Current Events > If you're not leftist/socialist, why?

(+) Yeah! (+)

topic

Because I have a good job and life

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Cause capitalism is pretty awesome

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REMercsChamp posted...

Because I have a good job and life

i have those things + compassion

I'm seeing a lot of leftists/socialists these days are on the wrong side of society - criminal records, in prisons, dropped out of high school and can't get a job etc. of course they want to turn it all upside down to more favorable conditions for them. I hear these people calling for abolishing police, prisons, just give everyone free money

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Ozovzk posted...

i have those things + compassion

He typed on his computer/tablet/phone

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posts 1-2-4-5 are AIs talking to each other

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REMercsChamp posted...

I'm seeing a lot of leftists/socialists these days are on the wrong side of society - criminal records, in prisons, dropped out of high school and can't get a job etc. of course they want to turn it all upside down to more favorable conditions for them. I hear these people calling for abolishing police, prisons, just give everyone free money

what if society is the issue though? For example, regarding your first point of prisons, the US has by far the highest incarcerated population. Why is that? Could the laws be unjust or applied unfairly?

Ozovzk posted...

what if society is the issue though? For example, regarding your first point of prisons, the US has by far the highest incarcerated population. Why is that? Could the laws be unjust or applied unfairly?

In my experience no. There should actually be even more people in prison.

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REMercsChamp posted...

I'm seeing a lot of leftists/socialists these days are on the wrong side of society - criminal records, in prisons, dropped out of high school and can't get a job etc. of course they want to turn it all upside down to more favorable conditions for them. I hear these people calling for abolishing police, prisons, just give everyone free money.

I'm betting you have no statistical reference at all.

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REMercsChamp posted...

In my experience no. There should actually be even more people in prison.

we have almost a quarter of the worlds prison population. If you think thats not enough then I dont even know where to begin.

or maybe I do, what about all the people incarcerated for benign marijuana related offenses when its now legal in a bunch of states?

REMercsChamp posted...

In my experience no. There should actually be even more people in prison.

thank god youre a neet and will never procreate

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Machete posted...

posts 1-2-4-5 are AIs talking to each other

Everyone I dont like is a bot

Markets are cool

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Ozovzk posted...

we have almost a quarter of the worlds prison population. If you think thats not enough then I dont even know where to begin.

or maybe I do, what about all the people incarcerated for benign marijuana related offenses when its now legal in a bunch of states?

I don't know about the marijuana thing. But just use common sense. How many things like wallet thefts and crimes that are hard to catch like identity theft go undetected and no one is held accountable for these? Hundreds of thousands of cases a year...these guys are all on the loose. Think about it.

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Because i dont eat glue

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Solid Snake07 posted...

He typed on his computer/tablet/phone

r/iamverysmart
curious

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REMercsChamp posted...

I don't know about the marijuana thing. But just use common sense. How many things like wallet thefts and crimes that are hard to catch like identity theft go undetected and no one is held accountable for these? Hundreds of thousands of cases a year...these guys are all on the loose. Think about it.

so assuming every arrest is justified, why do you think America has such a high rate of incarceration?

in a stateless context, socialism and capitalism are complementary

in a statist context, socialism and capitalism have the same endgame

take that how you will

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I feel like there has to be a good middle ground between the judicial system is perfect and anarchy. Just my 2 cents

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TheMikh posted...

in a stateless context, socialism and capitalism are complementary

in a statist context, socialism and capitalism have the same endgame

take that how you will

lol, like nonsense? please elaborate

Because my parents arent divorced
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Ozovzk posted...

so assuming every arrest is justified, why do you think America has such a high rate of incarceration?

Because there's just a lot of criminals out there who think they can get away with it. It's a lot harder to push yourself to achieve something in your life so they just take the easy way out. A lot of people are lazy and trashy. It's just the way of the world.

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ThyCorndog posted...

r/iamverysmart
curious

I'm not really hip to reddit so I'm not sure what this means

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Solid Snake07 posted...

I feel like there has to be a good middle ground between the judicial system is perfect and anarchy. Just my 2 cents

socialism =/= anarchism

Balrog0 posted...

Markets are cool

They incentivize profit above all else. Its why climate change is getting worse, workers are being paid less and less, etc. Economies should be planned in a way that makes them efficient and beneficial to all, rather than to a few at the expense of everyone else.

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Ozovzk posted...

socialism =/= anarchism

No, but you two sort of veered away from talking about economics to the justice system

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Solid Snake07 posted...

No, but you two sort of veered away from talking about economics to the justice system

fair enough, I just have a reflexive response to the idea that the police state/criminal justice system we have cant be improved just because of the idea of no cops is worse

Shablagoo posted...

They incentivize profit above all else. Its why climate change is getting worse, workers are being paid less and less, etc. Economies should be planned in a way that makes them efficient and beneficial to all, rather than to a few at the expense of everyone else.

They also incentivize innovation. All of the modern luxuries you and most every person in the modern first world middle class enjoy are a product of capitalism

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Because it's none of your business.

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I sympathize with the ideology and its goals on paper, but the misunderstanding of power is what leads it to always result in a terrible repressive regime. Anarchists have the right of it in that regard.

The idea that you just need to give up your personal freedom and rights in exchange for economic equality always results in you getting neither. That's not even getting into the practicality or lack thereof of the economic system. It's just fundamentally flawed from the outset, and all the defenders of the USSR, PRC, North Korea, etc. just make it worse. Impossible for me to take those people seriously. Those states don't even get economic equality and they defend all the human rights abuses and lack of freedom anyway.

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Conserving society just prevents it from advancing.

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Ozovzk posted...

fair enough, I just have a reflexive response to the idea that the police state/criminal justice system we have cant be improved just because of the idea of no cops is worse

I 100% agree, it's far from perfect. I think most people would agree with that. They probably just have different ideas of how to improve it

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Solid Snake07 posted...

They also incentivize innovation. All of the modern luxuries you and most every person in the modern first world middle class enjoy are a product of capitalism

Proof?

What they really incentivize is doing as little work as possible or creating as shoddy a product as possible and trying to charge as much money as you can for it.

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ssjevot posted...

I sympathize with the ideology and its goals on paper, but the misunderstanding of power is what leads it to always result in a terrible repressive regime. Anarchists have the right of it in that regard.

The idea that you just need to give up your personal freedom and rights in exchange for economic equality always results in you getting neither. That's not even getting into the practicality or lack thereof of the economic system. It's just fundamentally flawed from the outset, and all the defenders of the USSR, PRC, North Korea, etc. just make it worse. Impossible for me to take those people seriously. Those states don't even get economic equality and they defend all the human rights abuses and lack of freedom anyway.

Well put

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ssjevot posted...

I sympathize with the ideology and its goals on paper, but the misunderstanding of power is what leads it to always result in a terrible repressive regime. Anarchists have the right of it in that regard.

The idea that you just need to give up your personal freedom and rights in exchange for economic equality always results in you getting neither. That's not even getting into the practicality or lack thereof of the economic system. It's just fundamentally flawed from the outset, and all the defenders of the USSR, PRC, North Korea, etc. just make it worse. Impossible for me to take those people seriously. Those states don't even get economic equality and they defend all the human rights abuses and lack of freedom anyway.

tbh I sympathize with this viewpoint, but the ideal socialist system isnt the same as USSR or DRK.

the way I see it, socialism encourages personal freedom rather than restricts it. I encourage you to consider whether your idea of personal freedom includes consumption choices

REMercsChamp posted...

Hundreds of thousands of cases a year...

based on....?

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Shablagoo posted...

Proof?

What they really incentivize is doing as little work as possible or creating as shoddy a product as possible and trying to charge as much money as you can for it.

Lol, that's not true at all. Let's take apple as an example. Do you think they became one of the largest companies in the world by selling "shoddy" phones? No, they did it by providing a quality product that people keep coming back to buy over and over again. Their entire business model is centered around getting people to come back to them for products over and over again. You don't get repeat customers by selling them overpriced garbage.

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Ozovzk posted...

tbh I sympathize with this viewpoint, but the ideal socialist system isnt the same as USSR or DRK.

the way I see it, socialism encourages personal freedom rather than restricts it. I encourage you to consider whether your idea of personal freedom includes consumption choices

Please try telling that to the people on r/communism and r/socialism and let me know how quickly you get banned. See the problem is when you think power only results from economic inequality bad people take advantage of the situation to gain absolute power. Stalin certainly didn't give a shit about the ideological aspect of socialism, it was just a path to power. For whatever reason people will look at a system that resembles fascism except wearing red instead of brown and hammers and sickles instead of swastikas, and go "man I really want to lick those boots".

So if you're going on about personal freedom but aren't an anarcho-socialist I don't believe you because statist socialism has never had that, and the majority of fans of statist socialism are against individual rights and freedoms that would allow them to significantly disagree with the state.

Personally I also find the whole economic thing suspect too when you look at the most equal societies and they're all social democracies. You're left wondering why these people who allegedly care so much about economic equality advocate for the PRC instead of Norway as an ideal state. It's just extremely hard for me to take these people seriously and I really am sad about it, because I do think economic inequality is a problem. I just don't think they actually care about it.

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Leftists haven't exactly treated me better than the right.

Sacrificed luxuries they have to pay off student loans = screw you, only we get bailout money.
Burnt out at job you hate: forget it, money has to go to people that won't work first.
Need help in keeping society running: they can't even make the effort to go vote.
Work hard: accused of not working hard as only their jobs take effort, even if the till does all the math for them.
Ask for some responsibility to avoid needing help: why do that when we can just take money from people.

Add in most can't even get introductary finance terms right, making me doubt their plans have any chance of working, and it just seems like a lot of people whose definition of economic progress is free people we like up to get high all day while other people do our work for us instead of "we want a strong safety net and have a duty to be a part of maintaining it.". I get that at work and I hate it. Why vote it in.

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Every country that has practiced widespread communism has ended with mass poverty to the point of starvation and death.

Meanwhile, in Western Capitalist countries, we have fat homeless people with cell phones and internet access.

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I do love these topics, they're so predictable

Ozovzk posted...

Everyone I dont like is a bot

clownpenis.fart

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Machete posted...

clownpenis.fart

the best answer so far tbh

lightwarrior78 posted...

Leftists haven't exactly treated me better than the right.

Sacrificed luxuries they have to pay off student loans = screw you, only we get bailout money.
Burnt out at job you hate: forget it, money has to go to people that won't work first.
Need help in keeping society running: they can't even make the effort to go vote.
Work hard: accused of not working hard as only their jobs take effort, even if the till does all the math for them.
Ask for some responsibility to avoid needing help: why do that when we can just take money from people.

Add in most can't even get introductary finance terms right, making me doubt their plans have any chance of working, and it just seems like a lot of people whose definition of economic progress is free people we like up to get high all day while other people do our work for us instead of "we want a strong safety net and have a duty to be a part of maintaining it.". I get that at work and I hate it. Why vote it in.

QFT

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Null_Mime posted...

Every country that has practiced widespread communism has ended with mass poverty to the point of starvation and death.

Meanwhile, in Western Capitalist countries, we have fat homeless people with cell phones and internet access.

this might be the single dumbest post in the topic

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Averagejoel is literally a genocide denier who advocates for the Soviet Union. If you want a representative of why I am not a socialist, there you go. Posting right in this topic.

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If you could set up a country democratically that runs off of left-wing principles, and has strong checks and balances against becoming a one party dictatorship like the USSR or china then i'd absolutely be in favor.

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I am as far as Medicare for all. Past that I get kinda iffy

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ssjevot posted...

Averagejoel is literally a genocide denier who advocates for the Soviet Union. If you want a representative of why I am not a socialist, there you go. Posting right in this topic.

Is this a gimmick or are you actually this stupid?

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