Is it morally wrong to celebrate the killing of a victim belonging to a system perceived to be evil?

BY STEVEN KASZAB

The assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare has ignited a social controversy about how society should react to such a public murder, and to where some members of society place their support. There is a surprising lack of support for the victim, and many people are celebrating the murder and cheering for the suspected killer 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.

Mangione believes the killing of a single person pales in comparison to the immense harm done by his employer and by the private healthcare insurance industry as a whole. Many people support this attitude pointing out that profiteering from healthcare and the providing of pharmaceuticals is morally reprehensible. The system has created a major backlash that may take decades to deal with. Examples of clients paying their monthly rates for decades, only to be dropped after they get ill seems numerous and the firm’s actions unsound.

The moral indifference of the public to this killing, and the many cases of open approval on social media of the killing of a father of two children has brought up many moral and ethical questions. Is it morally wrong to celebrate the killing of a victim belonging to a system perceived to be evil?

This is no ordinary killing, but one reminiscent of murders carried out a century before by socially armed anarchists fighting an unjust and greedy system that profited on the denial of services and care for the more vulnerable. Mangione struck out at an injustice, just like an assassin who shoots a doctor who carries out abortions.

Morally murder is murder, an injustice in itself so can these people support such a heartless back shooting scenario? Mangione a hero? Hell No! Criminality is simply criminality. Democracy cannot allow such an expression of injustice, while at the same time allowing an entire industry sector to profiteer from people’s anguish and pain.

A curse upon the misguided sectors of healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Leave it to God to deal with it since human beings simply cannot.