• captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Idk, street medics are really easy to demonize if you’re the sort of person who thinks protesters are to blame whenever they get pepper sprayed and that it’s violence against the police to wear a gas mask to a protest.

    That said, I have supreme love and respect for the street medics. They’re heroes matched only by the national lawyers guild.

  • SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I don’t like soup. It’s kind of like food but it has too much water. Soggy food.

  • some_guy
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    2 days ago

    God, we’re such a rightwing hell hole.

    I like that lady. She’s got her finger on the pulse of society.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Anarchism is nice if everybody works along and nobody steps out of line.

    It’s the same problem with full blown communism, it always inevitably ends up with some dictatorship whoever everybody is forced in line or killed.

    No need for any of that, just FFS use taxes. Just put a wealth cap, anything over 1 million goes 100% to taxes, and we can all continue living as normal only now in a place where everybody is about as rich as everyone else and governments have money for free education, free healthcare, UBI and loads more.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.auOP
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      2 days ago

      That is so entirely false. But go on and show me an example of anarchism turning to a dictatorship

      Capitalist statism always ends up up as overly authoritarian and harms the citizen. Taxing and UBI garbage will never solve the issues of exploitation bought about by such a flawed system of living.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        show me an example of anarchism turning to a dictatorship

        I can’t really, because there has not been a country that had or has anarchism.

        Show me an example of what anarchism proposes to do to solve the problem of crime? Not all crime stems from poverty, there are also those elements that just like to watch the world burn. Since you don’t want police, great, now what do you do? Then there are people that don’t want your anarchism, how do you get those in line? See where this starts to point at?

        Yeah, capitalism has a shit tonne of problems. Its also the best way of generating wealth, just that right now all that wealth goes to the few rich. So put in a wealth cap! With that, you fix the basic problem with capitalism. The poorest pay no taxes, those over 1M have all their income go to taxes. You somehow got 2M? Awesome, all your income goes to taxes, plus 1M of your wealth.

        Its a simple solution, definitely more simple than rebuilding all our societies from the ground up in to a system that will face its own set of problems

        (or are you going to sit here and say that anarchism is problem free? come on, now…)

        • Deceptichum@quokk.auOP
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          2 days ago

          I can’t really, because there has not been a country that had or has anarchism.

          Of course and there never will be a ‘country’ with anarchism, but there are countless autonomous zones that have existed operating under anarchism. From Makhnovshchina, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, or the Zapatista territories today.

          Nothing will ever 100% ‘solve’ crime, but we have seen how crime was or is reduced in the these communities. Police are replaced by community defence and self rule, allowing tailored local responses to uniquely local issues.

          Fuck ‘generating wealth’, where the hell do you think that wealth is generated from? The global poor who are exploited, that’s where. That’s the system you want to perpetuate, one where your privileged arse gets to sit comfortably on your computer while some unlucky child slaves away in a mine or starves to death while you eat the food taken from their farms.

        • Comrade_Spood@quokk.au
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          2 days ago

          Youre right, its just so simple! Why hasnt anyone else thought of this? Cause its so simple that it couldnt be that people have thought of it already and it failed. Its almost like its too good to be true!

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        I’m talking about an inevitable end point. How DO you think anarchism would work on the level of a country? You understand that there are those that will not want your anarchism, and will work against it. Then there are the anti social types that just want to watch the world burn. How will you handle those? No police in anarchism, right?

        How will you feed the world? Have everybody eat from their own vegetable garden? Good luck with the famine! Humanity is at a point where it NEEDS factories to survive. Anarchism is nice in small groups, it will not work on the level of a country or, the world

        • Comrade_Spood@quokk.au
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          2 days ago

          This type of argument always pisses me off. “Oh it wont work on a country scale.” Why the fuck does it need to? The governments we have doesnt work on a country scale, thats why they are always failing. Its why you have resistance movements like in Basque, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Quebec, Chiapas, Sicily, literally anywhere in the Middle East and Africa, and many many more. They require authority and oppression to keep their huge populations under their control, populations that are often times very different and diverse. Anarchism works because it is not trying to make people thousands of miles apart live under the same system. Thats the whole fucking point of free association.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Why? I’m 100% serious. I think we also both want the same thing, we just disagree on how to get there…

        Don’t get me wrong here, Anarchism is great in small groups, but as soon as people start being, you know, people, and they start fucking around for whatever the reason be, things go wrong. Its the same reason why “Abolish the police” is just an inherently bad idea. Yeah, US police forces (and in other dictatorships) are godawful and have to be rebuilt from scratch, but you NEED police to keep the less social types (which will always be there) under control.

        Look, there is not a single example of a country being anarchist, or communist, that was a success and not a dictatorship, which is my point: these systems only work when you start applying force to people.

        I’d like to keep everything the way it is and with a minimal amount of changes get the best positive results. Keep capitalism because its great at generating wealth. The main problem we have now is that all that wealth goes to a select very few. So use taxes. hard. Put up a wealth cap, say 1 million, and when your combined wealth goes over that, all other income goes to taxes until you’re below that again. If you’re worth 2 million for whatever reason, all your income + 1 million in wealth will go to taxes. Nobody can be worth over 1M. The poor, those without jobs, etc, pay no taxes at all.

        With that, everyone is about as wealthy as everybody, governments get a huge funding influx that they can use for free healthcare, free education, UBI, you name it. I think its a better (lets call it simpler) idea than to overhaul the entire foundation of every country to move it to a system that likely will face a different set of problems, but still problems.

    • chloroken@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      You do not know what capitalism is, nor do you know what communism is.

      Would you like to learn? I can teach you. Once you understand, you won’t make such misinformed comments any longer.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        You do not know what my definition of capitalism is, nor do you know what my definition of communism is.

        Sure, and I am fine with that.

        • chloroken@lemmy.ml
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          12 hours ago

          Capitalism is an economic system where some can profit off of the labor of others. ‘Some’ are known as the bourgeois, and ‘others’ are the proletariat. This system is definitionally unequal.

          Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society. It doesn’t employ a dictator. The people themselves manage society in whatever structure is best.

          Taxes, social services, and other benefits are no substitute for abolishing the exploitation at its source by moving past capitalism into socialism. Socialism is a transitory society characterized by workers owning the means of production and centralized government planning. Its eventual goal is communism even if it never achieves it.

          I hope this helps.

    • Comrade_Spood@quokk.au
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      2 days ago

      Your argument is applicable for literally any ideology. Its a fucking stupid argument because every ideology can be handwaved away with “works good on paper, but not with people.” Except all of them except anarchism use positions of power to correct that problem. Problem is, positions of power are filled by people. Flawed, nuanced, corruptible people. Even when those positions are occupied by good people, power is corrupting and will quickly make otherwise good people make bad decisions that affect thousands if not millions of people. Yeah you could pass all those reforms you suggest, but you still have those seats of power. Someone (like Trump) can and will get in there and get rid of those reforms, and turn your social-democracy into a fascist dictatorship.

      People tend to argue whether or not humans are naturally rational and good. Either way power is not the solution. If people are naturally good and rational, positions of power are unnecessary. If people are naturally selfish and irrational then why the fuck would you give them positions of power?