this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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[EDIT] Inb4 more people try to suggest that I'm mourning the loss of this scumbag capitalist fuck: No, I'm not sad he's dead. No, I don't think corporate murder is acceptable and no, I would not ever rat to police if I knew the shooter and yes, I believe the punishment fits the crimes he's committed against untold thousands of people. THAT SAID...

I'm not down with vigilante murder or anything because it seems like the slipperiest of slopes toward chaos, but what other option is there in a situation where someone seeks to make an impact in this way? You can't just beat up evil CEOs and let them go back to work. It would be naïve to expect them to change their ways when faced with consequences for their actions and then promptly let go. It just seems like the chances that it emboldens their penchant for exploitative behaviour and disdain for people in need are too high.

We're just born into and strapped to this capitalist ride and expected to sit quiet and make these leeches their billions. How else can this cancerous greed possibly be dealt with? Is vigilante murder the only effective option? Honest questions. I'm terribly conflicted and I'm genuinely curious what more reasonable and intelligent minds than mine think about this because I can't think of an alternative to murder in this case.

Ideally, we wouldn't have to resort to vigilante killings to level the playing field but I 100% understand that we don't live in a society where the rich will ever give a fuck about the rest of us or would ever sacrifice their power over us in the name of goodwill.

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[–] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

This is an age old topic and there is no right answer to it. You need to decide where you draw the line. Unpersecuted vigilantism will lead to chaos, on the other hand, we live in an unjust and structural violent system where rich people kill by signing papers and poor, desperate people die. They sometimes even vote for the elite before dying.
I glued myself to the street to protest our government not acting on our planet heating up. I knew I broke the law but I felt like I needed to. It was a rough experience, still I don't regret it because I did what felt necessary to me. The guy shooting the CEO probably feels the same, and pathetic "Proud Boys" chasing immigrants do so as well. For me, violence against other people is a line I don't see myself crossing. But I can think of scenarios where I would understand people resorting to it.

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[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

We've become too soft, and we need to get used to harsh realities. What was done was a perfectly acceptable and reasonable response. May this be the beginning of something new.

[–] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Schools have leaned hard into producing victims over the last few decades. They promote policies that ensure nobody ever learns to defend themselves, or fight back against bullies or the system. They actively punish kids who recognize they have a right to defend themselves.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago

tldr: there is the electoral system.

governments change because of who leads/ represents the people in their governments.

in the US, "the people" have little to no understanding of their government(there have been studies about this for the last 60 years), and because conservatives campaign on emotional bigotry, which is immediately hard-hitting and compelling versus waiting 2 years to receive a tax decrease(which works, but takes 2 years), undereducated and unsupported American citizens have been put into increasingly untenable situations where they are struggling to survive while working themselves to the bone and receiving lower compensation, and if an emergency arises, they are denied basic services.

when you have no other options to support yourself, murder becomes an option, since nothing else has worked and they are provided with no other options they are comfortable with.

there are some civil services, and the government can always change, regardless of what popular opinion fashions, but right now in the US you have a couple hundred million people desperate to survive in a country that provided survival wages, and now that they have reelected Trump and he's already before even taking the White House began turning against unions and civil rights, those wages will probably lower again, living cost increasing and civil benefits decreasing.

out of 200 million desperate people, some of them are willing to take the most drastic measure because maybe it'll make a difference, who knows.

i mean, lots of people know, but most Americans have been clinging to the edge of a cliff by their fingertips for years or decades, so they don't have the perspective that others may.

[–] bokherif@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Cook em mash em put em in a soup

[–] BreadOven@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Can we do the same, but in a stew?

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I’m not down with vigilante murder

Just why do you think the framers gave us the 2nd amendment?

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Because standing armies was a no go in 1792.

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[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Jefferson was all about the trees of liberty and the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Curiously he also imagined that an ultimate weapon would outlaw war forever. He was half-right: We just have war with no-nukes rules. But we should appreciate that nukes are difficult to make and are too messy to be actually useful.

I suspect he didn't imagine that guys going amuck (a trope since time immemorial) would be complicated by a surfeit of semi-automatic weapons. I imagine his solution would not be to limit civilian weapons but to look at the problems that drive guys to go amuck.

And also Jefferson, while he believed in abolitionism academically he did so not enough to free (or pay) his slaves, which means he didn't have a solution for shit (literal poop) mixed into the meals sent down his dumb waiter.

And the problem with the amuck thing is it can still scale, hence billionaires might make AI-controlled swarming armies of killer robots to dominate the world, and then have a trusted lieutenant decide to use the same army to just burn it all down like Mad King Aerys Targaryen.

And no amount of gun control is going to stop billionaires from making doomsday weapons.

[–] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

not down for "vigilante" murder? so you are down for corporate murder?

I don't know when we got the idea that killing someone with a pen is better than killing someone with a sword. at least with a sword you have to look them in the eyes while you do it

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago

Nope. That's not what I am suggesting at all. I literally said that I don't think there's any other option besides vigilantism, which to me presents a difficult situation to reason through.

I'm allowed to find this situation conflicting and ask about other's people's thoughts on it to help me understand my own.

[–] nzeayn@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

i don't see violance as a first option but i'm not a pacifist, sometimes its going to be the only option. i don't think dropping a random ceo or two is anything more than revolution larping though. this kind of thing is more likely to just make insurnace campuses a target for ramdom shooting in the same way american schools are. a bunch of people just trying to make a living in an economic enviroment where picking your employer is a privilage, will get get unalived along with maybe a low level exec who has little actual power. and we'll see a whole lot of stories about why we should love insurnace companies. i'm not mourning this fucker or feeling sympathy for his family, but it's not a long term plan for improving anyones life. we find ourselves with a fewer billionaire media tycoons and i'll be less sceptical of people suggesting this practice.

[–] djsoren19@yiffit.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

We already live in a culture that glorifies constant violence. Roughly one person gets murdered every day in New York City, and dozens have been killed across the U.S. since the CEO's death. We wait with bated breath for the next school shooting, or episode of police brutality, to fill the news with more poor bodies. I've even been personally affected, having to dive out of the way of a fleeing gunman to avoid stray bullets from his automatic.

The only thing that has happened is equality. The billionaire class that has fostered and profited from the culture of violence has had a taste of what we get to go through every day. If there is any slippery slope to slide down, it has been sloped by the bourgeoise.

[–] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

OP, can you please edit your question to make it clearer. Remember, open-ended and thought provoking.

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago

I tried. Not sure how much clearer I can make it if this doesn't do the trick.

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