo this) as vengeance on his perceived enemies, the people who would hold him to the laws.
To cheer on Thompson's killer is to join sides with Trump, only changing the list of the deserving punished from right-wing enemies to left-wing enemies. Do not join his side. The urge to punish, poetically justifiable or no, sits in the cavern of our hearts where anger and frustration and hatred reside. They are angels of our baser nature and we must have the courage to refuse to give in to them.
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