Without Justice in the Courts, Vigilante Law Is Inevitable.

It appears that the laws of this land only apply to you and me. 

Quite a number of America’s billionaires are in the process of demonstrating to the world that they serve no god except their own greed, and obey no law other than their own cruelty. It appears that they see America, the country that gave them everything they have, as something for their greed to bleed dry. As for you and me; it appears that we are just cattle to them. 

This lawless disregard for the common good and the rest of humanity has a corresponding reaction. We saw it on the streets of New York in early December of 2024. A young man gunned down the CEO of United Health, an health “insurance” company with a high rate of denying claims. I didn’t know until this happened, but there is evidently an industry phrase to describe the way that health insurance companies kill their customers for the bottom line: Delay. Deny. Defend. 

In other words, they use our corrupt and billionaire-owned “justice” system to exhaust the resources and the life-spans of their customers and cheat them out of the health care they thought they had paid for. I personally know people who have died from delay, deny, defend. I know lots of people, including myself, who have suffered from a medical industry that is entirely corporate and indifferent to the harm it does. 

Everyone of us has been harassed, insulted, and confused by the arcane billing systems, repeated billings for charges that have already been paid and nasty phone calls. Many of us have been confronted by demands for payment while we’re in the middle of a medical procedure. 

I’ve had breast cancer. I was heading into surgery once, wearing the open-back gown, with a wire to localize the tumor sticking out of my breast, when a person from billing came in and announced that they had to stop the surgery because I hadn’t paid my co-pay in advance. I get harassed about my “unpaid” bills (which Medicare has already paid, but that they are billing me for again) every time I get lab work. I got refused blood work a few days ago because I wouldn’t sign to pay a bill that had already been paid. 

Ordinary people only have one recourse in all this: get a lawyer and sue. Of course, our neighborhood lawyer who has a one-or-two lawyer office, will be met in court by high-paid law firms with large teams of highly-paid lawyers and researchers who have all the resources of a giant corporation behind them to pound little you and your little bid for justice right into the dirt. 

The corporation they represent has bought the politicians who appointed the judge, and the CEO “friends” of the judge pay for vacations and “gifts” that only a billionaire can afford. This goes on right up to the Supreme Court, which has shown us that it will cheerfully re-write the Constitution to defend, protect and empower the billionaire class. 

Justice in this country is increasingly a commodity to be bought and sold by the highest bidder, which is another way of saying that justice does not exist. 

So, on a day in early December of 2024, a young man took a gun and shot down the CEO of a major health care corporation. Much to the shock and dismay of all the talking heads on cable news and all the right wing podcasters, the American public erupted with support for the shooter and the shooting. 

The billionaire-owned news outlets and the billionaire-financed podcasters were so stunned that it took them a few days — or, as they call it “news cycles” — before they worked out a message to come back against this public support for the killing of one of their own. They tried — very unconvincingly — to advance a moral argument. 

Killing, they tell us, is bad. While this is true, it rings off key coming as it does from people who tell us that women bleeding out from miscarriages in hospital parking lots are getting what they deserve, that rape is ok, bribery is just the way business is done, lying is truth, and cruelty is entertainment. Their own Orwellian amorality in the service of cash and power made them sound insincere when it came to singling out one death of one special person to care about while celebrating so much suffering among so many other people. 

In simpler terms, they’re hypocrites. And the hypocrisy discredits their argument. 

The truth is, there were two killers on that sidewalk in New York in December. There was a killer behind the gun. There was a killer in front of the gun. 

The big difference — and the reason why there was such celebrating throughout the land over this death — is that the killer behind the gun killed one man, with what might be a reason that resonates with almost everyone, and the whole justice system from top to bottom went after him harder than they did Osama bin Laden, and they now have an alleged shooter in jail, awaiting trial. 

Meanwhile the killer in front of the gun had used his power as CEO to create policies that killed many thousands of people. And he did it deliberately with much forethought and full understanding. And he did it for money. He killed people, maimed people, harmed people grievously for money.  And he was NEVER going to be held responsible under our laws or in our courts.  His victims had zero recourse against him. They. Could. Do. Nothing. 

I have no idea, and neither does anyone else, how many people the CEOs of health insurance companies kill. I have no idea how many people are crippled, maimed and suffer daily agony because of them. But I would guess that it runs into the millions of people. 

The hell of it, the reason for the reaction to this shooting, is that we have no recourse in the law or in the courts. The billionaire class owns our courts. They own the Congress. If you doubt that, just watch what happens in the next couple of years. 

So … what are we supposed to do? Did God create us in His Image so we could work long hours for low pay and no benefits, fight and die in senseless wars, pay high taxes and die in poverty so the billionaire class can buy more yachts or use the power of this nation that We the People built with our blood, sweat and tears to take over and ruthlessly exploit more countries?

Where is justice? And what is moral? 

Killing people is not the right response.  

If we are Christians, we do not kill people. 

The first thing we have to do is stop following evil. There is no excuse for voting for known liars, grifters, rapists, and thieves. What do you think is going to happen when you put people like that in power? 

If there is no justice under the law. If people stop believing that they have any recourse through the courts and with the police. If that happens, vigilante law is the inevitable next thing. 

This was just one guy with a gun. But it appears that he has the support of millions of ordinary, decent people who would not have reacted this way a few years ago. Think about it.