An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
Good thing we (the US) lost the war, or this lady would probably have her own team of lobbyists running their country.
The death penalty is always wrong.
Murder is not a punishment and once you've stripped her of her ill-got gains there is no longer any reason to kill her.
I hear you but if I’m honest, and tomorrow America announced it was going to execute every billionaire, I’m not going to put up too much of a protest.
Take the money, sure. Then they're no longer billionaires and there's no need to kill them.
In other words, you don’t murder disarmed prisoners of war.
During class war they are the enemy and deserve what comes to them. If taken alive and their weapon of war removed, they don’t need to be dealt with the same way.
Once they are no longer a threat you can work on rehabilitation and restitution.
First off, I agree with you.
But...second...I struggle with the rehabilitation bit. Some people cannot be rehabilitated. It is a hard truth I have learned, coupled with pain and regret, many times in my life. I'm just curious what you think the course of action should be at that point?
I'm not suggesting death/murder, but I do struggle with the idea that if they're miserable, and the people around them are made miserable, and the people trying to help them are made miserable...what do you do?
You can't know that. You only have evidence for people's inability to've been rehabilitated so far.
Not murder.
...drugs?
You do everything you can for them (whilst making sure they're not a danger to other people), give the caretakers / wardens plenty of time off, and you give them the option for assisted suicide. In my ideal world, everyone would have the option for assisted suicide though
Irrespective how is two bad things better than one bad thing? I would think fewer bad things would be net better.
You speak of "sociopathic behavior" while advocating state murder. 🤨
you may be right but that's still no reason to murder them
I disagree. I don't subscribe to a world view where every life is sacred. Society has a right to protect itself from persons that will always endanger other people and that includes killing them. However, it has been quite clear that we cannot guarantee that no innocent people are killed. And that's why I'm OK with the death penalty only in principle, not in practice.
You cannot know that, and if you have the ability to strap someone down and end their life, you have no need to do so since you clearly have complete control over their person.
You shouldn't be. States qua arbiters of justice should not intentionally kill people under their control.
This is a discussion about personal morals. Some people think it's OK to execute some criminals, others are completely opposed to that idea. There is no objective right or wrong here.
For you your arguments might be compelling, but they don't convince me. I can have complete control over someone and still decide to kill them because I don't want to bother with locking them up, for example. And who says a society should not kill? That's not even an argument, just an opinion.
No, the state killing people is objectively wrong.
Fucking lol. I love Lemmy. I've never seen such an obscure group of people speak in absolutes so consistently. Puts reddit to shame.
"I WILL DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT OR WRONG"
"I WILL DECIDE WHAT IS GOOD OR EVIL"
you don't keep that control over billionaires.their money has too much loyalty.
so they need to be killed. I do agree that the state shouldn't be making the decision, but Vietnam is weird and still at least dresses up as communist.
Once you take the money they aren't billionaires anymore.
While I agree in principle I tend to think there are still unforgivable crimes and irredeemable people out there.
Then you don't agree.
I wasn't aware crime was about forgiveness.
I thought in-so-far as societies implemented systems of justice, their purpose was restitution and rehabilitiation.
No one gains anything from a person—irrespective their prior actions—being murdered and we all lose a bit of our soul each time a state execution is allowed to take place.
I really expected better from Vietnam, whose "quarantine at gunpoint" public health policies I heartily endorse.
If child predators get executed, I don't lose "a bit of my soul", I gain more confidence that the world is now a better place.
Oh word? Did the horrific thing they did no longer happen?
Child predators have recidivism rates of 10-35% depending on which studies you're reading. Each one of those assaults is a potentially life-altering trauma induced in a child. Exactly how many should someone be able to do before we consider they're not going to be rehabilitated?
A life in prison and state sanctioned execution are different, though.
It's also worth considering why these criminals are criminals. If they were, say, violently abused as a child themselves...does that matter? Functionally, it doesn't matter to the victim
I get that. But should the state be in the business of executing such people?
Honestly I've always felt this was the strongest argument against a death penalty. That said the argument carries nearly the same weight for life imprisonment, and still some for the act of imprisonment at all. We continue to trust juries of fools to judge people to this day, but that is still unfortunately more palatable than giving the right to someone to unilaterally choose your jury.
I'm onboard with a culture of reform and education for convicts because it works, but I also recognize some people cannot be reformed and keeping them imprisoned is needlessly dangerous for many parties. There needs to be a line where we accept someone is too far gone.
Don't tell me what being abused as a child does to someone, thanks.
Does killing the person who did it make the assault not have happened?
It's not just about the assault that happened, it's also about the risk of considerable harm in the future. Killing someone for one act of sexual predation is going to be considered extreme by many but not all people. But what happens after the second or third times? How many is too many?
And if an innocent person gets executed for the crime?
And do you think these child predators had charming upbringings? Or perhaps they were filled with horrors and trauma?
Yeah, there are absolutely evil people out there, and if you think the state should execute them, that's your opinion. But to think that all heinous crimes come from a vacuum is naive.
Huh. At least where I am from "Death penalty for child predators" is a common far-right talking point.
Allow me some cognitive dissonance because I really don't know what society should do about psychopaths, predators, or cases like those execs who put melamine into milk to spoof the protein metrics, leading to the horrible deaths of a large number of babies.
Holding them indefinitely is a useless drain on the state, killing them leads to the inevitability of innocent people dying.
Not if you use it to advocate state murder I won't.
Innocent people will always have the ability to die, no matter how many people your state murders.
Alright. I DON'T agree.
You should; death as a post-hoc punishment is abhorrent and serves no one.
I still don't agree.
the death penalty is always wrong, billionaires should die in unpredictable extrajudicial ways. like aneurisms, pianos, etc.
but its something.