Edit for those curious why I shared this: Today !memes@lemmy.ml was popping off with a lot of "No war but class war" memes and they were getting a lot of support from the people over there.
I tried to share this there as well only to find out that apparently I was banned over there last week and I still have a week left in my ban. (Never knew I was due to never being told I was banned?)
Only reason I even found out I was banned over there was due to checking the modlogs for lemmy.ml after I noticed my post was gaining no ground.
You literally admit to being owned, and yet think that to free ourselves of that ownership is to hurt the civil rights of our owners? That’s some real obsequious and subservient shit right there. They hold an absurd amount of power over you and all you can think to say is “won’t somebody please think of the wealthy???”
That’s like saying it’s against a thief’s civil rights when you come to take back what they stole from you.
The rich control where you get to live, how much you get to eat, they control how much you earn, they destroy the Earth for profit, they pay no taxes, they write the laws (which also makes it easier for them to imprison you), they run the government, they detest you and view you as lesser-than, they withhold food/shelter/water/etc. up to and including death if you can’t pay, they steal your wages, they hoard wealth to the detriment of others, they fight to reduce benefits to the poor, and much, much more. Somehow, the conclusion you’ve reached is if we put an end to all that, it would violate their civil rights? That’s an absolutely garbage take, how blind can you be? Has it never crossed your mind that the rich are violating your civil rights even as I type this? Like, they literally run your whole life, you think they don’t leverage that against our own rights? If bringing them to the same level as everyone else seems like cruel and unusual punishment, then what about the people who have to live in instability every day as a result of the damage the rich have wrought?
The Nazis did all that stuff, too. Were their civil rights violated by the resistance and the allies? Same for the apartheid government of South Africa, what of them? I suppose Nelson Mandela must have been a great oppressor in your mind when he went to war with apartheid, seeing as the ruling class could no longer wield power of that kind over the people.
I see you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what I said with this meme
So class war is when we the working class try to take back what we are deserved and culture war is when groups of people are fighting to take the rights of others away (and undermine democracy) under the guise of "it's our culture"
When people scream, "no war but class war," they're usually saying that we should focus our efforts on fighting for what we as workers deserve (class war). By focusing our efforts there without fighting to protect our rights (and secure more) and democracy as a whole we are letting those who are focusing their efforts on culture war win on those grounds.
We can't let them win on those grounds either.
By ignoring the fight in the culture war we will lose the class war. Especially considering the culture war includes the genocide of queer folks.
This is of course glossing over the owner class's (bourgeoisie) influence on the culture war as well which they have a vested interest in making worse because if we have to fight there it usually means that we can't fight as hard elsewhere due to our struggles with survival in general.
Basically we have to fight both wars, we can't just fight one.
Fair enough, agreed. I'd say that the language used in the meme is a little ambiguous as to whose civil rights you're referring to, though. My initial interpretation of the meme's sentiment was basically "rich people have civil rights, too, and class warfare would step on those rights." Sorry for going off like that.
Elaboration is good, actually.
Ya got me, though, lol. What I wrote above is nothing compared to some comments I've written before. Some things I have a lot to say about and some things are worth speaking at length about. That, plus a sprinkling of ADHD. Besides, a little reading never hurt anyone and it's not like it's mandatory or anything.
Being brief and clear with what you say is an art
An art I struggle with a lot (also ADHD)
One of the key benefits of being brief and clear is that when people try to engage with what you say they'll have a much harder time steering the conversation away from the topic at hand
Hi no offense but your entire 4 paragraph comment is completely unrelated to the post because it never said anything about siding with the wealthy.
Not really unrelated, just a misinterpretation. You replied as I was explaining my thinking to OP, so you would've just missed it by a minute or two.
Property is only useful in securing someone's safety and happiness. The less essential it is for their wellbeing, the less it should be considered their exclusive property. In practice this means limiting the maximum ownership someone can have through taxes. As property held increases, taxes become exponentially higher. You can hold more property by substituting the difference with your income, but only to a certain extent. Your income will be taxed progressively as well, and the will be an upper limit to the property you can ever own by yourself.
The key wrinkle is how to handle IP. The solution probably lies in making it impossible for IP rights to be traded or sold, limiting exclusivity to shorter durations(irregardless of the creator's lifetime), and taxing the property and income they get from their idea.