The time is January 2024. A few minutes after a Carnival Sunrise cruise ship left the port of Miami, Florida for Jamaica, Carnival Cruise Lines received an anonymous email saying: “Hey, I think someone might have a bomb on your sunrise cruise ship.” This triggered security protocols that involved both the US and Jamaican Coast Guard. More than 1,000 rooms on the ship had to be searched, and were. After a delay of many hours, the ship was ruled safe to sail and continued the cruise.
An investigation eventually traced the email to 19-year-old Joshua Darrell Lowe II of Bailey, Michigan. He confessed to making the false bomb threat, explaining that he was trying to prevent his girlfriend and her family from going on the cruise without him. Though Lowe could have been sentenced to five years in prison, U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney this month sentenced him to only eight months behind bars. The judge was apparently impressed by the teen’s letter to the Judge taking full responsibility for his actions, expressing remorse, and apologizing profusely.
There is no question that such an act is unethical as well as potentially dangerous. I am interested in whether our political and popular culture sends messages to the young, impressionable and stupid that this kind of extreme conduct in the name of love or other passionate feelings is admirable.
I have always rejected the argument that violence on TV and in movies causes criminal behavior. Particularly with the explosion of social media and streaming, however, along with the decline in responsible parenting and competent schooling, I am beginning to think that the culture is sending a strong message that such extreme behavior can be acceptable and even admirable.
In the Sixties, “The Graduate” became a cultural phenomenon by making a hero out of a young man who disrupts the wedding of the woman he loves by invading the church, fighting off the guests, and stealing her away. Right now the nation is seeing a man, Luigi Mangione, who ambushed and killed an insurance executive ostensibly to fix a broken health care system, being admired, defended and romanticized.
Ponder this exchange between Sean Hannity and Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz, who previously had been employed by the New York Times. She had rationalized Mangione’s assassination on CNN, saying in part, “Here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart, he’s a person who seems like he’s this morally good man, which is hard to find.” Hannity is often an unethical interviewer (and a poor one), but this was like shooting the proverbial fish in the barrel. He asked Lorenz to condemn Mangione, and she would not…
LORENZ: What I condemn is the violence of our system, and I would love for you to acknowledge that, and I would love for you to acknowledge the constant…
HANNITY: I’m not asking you to condemn the system. Taylor, I’m asking, do you condemn people who call for assassinations?
LORENZ: Gosh, you’re gonna ask me if I condemn Hamas next. This is crazy. I would love for you to acknowledge what I’m actually saying, Sean, and we seem to be talking past each other.
HANNITY: No, I hear you loud and clear.
LORENZ: I want to talk about the fact that half of all adults [who can’t afford health care] because of cost. We need to talk about the 70 % of Americans, by the way, who believe that the insurance companies’ practices are responsible in part for Thompson’s death. These are signs of an unhealthy…
HANNITY: You want to put a rationalization [on his conduct]. I am saying that anybody that wants to assassinate any innocent person is wrong. I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or Republican or a father or a husband, and that is a simple truth that anyone with a heart would easily say on national TV, and you’re having a hard time with.
LORENZ: If you want to prevent further deaths, and you don’t want gun violence in the street, which I think we are both aligned in wanting, right? We want peace, we don’t want violence in this country no matter what side of the political aisle it’s coming from, you need to understand motives, and you need to understand the ideology that people have, and that is what my job is.
HANNITY: Why don’t you start with the basics? I’m going to help you out. Why don’t you first condemn those that want to be involved in assassinations and stop talking about them being handsome and smart and intelligent, and, you said, morally upright.
LORENZ: I didn’t say that I believe that. I am describing his supporters.
Of course, that’s exactly what she said on CNN. She said that Mangione “seems like” a morally good man. If you “seem” morally good when you in shoot an insurance executive in the back to express frustration with the system, what’s a little bomb threat in the name of love?
I have seen many streaming series over the past 12 months in which a protagonist breaks laws, engages in violence and defies authority for the “right” reasons. The reason this is so insidious is that the courageous and principled rebel is already a defining feature of American history and tradition. Unmoored to ethical boundaries, however, this will metastasize into anarchy.
Ethics Alarms 
Morally good men do not kill people ambush-style. That seems self-evident, but apparently Taylor Lorenz is unable to separate her leftist desire for universal government-paid health coverage from the idea that the CEO’s of for-profit companies don’t deserve to live. Somehow, the fact that some people don’t get the kind of coverage she thinks they should is so evil (rather than a simple fact of life working within the system that we have) that deadly force is justified.
For sure, our health care system is imperfect as all human systems are, but murder is not the solution to what she perceives as the problem — murder one CEO, and another will arise to take his/her place almost instantly. Anyone who can “understand why” somebody commits cold-blooded murder for a purely ideological reason is morally lost.
The fact that she can’t see that is typical — with the Left, the ends always justifies the means, even when it is ambush-style murder of a person in broad daylight and cold blood. To quote the Exorcist it is, “Evil against evil.” For her to repeatedly praise this vicious killer and even refer to him as a “morally good man” is emblematic of mental illness, even sociopathy.
I fear for her. She is the kind of person who can rationalize literally anything, and such people are always potentially dangerous to society.
One of the mysteries of the female psyche is why some women fall in love with vicious killers.
Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker, was convicted for the murder of 12 women. After going to prison, he received a steady stream of love letters and visits.
Ted Bundy received many love letters, and attention of women who attended his trials.
Charles Manson had his fangirls who were willing to commit murder for him.
Psychologists have a name for this phenomenon: hybristophilia. This phenomenon characterized by sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes. It is also known as the “Bonnie and Clyde” syndrome.
I think it is time for Taylor Lorenz to visit a psychiatrist. She might be suffering from hybristophilia. I hope she does not become as dangerous as the ladies of the Charles Manson cult, but it is clear that she is not of sane mind.
I do not know what is wrong with Joshua Darrell Lowe, but he should be mentally evaluated too. This guy may become a dangerous and obsessed stalker.
I’m probably in the minority, but I’ve always believed that what you consume becomes a part of you.
Physically speaking, it’s self evident. But emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, it’s not clear cut. But just like how our bodies break down what we eat and use that to build new cells, create energy, etc., I believe when our brains are constantly bombarded by violence, contempt, hatred, hopelessness, inanity, and everything else that makes up most of modern television (and social media turned it up to 11), we start to model that.
That doesn’t mean that everyone will become violent, just like everyone who eats sugar (even in excess every day) doesn’t become diabetic. But to believe that what we consume has no effect on us seems extremely naive.
And there’s no question that in the last generation our entertainment has shifted from primarily “health food” i.e., stories meant specifically to enlighten, teach, share morals, etc., to “junk food.” Toddlers watch toy unboxings or gross Spider-Man YouTube videos, kids watch other people playing Roblox and Minecraft, teens mindlessly scroll soulless tiktok/IG videos, while adults cheer on Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, and pretty much every critically acclaimed show not made specifically to cater to religious audiences.
The popular response to Luigi Mangione is heartbreaking, but not entirely unpredictable.
I have no choice to believe violence in movies and television shows begets violence in the “real world.” Hollywood is big on being anti-gun ownership, but how many movies are made with innumerable scenes involving guys waving .45s in other guys’ faces.
Re: “The Graduate.” Don’t leave out the final scene where the reunited couple are sitting next to each other on the bench seat at the rear of the even then old city bus. As the bus grinds and smokes away, it’s clear from the look on their faces they’re wondering what the heck they’ve just done and what the heck is going to happen next. If I could produce it, the sequel would be a short. They’d get off the bus, shake hands, and go their separate ways.
That double reverse cynical ending was characteristic of the director, Mike Nichols, who had a habit of kicking his own movie in the solar plexus at the end. I have never read or seen any critical explanation for why he did this: I considered the last shot of “Working Girl,” for example, unforgivable. He shows protagonist Melanie Griffith finally escaping clerical positions and ensconced in a new management job and office, then pulls back to show she’s on of thousands in the equivalent of a bee hive, reducing her triumph to ironic “Big deal!” status.
I want to talk about the fact that half of all adults [who can’t afford health care] because of cost. We need to talk about the 70 % of Americans, by the way, who believe that the insurance companies’ practices are responsible in part for Thompson’s death. These are signs of an unhealthy…
So why are the insurers to blame? .We pay them so we don’t have to pay the bill ourselves. If our bills get too high they have to either limit what we get , raise the price to cover the increased burdens that are placed on them, or go bankrupt and leave you with the entire bill. What do you think the premiums would be if they paid for every last procedure or visit people and their doctors wanted? Insurance is not health care and if they are insured most of the costs are covered, so what is this argument that people cannot afford health care? Why are the people who deliver actual health care and price their services so high that the insurers have to ultimately say no to procedures with low efficacy are never to blame?
The question should be: Why do 70% of Americans believe the bullshit they are fed by the media on this subject? If you believe that a government run health insurance company because they can print money to pay all the bills then you are not considering the impact of the devalued dollars and that doctors will adjust prices upward to maintain their purchasing power. If prices should be regulated government anywhere in this economy we might want to consider maximum prices for various medical procedures. Even that will simply create a shortage.
For those who believe no one should earn 21M in compensation annually, if the CEO of United Health had been the CEO of Microsoft (71M) or Spotify (345M) or Apple (74.6M) his compensation would have been about 3-15 times that of what his compensation was at United Health. I would suggest managing a health care firm is far more complex than the others given the amount of regulation it must adhere to.