[vundercind]

> At any rate: there's no serious theory of change that begins with murdering health care industry people.

I dunno. This is the most publicly-united I’ve seen people against the industry maybe ever. Usually they’re separately-angry at the industry in their partisan silos (everyone hates it, more or less—hence the amazingly consistent and widespread reaction) but this has been the closest thing to a bipartisan healing moment since, like, the week after 9/11. Not particularly close to that, sure, but I can’t think of anything closer.

If this were part of a theory of change, it strikes me as no less serious than any other I’ve seen. At least.

[s1artibartfast]

I think it is the most disgusted I have been with a broad swath of the public in a long time. I dont think anything productive will come of it.

[vundercind]

The trouble is that nothing productive was going to come of anything else, either. That’s where these reactions come from.

[s1artibartfast]

Yes, there is a lot of frustrations. Voters disagree on what they want. That does not justify people to start shooting people when they dont get their way.

[vundercind]

The thing you don’t like is that the voters do agree they want this, though.

[s1artibartfast]

Want what? I dont think the majority of Americans endorse vigilante murder of law abiding citizens. That is just a vocal and bloodthirsty segment of the online population.

[vundercind]

Literally everyone I know IRL was like, “nice. More please.” I was actually surprised and heartened to see the initial HN thread, even, was overwhelmingly supportive.

This is top of my list for conversation topics to steer things toward when I’m around Republican relatives, so we’ll have something we can agree on.

Law-abiding doesn’t mean much when you can kill lots of people for money and remain within the bounds of the law. Killing one such person is definitely far less bad than killing a bunch of people arbitrarily. Yet only one of these cases is illegal, and it’s the better of the two.

[hirvi74]

Justifications are meaningless when the end result is all the matters.

[s1artibartfast]

I staunchly disagree with this kind of utilitarianism. The ends do not justify the means.