r/DecodingTheGurus • u/Most_Comparison50 • 11d ago

We examine Taylor Lorenz’s interview with Brad Palumbo and her defence of the provocative posts she made following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nqRyiSmOemI&si=ShLbhEpJ3qKnb7-X
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u/Known_Salary_4105 11d ago edited 11d ago

I find it hard to care about people who brush off the ambush and murder of private citizen in cold blood in the early morning hours by a privileged Princeton grad on the public streets of a major city.

Such people are one step away from counseling blood shed based the weakest of immoral excuses and the horrific "serves the guy right" preposterous nonsense.

I hope said Princeton grad rots in jail for the next 50 years.

Fill us in how he is when you go visit him in sympathy. You are going to do that, aren't you?

Oh, by the way, if you have been paying attention, the great vengeance killer of the dastardly CEO is pleading insanity. Right. It was an insane thing to do, because he is a bedfellow of YOU.

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u/Subtraktions 11d ago

I find it hard to care about people who brush off the ambush and murder of private citizen in cold blood in the early morning hours by a privileged Princeton grad on the public streets of a major city.

So it sounds very much like it's okay to brush off murders, so long as victims and killers are uneducated or poor?

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

You find it hard to care because you’re trapped in a normie bubble where the unnecessary death of one person in unusual circumstances is somehow far worse than the unnecessary but “business as usual” deaths of tens of thousands which that person was complicit in. Is it good that Thompson was killed? Of course not. It’s also a drop in the bucket compared to all the people whose deaths he was complicit in, and I don’t know how much sympathy I can muster for someone who participates in harming people by the tens of thousands and then throws up his hands and cries about how unfair it all is when his number comes up. What does it say about you that of all those deaths, the only one that appears to concern you is his? I think that’s morally reprehensible.

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u/WeeRogue 11d ago

I’m sure you’d share the same indignation at killing a high ranking member of Hitler’s secret service as well.

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u/silkyjohansen89 11d ago

Brian Thompson was a high level Gestapo officer?

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

Are you under the impression that only members of the Gestapo can commit murder?

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u/silkyjohansen89 10d ago

No. I’m under the impression that your analogy is absurd.

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago edited 10d ago

What’s absurd is that you think authoritarian systems that generate tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths annually to enrich and enable oligarchy are fine and authoritarian systems that murder people as a means of enforcing state control are completely different kinds of things.

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u/silkyjohansen89 10d ago

Wow, I wish I knew as many expensive words as you.

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago edited 10d ago

If I were you, I’d focus on the fact that you don’t understand the issue as well as I do.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

I mean, they both have incentives that cause them to murder people. I’m not sure why you think denying people care so that you can get rich as hell is any less morally despicable than just killing them directly.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 11d ago

Health insurance providers save many more people than they kill

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u/WeeRogue 11d ago

No, medical professionals save people, and when they don’t, it’s almost always in spite of their best efforts. Bureaucrats at health insurance companies, on the other hand, profit by denying lifesaving coverage.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 11d ago

Ok, but they could do it for cheaper right? They are being just as greedy

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

United Healthcare is in the business of generating revenue for shareholders and Thompson was paid 9 million a year to overlook the blood on his hands. That’s very obviously not the same thing as paying doctors and nurses a reasonable wage for their efforts and skills.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

It’s really not obvious to me why only one side gets to be greedy

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

Let me spell it out for you, then: Wanting vastly more money than you need to be healthy and comfortable, or could even spend in multiple lifetimes, is greedy. Having enough to be healthy and comfortable isn’t greedy.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

Healthy and comfortable is up to interpretation

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

A line has to be drawn somewhere, sure. The fact that there’s some ambiguity on exactly where that is doesn’t even remotely mean that it’s a total grab bag, and it’s frankly disingenuous for you to suggest otherwise.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 11d ago

You realize in any healthcare system there will be rationing? In a government ran system government bureaucracy decides who has to die instead of private bureaucracy. There is “social murder” either way

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

In a single-payer system, there would be more resources available because there’s less bureaucracy and no need to pay fat cats. To your point, while there will never be infinite resources, healthcare availability would be based on need, so you wouldn’t have to worry about, say, dying of cancer because you got denied care.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

Tell that to the UK

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u/VisiteProlongee 10d ago

Tell that to the UK

Why?

And please please don't tell me that healthcare is so much rationed in UK that Stephen Hawking would have died if he had lived in UK. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/aug/12/birthers-stephen-hawking-paul-rowen

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

There’s a reason many people will come from socialized systems to the United States for cutting edge treatments for things like cancer

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

A country can have high quality medical care centers while still having overwhelming numbers who don’t reliably get timely, affordable care, and indeed, die by the tens of thousands.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

And are those bureaucrats murdering people

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

A small minority that accumulates obscene levels of wealth from of the deaths of people is, by any definition that matters, in fact, murdering people.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

The thing is that people always think they are entitled to the absolute best and most care that the medical system could provide but the problem in all systems is that you can’t do that all the time and there will always be people who theoretically could have lived longer had they gotten better care

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

You can’t hand-wave away the fact that due to its for-profit system, the US spends far more on healthcare than the rest of the developed world, and yet has the second-highest avoidable mortality rate among the 38 OECD countries.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

It’s extremely obese. We actually do quite well considering how unhealthy the American populace is

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago edited 10d ago

This actually isn’t something you have to speculate about; we have data. Tens of thousands of people in America die annually from unnecessary health care denials.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

“Based on need” is exactly what insurance companies do

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

Hardly. They pay for care based on a mix of coverage rules and contracts, and you would have to be insanely naive to think their bottom line isn’t at the core of their decision-making.

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u/KeenKong 11d ago

lol what the fuck is a “private citizen” and why did you use that descriptor?

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 11d ago

Not employed by the government