We have a friend whose family recently all got cholera. Not joking, this literally happened this year. They caught it from swimming on the beach in Galveston.
The governor of NY should give him a full pardon, and the mayor of NYC should throw him a parade. What he did was an act of justice, bringing righteous vengeance upon the wicked. He did nothing wrong.
Thinking of running for high office? Looking for a hook for your campaign? Run for governor of NY on a campaign pledge to give Luigi a full pardon. You would win in a landslide.
Crazy idea: let's bring back old Anglo-Saxon church sanctuary laws and apply it to all crimes. You just can't be arrested in a church period. Make the world more whimsical. Let's bring back criminals of all sorts running into churches yelling, "sanctuary! sanctuary!"
Things are going to get crazy with drone tech. The stuff that's been cooked up in the conflict in Ukraine will inevitably find its way into civilian hands. After all, a lot of it was designed specifically to be built off of easily available parts and built off of commonly available tools like 3D printers. Imagine a situation like Luigi's except using drones. Maybe a whole swarm of them unleashed on a corporate gathering, each with facial recognition tech. Drones in Ukraine are already built with small explosives, designed to target single individuals; they just fly right up to their targets and explode.
And it goes beyond that. I'm particularly worried about incendiary drones. Assassination drones require good facial recognition tech, and they usually rely on having access to the target in an outdoor area. But destruction of property via incendiary drones? All such a drone has to do is to be able to fly to a fixed GPS position, land, and activate a thermite or other charge to start a huge fire.
My inner anti-corporatist smiles at the idea of such things being wielded against evil CEOs, but the knife cuts both ways. This tech can be use by a Luigi, but it can also be used by a McVeigh or Bin Ladin. Imagine someone or a group releasing thousands of cheap 3D printed incendiary drones on a city. Imagine a small fire starting on the roof of every building in a city simultaneously - and the fire stations are hit with dozens. A city could be burned to ashes for maybe a few hundred thousand dollars, or the cost of a single home in that city.
Technology is reaching the point where a single depraved individual may be able to recreate the firebombing of Dresden. While I smile at the idea of some evil corporate killer getting their just desserts, I'm a lot more worried about the negative potential of this technology. We are literally reaching a point where a single individual can cause an amount of destruction equivalent to a modest nuclear explosion, using tools they build in their basement.
We should have a law that if an insurance company denies a claim, and upon external appeal it is found to clearly be medically necessary and covered, the insurance company should have to both pay for the procedure AND hand the customer a check equal to the full value of the procedure. Wrongfully deny a claim? Be prepared to pay double.
It's not just a consequence, it's the entire reason we have juries in the first place. Do you honestly think 12 random untrained people can judge if someone violated a law better than a traines judge holding a bench trial? Juries are always going to be inferior at applying the letter of the law than any trained judge.
The only value of a jury is that it protects against unjust laws. The original idea was that, regardless of what laws the wealthy write, you still need to be able to convince 12 ordinary people that a crime worthy of punishment has taken place.
Jury nullification isn't just some quirky consequence of the jury system; it's the entire reason we have juries in the first place. We've just collectively forgotten that fact.
Are you the NYPD? If so, yes. The guy who shot that CEO? I actually saw him. With my own eyes, I saw him abducted by a flying saucer! It scooped him up in a beam of light and zipped away. No need to bother looking for him, he's long gone. Light years away by now.
They voted for Trump, but not because they actually wanted a bunch of asshole CEOs in power. The electorate wanted real transformative change; they're looking for anyone who can offer even a hope of some bold transformative change. The only party offering real change right now is the Republicans. Democrats just want to offer a few piddly means-tested tax credits like they usually do, while doing absolutely nothing to actually rein in corporate wealth and power. Kamala's flagship domestic policy was a $25k home tax credit that only a sliver of the populace would be eligible for; and it would only serve to bid up housing prices.
Like it or not, the Republicans did actually have answers for people. They aren't good or noble answers, but they were answers. Democrats were too chickenshit to run on a platform of "CEOS are ruining your life, we need to come down like the hammer of God on the greedy oligarchs." The Republicans in turn ran on a platform of, "the reason your life sucks is a bunch of DEI programs are putting unqualified people ahead of you. We'll end that. Illegal immigrants are taking your job opportunities, and we'll deport them all. House prices are too high, so we'll deport 20 million immigrants and lower them!"
Those are abominable answers to the problems we face, but they actually had an answer, however evil and ultimately unproductive. Yes, obviously deporting millions of immigrants won't actually help people, but it doesn't matter. The Republicans actually had an answer to the question, "what transformative change will you do to improve the lives of Americans?"
Democrats had no answer. And for that, they lost.
People are hungry for dramatic change. They feel the system is rigged, and they are right. Democrats were too cowardly to take up that message and push for change against the corporate class, and that left Republicans as the only party offering any real change.
You don't need to radically transform society to want change; the country already clearly wants change. The fundamental problem is the only ones offering change are the Republicans.
I wouldn't rely on nullification. I instead think this guy deserves a full pardon. We pardon domestic abuse victims who kill their abusers, is this situation really so different?
I hope reincarnation turns out to be real, just so RFK can end up as a child with polio.