Seriously though, don’t do violence.

  • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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    17 days ago

    So just because it’s sprinkled with the magic fairy dust of ‘government’ it’s immediately moral and good violence?

    Here’s a freebie thought experiment I had to pay a PoliSci professor for; if tomorrow the democratically elected government passed a law that from today forward, all babies with blue eyes will be euthanized at birth, is that legal?

    Yes. 100% legal. And 100% morally bankrupt.

    Consent of the governed is the bedrock of civil society - the ghouls that run big business seem to have forgotten/don’t care that legality does not equal morality.

    • tisktisk@piefed.social
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      16 days ago

      You win my most obvious strawman award. I really tried to find how any of this pertains to any part of my comment and gave up. I still like your pretty metaphors despite the absence of logical meaning

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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        16 days ago

        You’re trying hard to be obtuse, or super myopic if you don’t see the through line from state violence, to consent of the governed to accept laws (and the violence required to enforce them) - hence my comment that legality is not morality, and the inference that lobbying has broken that trust and consent by legalizing policies like UHC’s that are not unique to that one company.

        You brought solidarity into this, which is distinct from tribalist/sectarian violence like you’re alluding to. Soup kitchens, community legal defense funds, or cooperative farms are examples of solidarity. Not vigilante murder.

        • tisktisk@piefed.social
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          15 days ago

          “Soup kitchens, community legal defense funds, or cooperative farms are examples of solidarity. Not vigilante murder.”

          I will do what you consistently avoid here(even after I highlighted it, nonetheless) and engage directly with what you are saying rather than engage with a misrepresentation. I don’t understand where or how or why vigilante murder is even brought up here? Who said or implied anything about murder. I’m merely specifying the easily missed core of solidarity which is that a background of legitimacy is required to have these soup kitchens and co-op farms. The state and it’s “violence” of set rules and consequences must exist as a background before the space can be opened up for these examples you use. Quite hilarious to call me the obtuse and myopic one here, when my whole cornerstone from the start has basically been a suggestion to step back and think about what Solidarity means and how it is effectively sustained before we rush in to believing we can so easily make such harsh distinctions between legality and morality or state vs tribalist violence. We’re discussing abstract concepts that don’t merely exist as some objective science to be easily concluded–it’s all much more complex and arguably too open-ended for such hasty oversimplifications. Please don’t triple strawman me here

          • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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            14 days ago

            I don’t understand where or how or why vigilante murder is even brought up here? Who said or implied anything about murder.

            The original post is literally about a vigilante murdering the UHC CEO and another company seemingly changing policy afterwards, with OP attaching a comment about ‘not saying it’s good, but maybe violence does work’. You brought solidarity in out of nowhere, and implied it was parallel to sectarianism/tribalism.

            That is why I called you out as being obtuse, a vigilante murder is the only reason this comment thread exists - it was there from the very beginning.

            I’m merely specifying the easily missed core of solidarity which is that a background of legitimacy is required to have these soup kitchens and co-op farms. The state and it’s “violence” of set rules and consequences must exist as a background before the space can be opened up for these examples you use.

            You never mentioned legitimacy - I inferred it. That’s called reading comprehension, not strawmaning. Which is why I posted that legal is not inherently moral. Because enforcing laws, not persuasion or incentives to prompt compliance, ultimately requires a state actor to force that law on another person. And if that person still says “no” then that state actor is empowered to use violence to either make that person submit and follow that law, be arrested, or ultimately killed if they continue to resist. A law prohibiting rape or murder is different than anti-vagrancy laws or occupational licensing - but the enforcement is facsimile if met with resistance.

            Quite hilarious to call me the obtuse and myopic one here, when my whole cornerstone from the start has basically been a suggestion to step back and think about what Solidarity means and how it is effectively sustained before we rush in to believing we can so easily make such harsh distinctions between legality and morality or state vs tribalist violence.

            This is a good explanation. Your initial comment was half-baked and didn’t expound on what you were trying to say, which is why challenged what I inferred your thrust to be. I’m not foolish enough to believe that we can all live in 100% peaceful coexistence, nightly drum circles, and unlimited cooperation and mutual respect. Because there’s always some asshole who doesn’t want to help or respect autonomy, and becomes the aggressor in order to steal/subjugate/dominate/etc. But my thrust was that the social contract is broken, when a company can essentially renege on a financial contract (heath insurance) arbitrarily and capriciously, and faces no legal repercussions. Because lobbying. Because “business friendly” legal environment where the one with the most money almost wins by default, if there even is a legal challenge.

            Please don’t triple strawman me here

            I genuinely don’t think you understand what that means, or are confusing presumptive argument for it. It you feel misrepresented and I am straw manning - explain in further detail. Like you just did now, instead of a snarky “u iz strawman winnar”. We never got to that part of the debate initially because you got huffy and left a drive-by comment at the first challenge.