Justifying Murder
Our prideful assumptions beget our fall
I’ve been concerned, maybe even disturbed, at the reaction to the murder of the UHC CEO.
I keep reading and/or hearing logical explanations for it. Now there is a difference between explaining the logic and justifying it. I can understand the equation put together: healthcare denials lead to death and illness therefore anyone in charge of a company that denies care is responsible and should be held to account.
But what I don’t understand is the lack of what Thomas Sowell called “second order thinking.” I can come up with all kind of logic for who is responsible at least in part or in whole for healthcare outcomes. And if anyone is going to utilize logic in that way, then why wouldn’t anyone use that same logic for other cases of harm? Or other people responsible for that harm?
Second Order Thinking
Have these people sympathizing or praising the murderer never played chess, checkers, or even tick-tack-toe? Do they not stop to think about the consequences of their moves? My son was already doing that at the age of four but suddenly a large portion of otherwise intelligent adults seem to have lost that ability.
If I extend that logic for killing the UHC CEO, then why not hold the people responsible for the policies in place within which those healthcare insurance companies operate?
If Obama was killed by the murderer for creating the Affordable Care Act and blamed for the policies within which the insurance companies operate, would those praising him still justify that logical endpoint?
“Show me the man, and I will show you the crime.” — Lavrentiy Beria, Soviet secret police chief
That’s second order thinking. If A=B and B=C, then A=C. If I make this logical move, then what’s next?
Am I the only person who has heard of the French Revolution? Hello….anyone out there?
You know who else had some pretty tight logic? The Columbine Killers.
Pride
The Columbine Killers essentially stated that there was so much suffering in the world that they were lashing out at the nature of being itself and saving those children from inevitable suffering. Well, there is definitely a lot of suffering in the world and those now murdered children would not experience it. So what’s wrong with that logic?
With both the Columbine killers and the UHC killer, their primary sin or fault is pride. To imagine that you as an individual person are capable of judging the nature of existence or other human beings is prideful beyond belief. It could be a consequence of not believing there is any judge above and beyond humanity.
And those who praise the UHC logic or sympathize with it are committing the same sin or fault.
Ancient Lessons
Moses, after leading the Israelites out of Egypt, was faced with a similar problem. He sat as judge every day, all day, for anyone who brought problems to him. His father-in-law, Jethro, pointed out that this will lead to tyranny as one man should not and could not be responsible for judging an entire populace.
Moses is then directed to create a hierarchy of judges for groups of people in the tens, hundreds and thousands, creating a hierarchy of leaders and judges for his community at large. Thomas Aquinas referred to this as subsidiarity, and the Catholic Church adopted it for their structure.
This is now what we have in the United States which we refer to as our judiciary structure. A centralized authority hierarchy with numerous branches that can help people judge difficult situations at each level of organization. It removes the judgement from fallible individual human beings also removing the burden that comes with that responsibility.
No one person should be able, or allowed to, judge another human much less an entire society.
Those who believe that one individual can be a judge of another human and take their life are projecting their own desires to judge. It’s to imagine they are capable of the moral purity that allows them to exist in a plane above all others and dole out judgement and consequences.
Again, that pride is followed by a lack of second order thinking. If you truly think you can judge another, then do you not understand that they can and will do the same to you? What logic can I utilize to justify your punishment?
Unfortunately, as history tells us, nobody believes that will happen to them until it does.