I feel like between the idea that 1) every life is valuable and 2) sometimes things are better if a particular person dies, there is a synthesis and recognizes the truth of both statements.
But in this case I just hope that Warren is okay. I imagine if I’d killed someone I’d be thinking about that time I killed someone on and off for the rest of my life. My idea of how people might react to these things obviously may not apply since Warren is a person, not a statistical amalgamation of likely traits of a person. But Magnuson might not be done causing harm in the world just because he’s dead.
I’ve learned that people are, at the same time, surprisingly fragile and astonishingly durable. People indeed die from falling over, or getting punched just right (or wrong), etc.; at the same time, people survive falls and crashes and all sorts of injuries you’d swear nobody could live through. And it’s really hard to predict, all in all.
As a RPG fan, I’ve occasionally thought about a system where all injuries are handled through random “critical damage” rolls, so that if you’re unlucky, you will die from tripping and hitting your head, or you can get machine-gunned through the torso and have the bullets miss your spine and all the vitally important spots.
I do think all life is valuable, in the sense it should be protected. I don;t think we should round up all the sociopaths and other anti-social types and execute them. It’s actually very respectful of life to say that except in very limited circumstances, you need a long trial to execute someone.
On the other hand, I think it’s disrespectful to life to value someone so much that if they are aggressive in public we value their life and safety more than the citizen going about their day.
It’s not a vengeful thing. I don’t think the racist guy should be tortured etc. I just don’t lose much sleep or suffer stress at the idea someone who started a fight died.
Fighting is risky, and humans can be a weird mix of fragile and resilient.
I think some people here are just assuming that happiness is over the death of the assailant rather than the rare and welcome exception of the driver not being murdered or railroaded. Given how often Existing While Black is a capital offense, that assumption makes no sense.
Le Guin’s quote is preceded by “But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers.” It is from a work of fiction, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, and is clearly about killing in war, not about this sort of situation.
That’s fine, you’re totally allowed to feel however you want, obviously.
I’m just saying, not feeling bad because someone died doing something ill-advised is not the same thing as ‘taking active glee’ in their demise, as has been implied by certain members here.
That’s some virtue signalling bullshit.
There have been two stories like this just today, where a person ended up dead because of their own poor choices; and frankly, I don’t feel sorry for either one of them.
Too many innocent, decent people who actually make the world a slightly better place ‘die too soon’ all the time… while it seems like insidiously evil people like Kissinger tend to live for-fucking-ever.
“That’s the way it goes… but every now and then, it goes the other way too.”
No joy in the specifics of an old sick guy killed by his own prejudice and stupidity.
Joy that, in the overall scheme of things, a blow was struck in the fight against racism, which has demonstrated itself to be deadly in far greater numbers.
Christ this comment section is filled with teenaged edgelord tankies. No one should die because they said something you don’t like, even if it’s abhorrent.
Also this dead racist asshole said the first words, threw a drink and then the first punch. Should the driver not defend himself?
It is bad the asshole died but I won’t shed a tear over it. I do take joy at the fact the police didn’t charge the driver as he was obviously defending himself.
