These people obviously have unquestionable control over everything by wealth and influence. People underneath them suffer under their ‘leadership’ whether it is working unhealthy hours for shit pay to working in unsafe environments where they’re subjected to abuse or harm.
Yet there are pockets of people, where if you express the desire of these kinds of people who lead to die, will defend them because reasons. The top reason being that they don’t like the idea of life being taken away. However, the way I see it is that, if you are in high positions and anybody suffers by a big number because you’re a poor leader or so. I think the idea of jail or any justice imposed sentence is beyond them.
Lots of people forget because it’s been 5 years, but Trump allowed 350,000 americans to die under a mishandled pandemic. Was the pandemic going to take lots of lives anyways? Yes, but I argue that it could’ve been negated and handled better. But no, that’s not what we saw happen.
And it is because of that kind of gross example, I wish death on Trump everyday, anyday.
And people argue “oh, he should be in jail to think about his crimes and the law will prevail” blah blah. People have been clamoring for jail time for lots of powerful people, only to find that very few of them do. To them, time is like money, they’re too busy counting how many days they have left before they’re back out and will attempt to re-capture their influence and wealth to resume what they did before again.
So I feel that by sentencing these people to death, we are taking away immediately, what enjoyment they have, in spending making hundreds to thousands to even millions of people suffer and having their lives be worse off.
I don’t wish anyone to die as a rule.
Now at any rate [Gollum] is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’
‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
–The Fellowship of the Ring
Even exceptions require due diligence.
Should you meet a man of terrible crimes,
do not draw your sword, do not force him to draw.
Do not cut, do not let him cut.
Do not kill and do not be killed.
Teach him kindly and lead him to be a better man. Only if he will not be led, cut him down with a regretful stroke and send him to Buddha.
- Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu
Forgive my unsolicited advice. Perhaps you know this already but if you want the blockquote to be unbroken you have to put a
on the blank lines as well.> This is a paragraph. > > And this is another paragraph.This is a paragraph.
And this is another paragraph.
The markdown parser also treats a hyphen plus space at the start of the line as a bullet. If you want an en dash you use two hyphens. Three gets you an em dash.
--Some famous quotable guy–Some famous quotable guy
I'm not a robot---I’m not a robot—
Teach him kindly and lead him to be a better man. Only if he will not be led, cut him down with a regretful stroke and send him to Buddha.
…
Forgive my unsolicited advice. Perhaps you know this already but if you want the blockquote…
Just for entertainment, I’m going to assume your post was a Markdown equivalent of “teaching kindly”
ty!
Tbh the rich guy who owns the company I work for is the shit, absolutely love the dude.
It’s the middle micromanagers that make my life a living hell, and they’re a lot closer to me monetarily.
You Realize by definition the guy who owns the company’s responsible for those middle micromanagers being there right?
Wishing death to someone for any reason is quite an extreme position to take outside of these niche internet bubbles that influenced you to think this way in the first place. I honestly struggle a bit when I try to imagine how you deal with the cognitive dissonance of trying to distinguish yourself from the worst people in history. You might not have the power to do the atrocities that they did, but your aspirations aren’t that different in practice. You just have a different justification for why you think what you wish to happen is actually a good thing - just like these people did as well. You even admit that you don’t really care whether they’re actually bad people or not. Your criteria is “rich and executive position,” which is quite indiscriminate.
the cognitive loop goes like this:
If I am not a mass murdered/pedophile/etc, and those are the worst people, and I wish death on them, then I am good.
It’s basically shitty people trying to justify to themselves that they are ‘good’ by their dislike of ‘bad’ people, but taken to an extreme.
It’s also the loop that causes mentally unwell people to justify violence. Because while killing is bad, if they do it to bad people, it must be good.
It’s largely an exercise in ego-inflation and blame-shifting, like the ‘I am shit, but someone else is shittier so I’m not that shitty’ mentality that just entrenches negative behaviors. Further, there is no ‘reason’ to improve your life if the evil rich people stole your life from you, so your justified in wallowing in your misery and fantasy-projecting rather than… taking actionable steps towards improving your life.
Trumps policies have killed many people.
The cholera epidemic in South Sudan worsened significantly after the Trump administration cut funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which had been providing critical medical support. These cuts led to the closure of clinics that were essential in treating cholera patients, resulting in increased mortality rates during the outbreak.
For example. We’re not talking about someone who did something wrong, we’re talking about a man who’s at best indifferent to suffering and dying of people based on their skin color. This isn’t some regular murderer or even assassin, this is wholesale killing.
Wanting someone who has the power to kill innocent people and does to die is a pretty natural response.
Even in that case, it’s not like he’s killing them. He just said we’re not going to try to save them.
I’m against pretty much everything that guy has ever said, and would have chosen to greatly expand USAID for all the lives it was saving and misery avoided …… but there is a huge ethical distance between killing them and not going out of your way to save them. Wither way it helps if you’re a sociopath, but they are different
Trump is an individual. My criticism is about the blanket judgement of everyone rich and powerful.
I’m not sure this is categorically true. If you are in a situation where another person is clearly and obviously killing everyone around you one after the other and you could stop them by killing them, I think most would argue it is morally ok to do so. Same for a situation of like a home invasion where someone means to do immediate harm to your family and loved ones. Murder in self defense is often considered morally ok. When people in the world through their actions are killing people in enormous numbers, it is not too hard to see how someone could make a parallel to self defense.
Sure, but that’s a bit of a motte-and-bailey. It’s like saying that one wishes death for all black people and when challenged they then retreat back to claiming that they were talking about just the ones who rape and murder.
My point is that wishing death for someone simply for being rich and in an executive position is barely different from wishing that to someone because they’re black. It’s unreasonable to be categorically against something purely based on superficial features. It’s a thought-terminating cliché that ignores all nuance and reduces a diverse group of people into a stereotype.
I basically agree with this, with one important distinction worth mentioning that being black is not a willful choice, but having billions of dollars absolutely is. I would argue that if someone has so much money there is no possible way for them to spend it all in their and their progeny’s lifetime, the only ethical thing to do is give the excess that can’t be spent away.
In general, though, I understand not all ultra wealthy are equally bad, and those who just inherited their money and sit on it aren’t anywhere near the level of those that actively influence policy for the negative. Yes there is nuance there, and yes stereotyping the whole group is reductive.
The general sentiment in OPs comment is usually rooted to in the notion that there is really no way to run a business that makes billions of dollars without underpaying or overcharging people along the way, and there is no way to justify having 100bn+ dollars all for yourself when there are so many people without. If that means those offences are extreme enough to justify murder is another question, and I agree should probably not apply categorically to all rich people equally with no deeper discussion.
I actually might be the rare ones that don’t actually want them dead. Well I mean like I don’t care if they’re alive either, doesn’t matter to me, just seize their assets above 999Mil, if they resist, it’s tax evasion so jail them.
Distribute the wealth. Simple. I don’t need to see bloodshed.
Killing them doesn’t make a difference, their heirs will just take their place. I’m not gonna endorse killing entire families and expecially not their children who didn’t chose to be born to nacissistic rich parents, its just generational trauma and atrocity, do they even have free will but to continue the path they’ve been on for their entire bloodlines? Do humans really have free will? Fix the system, don’t just decapitate people. We don’t need vengeful heirs trying to bring down the new system in order to “avenge their dead parents”.
They would have you killed in a heartbeat if it meant they earned more money.
Don’t kill them. Just make them poor and cut off their connections to their former caste.
This. I’d much rather see them suffer being poor for a while before learning they can be reasonably happy at the level most people are at, and using their seized assets to bring the poorest up to a livable level.
Yeah but, how likely is it that they’ll ever see such a fate?
Next to zero. This is all just fantasizing.
So you think government execution of the elite is realistic?
That would be great, of course, but history tells us they either get away with it and die (sometimes) peacefully in their sleep or they’re killed by a mob.
I like the way Stalin went. “Oh no, he fell down, call a doctor.” Doctors (who had been relentlessly persecuted): “We’re not treating him, bugger off.” Stalin’s cronies: “Whelp, we’ll just put him to bed and see what happens.”
And their nuts.
The top reason being that they don’t like the idea of life being taken away.
Well then it sounds like you know the answer to your question. Are you actually asking to ask, or just to soapbox?
Death sentences are a slippery slope. Today its okay to kill the rich, tomorrow its protests that block roads, or LGBT people.
Even if we still to a hard line of “only the ultra rich”, how rich is ultra rich? $1B networth? Sure. $10m net worth? Maybe. Anyone who earns more than you?
I get what you are saying and it is a slippery slope, but it is very doable to draw clear, objective lines around it. “Anyone with so much money there is absolutely no way they got it without heavy worker exploitation, ie 10bn+” for example. Nothing even remotely close to the average working class individual or even minor wealthy individual
You used so many subjective terms in that description. You can draw the line at a number, that is objective (but see tax evasion for how that works in practice), but “heavy worker exploitation” is entirely subjective.
In my mind, most failing hospitality businesses fall into “heavy worker exploitation”, but many of them are owner by people who arent billionaires.
That’s fair. The line is clearly harder to draw than I am making it seem. For the sake of argument, can we both agree that a line exists somewhere? Or would you putting forward that there is never a situation in which killing someone is morally justified no matter what the situation is?
And a follow up question, would you instead prefer that for certain extreme offenders, a life imprisonment sentence is used? I believe an argument could be made that, as the prison system exists in many countries now, this may be worse.
Or perhaps more broadly, for someone guilty of rampant repeated murder with no demonstrated indications of potential remorse or reform, what would be the ideal punishment or societal repercussion?
I think the part of your original comment that I find upsetting, and I understand this is a lot my own biases at play here too, is this idea that if we start killing the ultra wealthy then we or people we like and care for will be next. It’s not that that is incorrect per se, it’s more a cause an effect thing. Living in the US, it’s been made abundantly clear that the ultra wealthy are not waiting on violence to justify their violence, they are just doin violence as often and eagerly as they feel like. In my state, it is officially, government certified legal to run over a protester who blocks the road. This ruling was made after a truck decided to do it. Police here kill people for being the wrong skin color. The ultra wealthy kill us albeit more indirectly by paying starvation wages and denying medical care for life saving treatments, and restricting housing access and making homelessness functionally a crime. People here get to watch their friends and neighbors already having extreme violence and sometimes murder done upon them already.
I know that an eye for an eye is not a great approach. But for most it feels like self defense, and it’s worth remembering that no lasting societal change or revolution in the world’s history has ever been successful without at least some violence. Hearing “hey you shouldn’t be violent” can be hard to take for people who just watch it happening all day every day to everyone around them, especially when not paired with an alternative, preferable suggestion that works.
So I guess I would ask what alternative you are advocating for, and what you might tell people like me and, presumably, op, who are so sick of all of it that violence is starting to look like an ok option
To address the edit, I think part of the US’s problem is that you are already on the slope, and have been for a while. Violence has been normalised and accepted (and legalised as you’ve pointed out). I’d like to beleive you can reverse course, but it certainly doesnt seem likely.
I dont have any answers for you or op, but if it were me, I would focus on the defence and protection of my family/community first, rather than searching for retribution. I know that sounds hollow and empty though.
I can definitely place people above the line so to speak, but I dont think I could draw an objective one-size-fits-all line.
Humanity is a continuous spectrum from people living in extreme poverty up to the one percent, and its very hard to find any clean delinineation that I would be comfortable drawing the line through.
And the other problem is that the definition of that line would vary wildly from person to person.
If I’m honest with myself, I live in a well off first world country, that in of itself means that I am indirectly responsible for a non-zero amount human suffering in other parts of the world. It doesnt necessarily make me black and white evil, but to someone in one of those parts of the world, they definitely might see it that way.
I’m happy with death as a penalty for certain acts of evil, but I would want it to be the exception, not the rule. Everytime someone is death-row’d, we should all be unanimously sure that its the right thing to do.
People make this more complicated than is needed. We already know who these people are. We already know what kind of wealth they’re wielding. Why do we pretend as if we don’t and we need to re-assess this?
I know that some racists shitheads will definitely torch Asian American small bussinesses and lynch small bussiness owners if society gave the “go ahead” of doing a mao-style revolution.
I don’t want to see my parents dead because some racists are jealous that we are slightly higher on the working class ladder than they are.
the law enforcement aren’t gonna help Asians when racists attack us, we are seen as expendable, I don’t wanna live in LA Riots type of shit and having to do Rooftop Korean style of defending the community. That’s pure chaos.
Lol, that is definitely not true. You may have a list, it almost certainly doesn’t match everyone else’s list.
And let’s say we complete your list. What then? If things dont improve, do we lower the bar and try again?
I think it’s more the line of “If this person dies, who will take their place?”
It’s kind of a Hydra situation from the MCU. Killing one person won’t do much. Everyone expects the next in line to keep doing the same thing.
its also like goauld situation sg1, as soon as they off one goauld a worst one takes thier place.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
or worst.
I don’t.
Sure, there are many people that deserve it, and sure, there will always be the ability for someone to try to be a shitstain on humanity, but to pretend that the effort is futile is literally just ignorant defeatism.
You don’t what?
Expect the next person in line to take the first’s place. Eventually, the greedy cunts will figure out they’re just stepping in line for the guillotine.
I just think that dying is unethical in general and represents a maximal state of suffering (well, more a minimum of non-suffering, since you have no capacity to experience anything when you dont exist anymore, not maximal suffering in the “hell” sense. I know many or most people would disagree with me on that point, but its not something I feel like spelling out my reasons for at the moment.) I also do not believe in the concept of deserved suffering (that is to say, in my view suffering as punishment only has value in its capacity to rewire a person’s future behavior, and that once you have achieved that so as to cause them to live without continuing whatever harms have led to the punishment, anything more is wrong, no matter what they’ve done, even if they were literally the most heinous person of all time). If you’re actually in a position to execute them, then youre in a position to take their money and power too, pointing out that they rarely face justice isnt actually relevant to this, because if your legal system is too corrupted to hand out a jail sentence and make it stick, its also going to be too corrupted to hand out a death sentence and go through with it. These people arent wealthy because they’re inherently good at making money, they’re wealthy because wealth begets wealth and they either started with some or lucked out somewhere or have relations that have it, so if you both take their wealth and the wealth of their friends and relatives, how are they going to get it back?
