"The tragic, brutal murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has elicited contempt for the unfettered greed and capitalism of health insurance companies.

[paulos_the_fog@qoto.org]

@wdlindsy

...and the filthy tory scum wanted to bring that iniquitous system to the UK!

[paulos_the_fog@qoto.org]

@wdlindsy

They won't do anything at all as the gun owners as a class are in the vast majority brainwashed right-wing nut jobs with barely a spare brain cell between them!

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Paulos_the_fog Yes, that sounds right to me.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Paulos_the_fog Indeed.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@mamiyaman Perhaps. There sometimes come times when no matter how large of a police wall you construct around yourself, it's not enough.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@tofugolem Personally, I'm never in favor of killing anyone to save lives, though I realize there are sometimes stark moral choices in which that might be an ethically defensible choice — as when Bonhöffer chose to participate in an attempt to have Hitler assassinated.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@theogrin Yes, I agree — and people are making assumptions about the motive for this shooting, of course, that haven't yet been verified. But I also remind myself of that Pete Seeger song that inspired so much resistance and determination in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements: "Step by Step."

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@ZhiZhu Indeed. Well-stated.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@tofugolem To whom are you responding when you speak of expressing sympathy? Wajahat Ali? To decry violence and killing as a solution is not the same thing as expressing sympathy for economic extortion, it seems to me.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@tinydoctor Since Wajahat Ali used that word, you may want to ask him.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@nceladean I'm pretty convinced that the old adage, "In the land of an eye for an eye, everyone will be blind," has a lot of wisdom built into it.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@markvonwahlde Sorry, I don't see any connection between what you're saying here and the statement by Wajahat Ali to which you're responding.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@havvyhh2 Yes, I think you're really accurate in describing the psychology of MAGA cult voters here.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@grheavyroller That's a book I haven't read and need to look up. I do like what I've read by him previously.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@HeliosPi Thanks for sharing this link — totally new information for me, which I'm glad to have.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Greengordon I suspect that arming oneself to the teeth and building walls around oneself has diminishing returns, since walls can always be breached, and the higher people build them to protect themselves, the more they invite those they're walling out to scale them.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@the5thColumnist Very well-stated and insightful. Thank you.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@TheEffekt You may have to help me understand what you mean by "restrict my morals." You lose me when you get to that phrase.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@timo21 I'd think so. Our appetite for sensationalism seems ravenous.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@phaedral Comparing acts of brutality as lesser or greater doesn't really appeal to me. I think gunning people down on the street in broad daylight should concern us — but we live, after all, with mass shootings on a regular basis, and people are being massacred in Gaza. Violence aplenty to go around, and all of it sickens me.