Thoughts on the Killing of Brian Thompson.

I have a lot of thoughts about the recent killing of Brian Thompson. The reaction online, sadly, is extremely positive and to some degree, I can understand the reaction. When healthcare in America is so severely screwed up, the blame to a large extent is on these huge profit making entities. But I believe this reaction is both disturbing and misguided.

These companies are heinous in their treatment of their customers. Leaving so many in horrible situations, in the worst (and unfortunately, extremely common) cases, patients are left with both pain and crushing debt, which feed into each other. But they are not the flaws in the system, exploiting people because they are operating as vigilantes. They are the system that the government has allowed to prosper, with lawmakers ultimately being responsible for allowing their practices to go completely unchecked, and the most disadvantaged are left holding the bag.

Lawmakers, specifically those in Congress, can set the laws that allow agencies to enforce these goliaths. But whether it’s inertia, polarization, lobbying, or plain stupidity (more than likely a combination of all these things), they choose not to.

Unfortunately, we are at the whims of companies, and a company’s primary incentive is to please their shareholders. If they can still exist as a viable company, despite mistreating customers (especially true in the case of monopolies), then, perversely, it’s their duty to do so. I think that is monumentally devastating given that their incentive should be to help those in need, but that is how our system works.

Political violence does not help fix this whatsoever, and in fact, redirects attention from the true arbiters of what is allowed to happen. Worse, violence begets more violence, and has no place in a system that we can change without it.

What I believe is that if people didn’t simply accept the current system and used the powers given to us by the Constitution to actually make change, we would have a better system. Instead, most leave it up to the few to make “change”, and we do nothing collectively to use the system to our advantage. When we sit at rest and complain, but fail to work together to move and change things, we get more and more incensed at the lack of change without exerting the necessary effort to improve our situation. At most, many of us may occasionally vote and expect change to come from one individual, distracting us from our best options.

Granted, many on the bottom rungs of society don’t have the time to collectively move things along. But I know many people — not rich, but comfortable — that see the issues and simply count on others to make that change.

The more we realize collective action is what effects change in America, and lose the so-called “Great Man Theory” of change, the more we can shape our system to the collective’s benefit. Yes, I’m not at all blind to the fact that those with excesses of wealth and connections sway the system, it literally happens in the open (see Elon Musk), but change doesn’t happen by observing and grumbling. It happens by actually making moves.