How to Get Away With Murder

It has been a rough year for hot young Ivy Leaguers who believe that violence is sometimes necessary.

But a light has appeared in the darkness: a “tanned, chiseled” Italian-American light.

Luigi Mangione has proved, irrefutably and gorgeously, that there is no excuse for becoming reconciled to a world of deductibles, debt, and fishies that got sucked into the filter. Finally, someone has had the courage to stand up and say, “Hey, wait a minute! It’s time to take some ideas to their logical conclusion!”

It has been too long since anyone looked into the mirror and realized that being beautiful and highly educated is not a privilege but a responsibility. We have not known our own power. We have abandoned our posts.

Our excellent education has provided us with every tool imaginable: freshman writing courses, to draft snappy, polished manifestos. Top-level computer science training, to print state-of-the-art ghost guns. An air of legitimacy, so that no matter how violent the deed, it will be perceived as a highbrow act of political resistance, and not “terrorism” or “crime” or other words associated with other classes and other races. And, of course, the intellectual backing that says this is fine.

To my fellow Ivy Leaguers (yes, Penn, today you too can share the crown), I say, “What are you waiting for? Why do you hesitate? We have nothing to lose but our credible commitment to gun control.”

Would you argue that what our comrade did was “murder,” and that “murder” is “wrong?” But it is not murder if the person you shoot is already a bad guy. It’s self defense. And even if it weren’t, this selfless act of vigilante justice would have been worth it for the inspiring community-building effects among our lonely, deracinated young people; the artistic flourishing that has popped up in its wake; and the long-delayed vindication of Goodreads as a platform of political theory. It’s called the ends justifying the means, dummy.

Would you claim that vigilantism is corrosive to our society? But it has already rotted to the core. What is the “law,” but a force to keep us down, a way of silencing our highest instincts? What is “illegal,” but an invented word of the white heteropatriarchal oppressor? For have you not read Fanon? Have you not read The Lorax?

Do you fear the consequences? Do you dread the mockery of thy compatriots, and the condemnation of thy leaders? Know, that the entire Twitterverse will rally to your side. Know that we will make thirst accounts for you, and Photoshop Jesus above your head. The senior senator from Massachusetts will prepare thy defense argument. You will never lack, for we will start GoFundMes for your every need.

And light will be sown among depressed scholars of the Soviet avant-garde, as it is written: “I have never been prouder to be a professor at the University of P3nnsylvania.” And ye shall spark subsequent groveling and highly plausible apologies, as it is written: “I do not condone violence.”

And ye shall be called “Savior,” and “God among men.” And ye shall restore what was lost by Italian Americans when they took Columbus Day away, and bring great peace and redemption upon the land.

Go forth, young radicals. There are still 499 Fortune 500 CEOs, and if you eliminate them all, there will be 500 more.

Yona T. Sperling-Milner, an Associate Editorial Editor, is a sophomore in Cabot House studying Social Studies. Her search history currently reads “young unabomber,” “young unabomber harvard,” “luigi fan art,” “luigi goodreads,” “luigi lorax,” “school walkout for luigi,” “luigi jesus,” “how tall is luigi,” “luigi look alike contest,” “elizabeth warren luigi.”