Senate This thread is publicly owned (marxism, socialism, and left-wing ideologies)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch03.htm#s1

 

@Alpha-Red, do you realize you're a conservative (little-c) traditionalist? Or do you admit the current state of the world is not working?

 

To be fair, there’s a difference between believing reform is the answer and being a conservative.

 

It says that people are only stirred into action when the situation is so bad that it outweighs what they have to lose.

Right now most of us live pretty comfortable lives. We have family and loved ones and property and things to look forward to. But let's say the economy gets really bad. A lot of people have loved ones who get sent to El Salvador. Major industries die: no movies or shows or stuff too look forward to. Work is fleeting. Only when things get really bad will people choose action because the stuff that prevents us from action won't be there.

 

In the original sense, conservatives believe change should only come from gradual reform. There's obviously a spectrum, but little-c conservatives are usually reformers. The difference is usually in how much reform is needed, and how urgently. If there's a belief there's only a few bad actors, or only a few errors in the system to correct, or something bigger.

 

Going back to re-education for a moment, these are the kinds of people we're dealing with.

Spoiler: some of the most virulent racism you've ever seen

The goal of these posts are pretty clear: dehumanize black people in order to justify taking away their rights. This kind of racism isn't something you're just going to PBS special away. These people, and there are a lot of them, are going to need to be isolated and treated significantly. Unless their rights are significantly taken away or we figure out a system where they physically cannot harm others, we'll have to share society with them and in order to do so, they need to be not like this. And that requires re-education. There is no way to do this without lanyard-wearing EU politicians crying about "human rights." Because to people like EU politicians, who are part of the political class within bourgeoise democracy, it's more important to safeguard the rights of bigots to be able to live their lives free than it is to safeguard the rights of marginalized people to not be persecuted. And as long as you live in bourgeoise democracy, there will always be the chance that those bigots can gain power and then persecute marginalized people.

Other leftists will tell you that we should just kill all these bigots. I have always advocated for re-education, because unlike how DarthPhil likes to characterize me, I want to avoid killing when its not necessary. And that means reeducation camps.

 

You’re overestimating today’s anarchists.

 

At least have the good manners to tag me if you’re going to snipe about how poorly you think you’re characterised.

Unlike myself and others who aren’t advocating for a revolutionary change in society, you have the ability to talk about all of your ideas as mostly in theory, and when someone brings up when Marxist-Leninism was tried in reality, it’s suddenly dismissed as us being unfair to you and how you don’t want to have to ‘answer for’ past communist regimes. You ignore that people sent to these reeducation camp will invariably extend far beyond some racist on Twitter. These mistakes and excesses, as you would no doubt call them, are not an unfortunate consequence, but rather an inherent part of having a system when you allow a state to determine what is subversive, which is also fairly unresponsive to popular opinion. You can say that you would only want the worst of the worst sent to reeducation camps, but you’re also smart enough to know the collateral damage will extend far beyond a vile racist, and will extend well into any dissent away from Marxist-Leninist thought. You must know this is the case, and that’s a lot more of a difficult thing for you to address. It involves a lot more of a mature conversation than “I just want to send this racist trash to a reeducation camp.”

I don’t think I’ve ever accused you of wanting to kill people, of course, even though that’s an accusation you’ve thrown around a few times now. I do however think that you are willing to overlook the inevitable results of revolutionary change and the authoritarian (and sometimes totalitarian) measures which need to be implemented to stabilise and maintain such a change. I’m sure if you were given God-like powers your world would be lovely to live in. Unfortunately you can’t be granted those powers, and I have to be concerned about what happens when it slips from your hands and is run away with by people far more discerning than yourself. Because, as you say, many leftists disagree with you, and I’m not willing to have them in such a position where they can dole out a revolutionary teerror.

The frustrating thing is that I know you know of what would probably happen. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if every time I talked about social democracy I just outright denied all the issues of those societies exist. I have to talk about its failures because social democracy is something which exists and is in practice today, and I have to deal with the messy reality of it. I can’t handwave away the issues. What matters is what the end result is. It doesn’t matter that you had good intentions going in. It doesn’t matter if you start to denounce it when it turns bad. It doesn’t matter if you never had the intention of the system you create being just as oppressive as the system you fought. What matters is how is the lives of the average person changed. Is justice actually more easily sought and attained, or is it worse? Because that’s how I measure any attempt at change, and I am simply not sold that Marxist-Leninism has those answers.