By now you have either seen or heard of the online blockheads who are lionizing, making a hero of, the Ivy League grad who is accused of murdering a health insurance CEO.
The first thing that put me in mind of was the January 6 rioters who were shouting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Those imbeciles were dragging around an Erector Set version of a gallows that looked like it could not sustain the weight of a healthy cocker spaniel, let alone a full-grown man.
But, as they say, it’s the thought that counts.
And the thought was murdering the vice president. This from the “law and order” crowd.
Apparently that was true with Luigi Mangione, who might be the worst example of a social justice warrior you can find.
Many people have issues with health insurance providers, but how you go from that to using the term “hero” for a lowdown scumbag who shot an unarmed man in the back is beyond me. This from the “defund the police” crowd.
It is unAmerican. It is cowardly. It reveals not righteous anger, but lack of character, the exaltation of your beliefs over morality.
If your opinion of evil supports evil, then you, too, are evil. Reminds me of the TikTokkers who fell for Osama bin Laden’s letter. Remember that?
Is it possible the keyboard warriors, the Luigi lovers, have spun so far off their moral compasses they can justify cold-blooded murder?
Apparently yes.
Others are calling Marine veteran Daniel Penny a hero.
One person who has not used the term hero is — Penny himself.
From the brief interview excerpt I saw on Fox News, Penny, who is white, acted on protective instinct and training when he locked Jordan Neely, who is Black, into what turned out to be a lethal chokehold. His intentions were good.
He did not have murder on his mind.
I am not saying that. The jury did. The multi-racial jury.
In a news conference after Penny’s acquittal, Donte Mills, the attorney for Neely’s family said he had filed a civil suit against Penny, but the case had nothing to do with race.
That statement might have been a tad more believable had not a previous clip on CNN showed Neely’s father and others decrying the racism that killed his mentally ill son. That would be the mentally ill son with 42 arrests whose family had allowed him to be homeless on the streets of New York.
I am not blaming the family, exactly.
I am suggesting that the family, unable to home him, and the city, unable to treat him, are unindicted conspirators in this tragic case.
Looking at these two cases, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes bad things happen to bad people,
Mangione is bad, if the facts are as we understand them. I would not have him as a friend.
Penny is good. I stand with him.
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Well said.
As usual, you give a logical and thought out argument and write in an old school way that I wish we had more of in today’s yellow journalism (yellow from the pee stains in the dog crate).
Thank you.
When Luigi entered that McDonald’s in Altoona, the devil whispered in his ear, “Get it to go, bro. Don’t hang around.” Luigi ignored him.
I firmly believe that if Obama had a son, he would have been like Neely. It is looking more and more like they (the government) want us at each other's throats. When terms like hero and racist are thrown around, they elicit the same response, just not from those who hurl them. Mental illness and protective actions are not only possessed by "White" people, but depending on which is in play will determine a hero or a villain.
I find it an interesting, and somewhat sad commentary, on our society that several negative reviews on the McDonald's in Altoona, PA, where Maggione was apprehended appeared on Google. Google is deleting most of them, based on their standards that the reviews are limited to actual experiences as that particular location. Sad on our society, yes, absolutely. But is it also a notice to our "leaders in Congress" that something needs to change in our health insurance companies ways of doing business? Probably won't even get the hint, let alone act on it.
The recent news got me thinking of Kyle Rittenhouse.
And you're absolutely right about the Neely family's civil suit. If he wasn't worth much to his family alive, then why should they cash out now?
And I was thinking about another case — the death of Sean Schellenger at the hands of Michael White just off Rittenhouse Square in 2018. Tigre Hill’s excellent three-part documentary, “72 seconds in Rittenhouse Square,” is available on the Paramount streaming service.
Most crimes and criminals come with extenuating circumstances -- bad stuff they had little or no control over. That's true for ordinary and extraordinary crimes. The same is true for cases that *aren't* crimes but still have gloomy outcomes. Sad stories tend to come with, well, sad stories.
Neely had a genuinely sad story: a mental illness that clouded his judgement. He had lived a hard life. Bad he died that way. Mangione may have a sad health story too; we'll learn more. Maybe we should do a better job of dealing with their problems.
But the riders on the subway were in no position to grant Neely relief or treatment. And the exec who was gunned down was in no position to do the same for Mangione either.
Perhaps the vet who killed and the mahoff who was killed symbolize other, greater wrongs for some people. So be it. Symbols are awfully hard to prevent or control. But they aren't magic bullets that solve or judge individual cases.. That's why we have a legal system.
Thank you, Stu, for another excellent article.
Those of you who remember the Caryl Chessman case are reminded that nothing changes with the Left. Chessman (for the youngsters who read this blog) was a kidnapper, rapist, and murderer, hailed as a hero by left-wing crazies. He reached room temperature after years of legal legerdemain.
Caryl Chessman redux. (If you are too young to know of Chessman, you may want to look up his story.)