i’m sure everyone can be normal about this post yes?
transcript:
a tumblr post:
autistichalsin posts:
Some of you are literally watching the right wing continuously try to expand the definition of “pedophilia” to include “existing around a child while queer,” and then agreeing with them when they say pedophiles deserve to be summarily executed.
Not only does this place innocent people in danger of political executions, it also puts children in danger, as most children who are sexually abused have this done by someone close to them, and feelings that they would be responsible for the death of their abuser if they reported leads to lower rates of reporting. It also leads to higher rates of abusers murdering their victims when they’re found out because the punishment will be the same anyway.
Part of being on the left is realizing that it’s better to let 100 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one. Another part of being on the left is realizing that one’s life is never something others have the right to take away- even the most evil people alive. Yes, that includes mass murderers and rapists and pedophiles. Once you make one group acceptable to kill, you give others a vested interest in defining groups they have prejudice against into that group.
You have to start dealing with the fact that no crime makes one’s life forfeit. Not even the worst most depraved and sadistic acts. The worst people alive have rights, and if you can’t accept that they deserve them, at least try to accept that it is to your benefit that they retain rights no matter what they’re accused of. And if you can’t do even that, well… you just might be the kind of person who would cut off your nose to spite your face.
If you want to protect victims, if you want to protect minority groups, you have to realize that sex crimes, or any crimes at all, do not deserve the death penalty. Period.
brettdoesdiscourse replies:
When a certain kind of person “deserves” to die, bigots will make sure marginalized groups all are that kind of person.
little-gay-dowitcher replies:
My former neighbors were the “kill all pedos” type. They were also incredibly transphobic. And I was visibly queer. So guess who got stalked, harassed and threatened all throughout the brief period of time they babysat for their friend?
Stop enabling fascists. They’ve already proven they’re willing to attack minorities for no reason. Don’t give them a chance to excuse it.
So… they’re going to make us all billionaires?
I agree with a lot of points the post is making, but there is also one group in particular, that isn’t only responsible for turning society against each other, literally dragging us back in to fascism, but is waaaaay above the law and would always remain that way until the system that put that law in place and enforces it is abolished, which is a complete impossibility without using force.
Do I think all billionaires should die? Not necessarily, but I do think they should cease to exist as billionaires.
Do I think any billionaire would, at first, just give up their money and power and just agree to be like the rest of us? Not a fucking chance.
So yeah, while prison isn’t a real threat to them, and they have all the power, and adamant refusal to give it up, I see them as a group it is acceptable to kill, because they see us all as acceptable to kill (and they actively are).
You simply can’t compare a random citizen, however harmful to the people around them, to the handful of people who literally control the entire world economy, and all of the abuse and destruction it brings with it, killing millions annually (via artificial scarcity and other methods of deliberately depriving people access to food, water, shelter, and medicine for preventable disease, not to mention other exploitation like slavery or starvation wages, child labour, as well as the patriarchy, queerphobia, and so on which encourage gendered violence and the kind of murder OP is talking about).
Part of being on the left is considering systemic power structures, and understanding that they can not be addressed in the same way an individual offender is.
And for the record: I don’t believe in the death penalty and I don’t think paedophiles, rapists, and murderers should be executed, because as opposed to billionaires, they can be removed from society in different ways, because they don’t own it.
I find the replies to you funny because we know exactly who you’re talking about, there’s 3,194 of them worldwide.
Exactly.
People not being able to tell the difference between tankie rhetoric (“put all of the bourgeoisie up against the wall and everyone I disagree with in the gulag!!12”) or even plain old anti-communist propaganda, and actual leftist views is for them to figure out with themselves. I said what I said, and I mean it as I said it (including saying that I don’t even think it’s necessary to kill all billionaires, never mind anyone bellow them, which they conveniently ignore).
How did that go for the objectively non-bourgeoisie who got caught up in Stalin’s / Lenin’s / Mao’s anti-bourgeois campaigns?
Even Mao acknowledged innocent people got executed during his “counter-revolutionary” and land reform campaigns. And the number of prisoners Kruschev released from the Gulags would have been impossible if most of them were actually as harmful to Russia as they were accused of being.
Once the guillotines come out, everyone is calling everyone else bourgeois.
I gave a very narrow group, feel free to create your slippery slope strawman elsewhere.
You think you gave a narrow group. But my point is that “narrow groups” get very broad very quickly when heads start rolling.
we have people right now accusing anyone with a middle class income of being who they’re talking about when they say eat the rich. who genuinely believe that the fact that poverty exists means that anyone who isn’t in it is the borgeoise. you’re an idiot if you think those people won’t come out of the woodwork when people actually start killing billionaires.
You guys have an opportunity for good, honest discussion if you can both avoid behaviors like seeking refuge by invoking logical fallacies as if they’re eldritch wards of protection and viewing conversations that take place between parties who disagree as contests that must be won.