Turning Villain's Into Heroes - The Left's New Bloodlust

Perhaps no contemporary development better illustrates America's replacement of Christianity with a secular progressive mindset than the campaign to turn Luigi Mangione -- a cold-blooded, far-Left murderer -- into a folk hero and sex symbol. Mangione gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan on December 4, leaving behind shell casings inscribed with the words "depose," "defend," and "deny."

Unfortunately, murder has blighted the human race since its infancy. But the way society reacts to violence and incitements to violence has changed rapidly as America has walked away from faith.

Luigi Mangione, the former valedictorian and scion of a leading Baltimore family, clarified that he murdered Thompson based on left-wing ideology. "I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming," wrote Mangione in his three-page manifesto. "Many have illuminated the [health care industry's] corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty." Mangione's roommate told reporters the two frequently discussed "structural" inequities in the U.S., relying on concepts "proven" in "the Sixties." They also read The Unabomber Manifesto together. 

Mangione cited two sources: former New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal, who is now senior contributing editor at KFF News; and filmmaker Michael Moore, whose error-laden documentary "Sicko" presents communist Cuba's health care system as superior to America's.

The American Left, led by Taylor Lorenz, has turned Mangione into a vessel of lust and adulation.

Lorenz, a left-wing podcaster, exulted that the murder struck a blow against alleged social injustice. In a social media post on BlueSky (a social media platform for those who fled Twitter after Elon Musk purchased it) the day of the murder, Lorenz stated, "We want these executives dead." She later reposted a viral message that said, "In this house, Luigi Mangione is a hero! End of story!"

Lorenz's mania reached its apex when she wrote a December 5 article titled, "Why 'we' want insurance executives dead," then told Piers Morgan that her belief in "the sanctity of life" caused her to greet Thompson's murder with "joy." In a follow-up visit, Lorenz refused to apologize.

"Joy?" responded Morgan. "Seriously? Joy at a man's execution?"

"Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy," clarified Lorenz.

"How can this make you joyful? This guy's a husband; he's a father. And he's being gunned down in the middle of Manhattan," asked a mortified Morgan. As Lorenz giggled, Morgan called her behavior "bizarre." 

In a follow-up visit, Lorenz told Morgan, "I feel joy, because people like you ... are finally being forced to pay attention to the barbaric health care system that murders tens of thousands of innocent Americans ... that people like you are forced to confront those systemic problems."

One might expect such statements from Lorenz's fashionably woke disdain catapulted her from obscurity to gig as columnist at The Washington Post, where her habit of spreading fake news stood her in good stead. (Lorenz's professed glee over her enemies' murders should cause us to reevaluate the way she doxxed Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik.) But her views were seemingly shared by sitting members of Congress.

Two of the Left's legislative idols minimized Mangione's murder on the grounds that the American health care system is guilty of "violence."

"Violence is never the answer ... but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands," said Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The answer, she claimed, was bigger government. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, Warren told The Huffington Post.

That angered the victim of a would-be assassin: Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.). "This is completely inappropriate and dangerous from a Senator. A ballfield of Congressional Republicans were shot at and nearly killed over rhetoric like this. Where is the media calling this out?" asked the House minority leader, who nearly lost his life to a left-wing, would-be assassin.

For once, Warren appeared chastened. "Violence is never the answer. Period," the senator said, confessing, "I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder." Her fellow Democrat, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, struck a centrist position. "We do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint," said Shapiro, possibly positioning himself as the moderate choice in the 2028 presidential election.

But those (few) to Warren's left shared none of her contrition. "This is not to say that an act of violence is justified, but I think for anyone who is confused, or shocked, or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret, and feel, and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them," opined Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). "When we, kind of, talk about how systems are violent in this country in this passive way, our privatized health care system is like that for a huge amount of Americans."

While health insurance companies are far from perfect -- especially under Obamacare -- the Left's critique of the U.S. health care system is ill-informed. On Thursday, a Canadian think tank revealed that, under Canada's socialized "single-payer" health care system, Canadians wait an average of 30 weeks between a doctor's referral and the time they see a specialist. In the U.S., the average wait to see a specialist ranges from 27 to 70 days (four to 10 weeks), according to ECG Management Consultants.

The Great White North's nearly seven-month-long wait time represents a stunning 222% increase since 1993 and "6.3 weeks longer than what physicians consider to be clinically reasonable," found researchers. The most common source of bribery in Europe is its health care system, many of which are single-payer. Ironically, Transparency International has concluded that global "corruption in healthcare service delivery threatens" the World Health Organization's goal of universal health coverage.

But then, being comfortable with killing an innocent person in the name of public health represents a certain double-mindedness in itself.

It is worth pointing out the ever-present double standards of the Left's heroes and the legacy media's coverage. The same liberals pleading for Americans to find greater "context" in the UnitedHealth CEO's murder want to lock up pro-life advocates for singing hymns in the doorway of an abortion facility and have firebombed Christian pro-life centers for daring to hand out diapers and baby formula to disadvantaged mothers. 

Daniel Penny and Kyle Rittenhouse are pests; George Floyd and Assata Shakur are celebrated. Curiously, the Left never asked for understanding of why a tiny cohort of Trump supporters felt so disenfranchised by dubious 2020 election laws that they stormed the Capitol on January 6. Instead, they pronounced the riot -- which claimed the life of protester Ashli Babbitt -- as worse than Pearl Harbor.

The same double standard applies to most news coverage. Although The New York Times tried to link Sarah Palin to the attempted assassination of a sitting congresswoman, it has not asked Elisabeth Rosenthal or Michael Moore whether their views inspired Thompson's murder.

Alas, the Luigi Mangione Fan Club are far from the first left-wingers to sympathize with murderers. Recall the viral videos of young people praising Osama bin Laden's "Letter to America," because his jihadist jeremiads sounded like their African American Studies professor or HR department. Shortly after 9/11, protesters unfurled a banner stating, "We support our troops when they shoot their officers." But the celebration has become more pronounced as America jettisoned Christianity in favor of collectivism.

America has entertained and excused murder as its formerly Christian worldview has been replaced by collectivism.

In her infamous article "Why 'we' want insurance executives dead," Lorenz wrote, "If you have watched a loved one die because an insurance conglomerate has denied their life saving treatment as a cost cutting measure, yes, it's natural to wish that the people who run such conglomerates would suffer the same fate." 

Natural is exactly what it is, as contrasted with supernatural. It is devoid of grace. The Apostle James described such "wisdom" as "earthly, sensual, devilish" (James 3:15). It is the foul fruit of the nation's schools and universities teaching Marxist-fueled concepts which in turn, lead their adherents into atheism. And if God is dead, all is permitted.

The collectivist worldview removes the unique value of every human life. It groups people into classes by race, sex, sexual proclivity, gender identity, or economic status. It then dubs all members of one class victims and all members of other classes oppressors. This allows the contemporary Left to justify violence as retaliation for "structural violence."

"One of the differences between this generation and revolutions, say, of the nineteenth century, is we're not interested fundamentally in equality. We're fundamentally interested in justice, which means we have greater tolerance of liquidating a class," confessed Dotson Rader in a little-remembered 1972 interview on William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line." 

For the revolution to succeed, "you have to change the conscience of people. ... You've got to change people's sexual attitudes, people's attitude towards the church, people's attitude towards education, towards business." He bragged that, 52 years ago, the counterculture had shifted "the country as a whole in terms of questions on abortion, on pornography, on greater freedom for the arts," drugs, homosexuality, and other cultural issues.

Luigi Mangione proves this, as well, as much of America reacted by celebrating the other replacement of Christian religion: sexuality. Women nationwide swooned over Mangione's washboard abs. ABC News late night host Jimmy Kimmel spoke of "a huge wave of" sexual excitement washing over America, directed at Mangione, while reading lustful texts from his producers. If sex has no spiritual component, the muscles of your partner (or partners) matter more than his/her/their morals.

From Roe to Mangione

A clear plumb line runs from America's churches hemorrhaging members and Americans celebrating blood flowing in its streets. For once, experience preceded essence. First, the Supreme Court unilaterally dehumanized an entire class of Americans: unborn children in the womb. As Justice William Brennan wrote in his Roe v. Wade opinion, "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses." But he denied the science, and millions of mothers aborted their own children.

Second, America's faith began to crumble, and society began to teeter on the edge of collapse. Although a majority of Americans identify as Christians, church membership and attendance have plummeted. "Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38%, and it is currently at 30%," reported a Gallup poll in March.

Finally, a faithless people embraced the idol of racialized socialism, alternately dressed up as "critical race theory" or "progressivism." Now, radical pundits, lefty politicians, and thirsty girlbosses excuse an act of premeditated murder. To coin a phrase, Luigi Mangione "could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody," and he would still have women's studies majors lining up for conjugal visits while contextualizing his murder.

"The whole ability to function as a revolutionary ... depends upon the ability to depersonalize your enemy," said Rader, then viewed as a radical by members of both parties. Less than 50 years later, Democrats began publicly lashing out at anything that might "humanize" President-elect Donald Trump. We all know what happened next -- twice. Well, twice so far.

We know what happened to Brian Thompson after Mangione tried to eradicate another class of "parasites."

We know what has happened to tens of millions of unborn babies since 1973.

And we know how to end the bloodlust and bloodletting. Reverse-engineering societal collapse points the way to social recovery. Faith that God created all men and women in His image and likeness inspired the uniquely defining characteristic of the West: belief in human dignity.

If America hopes to raise the American flag to greater heights, it will never do so apart from the Cross of Christ.

Originally published at The Washington Stand