Verbally attack, or simply criticize in public transgenderism or the gay lifestyle, and you are roundly condemned as trans-phobic or homo-phobic. The term “pro-choice” is the favored moniker to describe those who favor legalized abortion rather than “pro-abortion.” Those who are opposed to abortion, whether on religious, moral, or political grounds, are demeaned as “anti-choice.” Thus is contemporary left-wing culture consumed with staking out their territory as guardians of lifestyles.
Mass murders involving firearms become not examples of the need for culture control to identify and resolve cultural behaviors leading to the devaluation of life, but to the simplistic call for instrument control, that is, gun control. Virtually every incident involving gun violence, including most recently the December 16th shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, is headlined by President Biden as illustrating the need for “gun control” not as a call to protect “life.”
This month, in perhaps the clearest yet personification of the Left’s disregard for principles of life, the alleged murderer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson is hailed as a true man of the people, a heroic persona even, deified to a degree Bonnie and Clyde could only hope to have aspired during their brief crime spree across America’s heartland during the bleak days of the Great Depression.
Luigi Mangione is seen through this lens of his expanding social media savvy fans as “radiant,” an “American hero,” and a modern-day “Robin Hood” – a video sensation even as he is led in shackles into a jail facility in Pennsylvania while he awaits extradition to New York where the cold-blooded murder took place with Mangione allegedly shooting his pre-selected victim in the back.
Overlooked in the case of Mangione, or purposefully ignored by his growing legion of fans, is what they would in earlier days (such as in the “Occupy Wall Street” era) have condemned as decadent -- the privileged upbringing and beach bum lifestyle enjoyed and flaunted by Mangione prior to his actions on December 4th and the drafting of his rambling and semi-unintelligible “manifesto” labeling the victim CEO as a “parasite.”
The alleged gunman’s disgusting characterization of his victim – in reality a married father of two teenaged sons – has been not only echoed but glorified elsewhere in the days following the cowardly attack, further cementing the lack of human compassion for life prevalent among many young adults.
According to a just-released poll, 41% of those aged 18 to 29 consider Mangione’s apparent assassination of Thompson to be “acceptable.”
It gets worse.
One so-called “internet personality,” Taylor Lorenz, actually and openly celebrated the murder. In a befuddled attempt to defend her glorification of the healthcare company executive’s murder, Lorenz claimed that her expressed “joy” at his murder actually reflected her belief in the “sanctity of life” because of the manner by which insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare decide not to cover certain procedures.
Another Gen. Z individual has employed TikTok to present a “walking tour” of the areas connected to the United Healthcare murder – a project he reportedly thought would be “funny.”
The depravity of the Left is even more aptly demonstrated in a set of playing cards depicting CEOs who should be targeted, with all the cards imprinted with a human silhouette as a shooting target, reasonably implying they should be shot.
With some three-quarters of Gen Z-ers supporting legal abortion, it should surprise few that among this large segment of young adults in America, the murder of a corporate executive is not only considered no big deal, but to some degree even “acceptable.”
A recent, positive-themed study of Gen Z values described this group as one that favors “a more inclusive and accepting society where everyone feels comfortable.” Everyone, that is, except those deemed, in Mangione’s words, “parasites” or, reflecting the strong pro-abortion bent of this age demographic, those who favor the life of unborn babies.
Biden’s gun-control message following the Madison, Wisconsin school shooting did express sorrow for the families of the victims. This was far more rhetorical compassion than the President devoted to Brian Thompson’s murder, a tragedy that was met by silence from the White House, where apparently concern for “life” depends on the context in which life is taken.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He currently practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as President of the National Rifle Association.