Riots and Road Rage: the Revolution of Idealists
Lots of folks seem to be celebrating the assassination of UHC’s CEO Brian Thompson last week. He was shot from behind while walking to an investor conference on a New York City sidewalk. The words scrawled on the ammo casings were “delay,” “deny,” and “depose,” apparently echoing the policies of the insurance company Thompson headed. Sure, it’s disturbing, but people are shot and killed all over America every day for a variety of reasons. What makes this one disturbing is not the fact that he was a CEO (at least not to me). What’s disturbing is seeing the jokes and the celebrations from my left-minded friends on social media.
It’s possible I’ve missed something in the national news…did Brian Thompson do something very bad? Something that would warrant the nation-wide celebration of his cold-blooded murder? These people seem to think he masterminded the deaths of a large group of people. We celebrated Seal Team Six when they finally found Osama Bin Ladin and put a large hole through his head. But we had three thousand innocent deaths to avenge. Did Brian Thompson do something like that?
I’ve been informed, “That man’s company is responsible for more deaths than literal wars.” Is that right? Is UHC killing people by the millions? In that case, forget Bin Ladin…this guy was Hitler-level! Thank you, assassin! Otherwise, I might have become a victim of Brian Thompson, too! I happen to be a UHC customer…or rather, the company I work for is a customer (I had no hand in deciding which insurance provider we would use).
I was infuriated with Caremark/CVS on several occasions when they denied me the medications my doctor prescribed. I might have died without those meds if there had been no alternative medications. Or I guess I could have paid out-of-pocket for those super-expensive meds, but then I could not have paid for anything else…food, shelter, etc. What does this mean for the CEOs of Caremark and several pharmaceutical corporations? Should their lives be in danger for letting their products be so expensive as to be out of reach for millions of Americans? But there are ways to get these drugs without the need for violence or insurance…hefty discounts for those who cannot afford their medication. So, maybe the CEO of Pfizer and others are safe. Will someone tell the nutjobs around the country that Caremark and big pharma CEOs are off limits? Thanks.
What about the CEOs of other insurance companies? Blue Cross and Cigna and such. What about VSP? What about home insurance CEOs? They might not have killed anyone, but surely they’ve caused some major financial suffering. Liberty-Biberty! AFLAC! What about J.K. Simmons, the spokesperson in all those Farmers commercials (and one hell of an actor in Whiplash)? He might be mistaken for a CEO! Get him to a panic room! What about Flo from Progressive…she’s my favorite. That caveman can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. Don’t even get me started on the lizard.
Okay, I make light of a serious situation to prove a point…shame on me. I have no love for insurance companies. Nor any CEO, not even the one I work for. Mostly, CEOs are extremely wealthy and make a shitload of decisions that affect other peoples’ lives. I personally would not want that job for any amount of money. And I would never suggest any CEO was a good person…well, because I don’t know any CEOs. Likewise, I would never consider one bad. Brian Thompson might have been a sweetheart or he might have been another Hitler. I’ll never know. So, I can never condone his murder.
Yes, I’m sure UHC denied some claims which led to the deaths of their customers. So, they are responsible due to their inaction. They’re not picking and choosing who will receive care and who won’t.
The suspect (we all know his name by now, right?) was an Ivy League valedictorian. His friends, family, and neighbors all say he was a good kid and decent man. So what would drive someone like this to do something like that?
Yes, America’s healthcare industry sucks…the most expensive in the world least effective among high income countries while UHC and other provides make record bank. It’s not just the insurance companies. Hospital charges are outrageous. A bedpan in a hospital costs something like $400 while Amazon’s is $18.99. Then there’s malpractice…if you haven’t been sued for malpractice, are you even a doctor, bro?
I could empathize if Brian Thompson had specifically said this woman doesn’t get her cancer treatment because she’s only been covered three months or something similarly ridiculous, then that woman’s husband guns him down in the street. It’s still not right, but I could understand. But the suspect was not involved in a life and death struggle with Brian Thompson, UHC, or anyone else. He’s just an idealist gone mad. I like to consider myself an idealist…ideally, we don’t murder people who’ve done us no personal harm.
So he’s a martyr? A hero? Jesus! In America, we follow the rule of law. As far as I know, Brian Thompson was never charged with any crime, but he was certainly denied due process for whatever his killer thought he was guilty of. That’s why his killer is a criminal and is unworthy of celebration. Period. Those people who condone his crime and hail him as some kind of vigilante hero (The Dark Nut) are all on the same level of crazy.
I consider MLK a hero…words were his weapon of choice. But maybe we’ve become immune and desensitized to peaceful protest. Seems we go straight to the violent extreme anytime we have a problem. Riots and road rage are our response.
But are these people really seeking justice for all the “victims” of Brian Thompson and UHC’s evil plan to maximize profits at the expense of patients’ lives? I call bullshit…hell no. Justice is not what they want. They want a revolution. They want civil war. They want a reckoning between Red and Blue. The Red team won the Whitehouse and the Senate while retaining the HoR and the Supreme Court. And the Blue team is very upset about it. They’ve done all they could to win the democratic way, and they lost. Kamala’s promise, “We will not go back,” is lost. We will in fact go back. And we’ll be led by the convicted felon, rapist, fascist, who attempted to wrestle away the soul of our country four years ago…and finally did wrestle it away four weeks ago.
They call capitalism evil and socialism our one chance of salvation…even before the election. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. And the middle-class gets middle-classier? No, there’s no middle in their estimations. We only speak/think in extremes. That’s all that politics is now…extremes.
No, they’ve lost all hope in humanity and so they’ve no hope for their own humanity. Those three words scrawled on the shells, “DELAY,” “DENY,” DEPOSE,” will be their war cry in the streets of America. Those three shells were the first shots of the revolution. The revolution replaces, “We will not go back.” There will be more violence, followed immediately by more liberal confetti in their social media posts.
“So you say you want a revolution.” But what we are witnessing is the devolution of humanity. I hope I’m wrong.
-Big Steve