Free Luigi
Free Luigi
Why do I believe that, man on trial, Luigi Mangione should not have to suffer the death penalty, and be granted freedom and rehabilitation?
Luigi Mangione is currently facing the possibility of the death penalty for shooting and killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. Is it okay for someone to just abruptly make the decision to take someone else’s life? No, of course not. Do I believe that there is so much more going on here than a simple murder and that Luigi’s actions motivated by big systemic issues that the US has yet to solve as a nation, regarding the price of healthcare and its availability to all people - regardless of race, status, or socioeconomic class - yes. I don’t think that Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson because he had a vampiric thirst for blood - I think he killed Brian Thompson because he was frustrated with the callousness of the Healthcare System. If the US didn’t want to deal with the concept of murder and was really concerned about the possibility of allowing criminals to walk free - then there would be stricter legislation as far as buying and owning guns goes - maybe similar to the legislation that is being put into effect for women who need abortions in some southern states.
A lot of people are frustrated with the Healthcare system in the United States. Long waits in emergency room lines can create life or death scenarios, people don’t seek the treatment that they may need ac take care of themselves in time because they are afraid of the financial cost, and doctor’s - people who hold doctorates in medicine - aren’t gods. Though we may put doctor’s on a pedestal because of their educational backgrounds, doctors are still humans with emotions and bad days. They don’t always give patients the correct information about their conditions. When you start taking a close look at the medical system as it stands, it’s easy to begin to see some of the underlying structural flaws.
Take, for example, the mental health care system. I feel that this is the ugliest of the ugly when it comes to healthcare in the US. Say someone comes from a background of intense childhood trauma, or has been in war - and has stopped functioning. Study after study has shown that trauma survivors need healthy people around the to aid them in learning how to re-regulate their nervous systems and adapt to their surroundings in healthy ways. Change happens over time for the mentally ill, just as change happens over time for the physically ill. What mentally ill people do not benefit from is sterile environments, strict rules that tell them they are “moral” or “immoral”, and scary psych ward nurses that have crawled out of a dystopian novel plot line. Behind the curtains of psych wards there are unspoken power dynamics that go on that we do not speak about often enough when addressing the subject of mental health. Nurses have a terrifying amount of power over patients in places like psych wards, where the use of heavy medication like sedatives are used frequently. Imagine being someone who gets admitted to a psych ward for suicidal ideation, because a concerned family member decided it was time to admit you. All of a sudden, instead of being functionally depressed like you normally are, you are diagnosed with a dumb DSM illness, and a dumb nurse who went to school online has decided that this “psych ward” is her college “practical”. She’s stayed up all night because she didn’t take her melatonin, and ate a healthy and hearty breakfast of Cool Ranch Doritos. Even better, she just binge watched three episodes of White Lotus, and oh boy, does she have the power to tell you - person suffering from functional depression - how much medication she thinks that you need in your body. This nurse is bored on a daily basis- and oh boy, don’t ruin her day by not allowing her to shoot heavy sedatives into your bloodstream. It’s all a little warped, isn’t it? It seems like something’s wrong. Is it possible that someone more mentally ill than you has been hired to call the shots and boss you around while you are…in a hospital? Is it required that nurses in psych wards across America get checked out for concerning mental health conditions that might make them unfit for work? How about asking them about how their childhood was? This is the problem with modern health care. It doesn’t make sense.
From what I can detect as a millennial who has been brought up on a steady diet of the internet and kombucha- is that it seems like Mangione is mentally ill. He was probably hyped up about something that he had heard about happen to someone who couldn’t afford health-care on the internet, and decided that the one action he could take in this crazy world was to kill “the guy in charge”. He comes from money and who knows how power-less or powerful Mangione feels in his family’s dynamic. Maybe he was hoping that he would be able to help sick people but someone in his family has different ideologies from him. What happened to Brian Thompson wasn’t about Brian Thompson, and I don’t think that Luigi is an evil person, if we are to begin walking the unsound path of “good” and “evil”. From a religious point of view - yes, Mangione broke one of the ten commandments ‘thought shall not kill” - but when you think about it, was Brian Thompson really such a god-fearing man if he was willing to make a killing off of the common person’s pain?
In my opinion Mangione is mentally ill, and he is a victim of a flawed mental health care system, just like the rest of us. More science and research needs to be done as far as studying the human brain and the way that process information and make decisions. Many schools of thought exist on human decision making, and when it comes down to it I don’t think Mangione is a cold blooded killer - I view him as as young man who feels confused about his place in a confusing world. Like someone involved in gang violence, he deserves rehabilitation and a chance to change his behavior. I do feel that maybe his actions are less about murder and more symbolic about a bigger trend going on unaddressed in the US - access to good and affordable healthcare.