To the jury, I pray you find Luigi Mangione guilty. This case is not one that should be equivocated for heroism against that of murder. Whatever the practices were of the man who was CEO of the Corporation, whether immoral or vile, they do not justify the murder of a man who was a father and a husband. It does not justify throwing aside a civil society’s laws because you feel it to be the correct path.
You may ask me to overcome a powerful rebuttal, “You say he is a father and a husband, but what about those fathers and husbands the CEO indirectly condemned to death or suffering by the practices of rejecting a third of all patient claims for healthcare insurance.” If this is a true claim, powerful condemnation needs to be brought down on the Corporation and the entire industry of health insurance, there is no doubt about that. But the way about doing this is not through violence and murder. What next after the death of this CEO? Should we kill all the healthcare CEO’s until they change their practices out of fear?
So I pose this question back at you, is healthcare the only industry that may be corrupt, inhumane, and vile? What about the fast-food industry, does it not propagate out foods that have carcinogenic chemicals for the sake of keeping costs low? It would probably be easy to go down a list of industries like this and individual companies. Should each one of those CEO’s die? Will a few thousand deaths really fix anything? Won’t there be others who will gladly take the compensation that comes with being CEO and not change the industry practices? Then does that mean we should kill them too? What about we just clean out all the C-suites in every industry? What about the CEO’s secretary that makes his job easier? What about the new intern who just started, that plans on climbing the corporate ladder? Should they die too? What will be enough?
Nature has made humans so equal in mind and body that the differences between us are not considerable. Find the strongest man in the world, even the weakest can kill him, whether by plot or with tools. Each of us is equally vulnerable to the inevitable outcome of death. And each can bring this death upon others.
Each of us wants to live freely, the way we want, while having anything we want. And we are endowed with the power to kill others so that we can do anything we please. This is called Liberty. But if each person used their Liberty to pursue what they wanted, this obviously runs afoul against someone else’s Liberty. This means one of you must die. That is the Right of Nature. When we use our Liberty unimpeded, we find ourselves in a State of War. This is why we humans created Laws to bind ourselves to. We did this through a collective Covenant. Each of us agreed to give up some of our Liberty so that we didn’t have to fear the Right of Nature. None of us wants to violently die. I am sure the CEO of the Corporation did not want to violently die.
If every CEO has to fear for their life, what stops them killing others so that there is no one left to fear? And what stops you from being someone’s target? What if someone finds a reason to kill you, whether justified or not? Don’t you hope our collective Covenant will be adequate protection? A civil society that has Laws in which people do not obey them because of their want to exercise their Liberty unimpeded is no longer civil, nor a society. Everyone would have to look over their shoulder and wonder if they’re next.
If we have Laws we should abide by them, and if the Laws need to be changed, we should change them. But ignoring the Laws while they exist is not the answer. I cannot say if or how the healthcare industry should change, for I am not knowledgeable enough in its wrongs. What I do know is, if change does need to happen, it must be done through the Law. So I ask you, members of the jury, please reaffirm our Covenant and find Luigi Mangione guilty.
AgoraLogica 
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