According to a reader, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson didn’t deserve to die, and I’m a piece of shit for supporting Luigi Mangione.
It’s been a while since I’ve published a hatemail. I think the last hatemail I put up was back in 2011, and even that technically wasn’t really hatemail.
The truth is, people just don’t send hatemail like they used to. The days of detailed but still empty death threats are long gone. Now readers who disagree with something I’ve written are more likely to either give me a detailed analysis of why I’m wrong, or hit me with a one-liner and a meme. Everyone on the internet is still outraged and angry, but they tend to express that anger to each other during their social media circlejerks, rather than take the time to craft an angry email to the person who drew their ire. It’s only when you make people really angry that they form the lynch mobs and set out to ruin your life.
Today though, we’ve got an email from Rob, a reader who took issue with my article about the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Rob is unhappy that I supported Luigi Mangione’s actions, and thinks that Thompson didn’t deserve to die.
Hi editor,
This is in regard to Angry Jerk’s article “A health insurance company CEO was shot, cry me a river.”
I find this article disgusting and insensitive. Angry Jerk is glorifying the murder of an innocent man because he’s a CEO. Typical rich people hating liberal. How can you even write something like this? The man had a wife and kids who are now going to grow up without their father. It’s absolutely sickening. I don’t support United Healthcare but killing the owner isn’t the answer. What gave him the right to gun a man down in broad daylight? This isn’t the wild west any more. We have laws now. Brian Thompson has the right to a fair trial just like you and me. Luigi Mangione isn’t judge jury and executioner. And why was he even mad anyway? His family is rich. He could have payed for treatment out of pocket.
Angry jerk is a piece of shit, and if you want anyone to take your shitty internet magazine seriously you shouldn’t post articles glorifying criminals. Good luck with that, I won’t be coming back.
Rob I.
It’s kind of funny. When the shooting first happened, most people saw it was the CEO of a health insurance company and said, “Yeah, he probably deserved it.” But then over the span of a week, political lines were drawn, with conservatives saying it was unjustified murder, and liberals saying it was murder, but health insurance CEOs are evil so Thompson deserved it. Suddenly everybody was towing their party’s line, repeating whatever stance their political alignment dictated. If you supported Luigi’s actions, you were a libtard commie who blindly hates rich people, and if you were against Luigi, then that made you a corporate bootlicker. As always, no middle ground to stand on.
I wrote the article two days after the shooting happened, before we knew who Luigi Mangione was or why he did it. I admit, I was kind of surprised that it was a guy who came from money. I thought it was going to be some poor person with a family member who had cancer but was denied treatment.
Knowing Luigi Mangione’s background and circumstances changes absolutely nothing that I said in the article. I still support his actions 110%. Brian Thompson was a huge piece of shit, and he got what he had coming to him.
Yes, I can say that on the internet. I can even say it in real life. Contrary to what crybabies like you might think, Rob, I’m entitled to my opinion. Just like you’re entitled to be a retard who needs to categorize everyone into political categories. I guess only liberals are the only ones who can be against unethical business practices? I’m not liberal or conservative, and political alignment has nothing to do with the fact that UnitedHealthcare and other insurance companies routinely reap record profits through unethical business practices, like denying people treatment for pre-existing conditions or other reasons. This time though, they reaped what they sowed, and I fucking love it.
You say the legal system should have handled Brian Thompson. You’re absolutely right, they should have. They didn’t. While it’s true that he had been under investigation for insider trading before his death, that’s largely irrelevant compared to his company’s practice of denying necessary treatment to the people they insured. At most, he might have gotten slapped with a fine. The maximum fine for insider trading allowed by law is $5 million. When you consider that he made $15 million, he’s still making out in the end. Meanwhile, his company continues to profit off of denying people treatment. UnitedHealthcare quite literally profits from death, as do many other insurers. The difference is, UnitedHealthcare denied far more claims than anyone else in the industry:
According to the analysis, AvMed and UnitedHealthcare tied for the highest denial rate, with both companies denying about a third of in-network claims for plans sold on the Marketplace in 2023, respectively.
The system has a habit of rarely if ever holding white collar crooks accountable for unethical business practices. Let’s be real, Brian Thompson would never have even come close to being held accountable for what his company has done. Sometimes the system fails, and sometimes justice needs to be obtained through other methods.
“What about his wife and kids?” Yeah, and what about the wives and kids of all the people who died because UnitedHealthcare denied them treatment? Fuck them I guess, right dipshit? Like I said in the article, if he cared so much about his family then he wouldn’t have chosen to make a living screwing people. Brian Thompson fucked around, and Brian Thompson found out.
Simps will defend this by saying that it wasn’t Brian himself denying the treatments. What a crock of shit.
As the CEO of a company, you are responsible for everything it does, every policy it has, every decision it makes. Brian Thompson no doubt knew about these policies and chose to allow them, and if he didn’t then he’s still guilty of gross negligence and still responsible. When a dictator orders his troops to enforce policies that lead to the deaths of his people, we blame that dictator and hold him accountable. Hitler may not have personally killed anyone in the camps, but he still ordered it, so we hold him accountable for the atrocities of the Holocaust. Why shouldn’t we hold the CEO of a company accountable for his company’s policies, especially when those policies allow people to die because it’s more profitable than treating them?
But now that Luigi has exposed just how easy it is to take direct action against the crooked companies that are screwing us over, suddenly they’re all panicking and scrambling to make an example out of him. The fact that he’s being charged with terrorism and could be facing the death penalty tells me everything I need to know. They’re throwing the book at Mangione because they’re terrified that he’s demonstrated that anyone with a gun can just walk up to one of these white collar criminals and plug them several times. They’re afraid of copycats, because what Luigi did was so absurdly easy that anyone can do it. To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to do something like this.
So who’s the bigger piece of shit here: The guy who caused thousands of deaths through broken policies and unethical business practices, the guy who shot the guy who caused thousands of deaths, or the guy who congratulated the guy for shooting the other guy? Even if you’ve got some Batman-esque mentality and don’t condone lethal vigilantism, you can’t deny that Thompson didn’t have it coming to him.
But please go ahead and continue simping for a scumbag who got what he deserved. I’ll continue writing for my shitty internet magazine, and I’ll continue not taking it seriously.
Take your readership and kindly fuck off, Rob. None of us feel like cleaning up tears and menstrual blood.
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