HELL YES, look how scared they are at the public’s reaction, this is amazing
yeah so here’s the thing
It *is* “flatly inconsistent with stable democracy,” but not in the way WaPo means. Basically these health insurance companies have squashed democratic ways of changing their predatory and loathsome practices. So this happens, and the public reacts this way, because they feel like United Healthcare and other companies have placed themselves above the democratic system and become too powerful to be held accountable by it.
Denying someone the life saving health care they need kills a person, as surely as a bullet does, but people who kill in this way are not considered murderers. But this is wrong, and the public knows it. A knife is no more or less moral of a murder weapon than a gun, which is no more or less moral of a murder weapon than paperwork. Whether you kill someone by pulling a trigger or making a phone call, whether with one big wound or a thousand tiny ones, you still caused someone’s death.
Do I agree with murder? No. Am I willing to judge that any human being deserves death? No. Do I think it’s absurd to expect widespread indignation and mourning at the death of one rich man when no indignation and no mourning was necessary to honor a thousand poor men killed by the decisions of rich men? Yes. Do I think it’s absurd to expect people to condemn this one murderer of one rich man, while also expecting the many murderers of many poor men to be accepted, beloved, and shielded from justice? Yes.
Putting it in a simple metaphor, this guy helped carve a massive monolith that read “HUMAN LIVES HAVE NO VALUE OUTSIDE OF THEIR USE TO YOU. THIS IS THE SUPREME LAW.” and now he’s dead, shot dead like any common person, and someone is saying “This is so tragic and unacceptable! Human lives have value!” but everybody is distracted and a little put off by the, you know, the huge monolith.
amhrancas 