But the business owner takes THE RISK. FUCKING WHAT RISK? The risk of having to liquidate your assets and have to work a normal job like your employees do for you? You don't get to take that kind of risk unless you already have a fuckload of money or enough that a bank thinks it can get a steady return on investment, no one is taking any risk here.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
45 points (100.0% liked)
askchapo
22693 readers
290 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Calling you a "single issue voter" when that issue is genocide.
Anytime they bring up “culture” to explain why the global south struggles
Something something corruption and warlords
Mine is a statement that takes many forms but usually boils down to the exact same mindset -- namely that the current "villain of the week" is always assumed to be the most primitive simpleton imaginable.
It's not even limited to leaders of foreign countries. Somehow, liberals are incapable of attributing any strategic ability to their enemies.
For example, they will see a corporation get into a legal fight, where it is quite clear that the corporation is morally in the wrong, and they will immediately claim the corporation is going to lose because of some supposed foolishness by the corporation.
If you ask them about their reasoning, it usually becomes clear that they are actually completely clueless about the topic. Confusing patent, copyright and trademark law is a classic in this area.
But they just can't imagine that these corporations, who regularly exploit the system to their advantage, and have highly paid teams of lawyers doing this for them, might know what they are doing, and might very well succeed.
Maybe it's because even the acknowledgement of this possibility is already interpreted as support for the villain. You can't claim that the Russians aren't losing, because if you do, you must obviously support Russia.
Liberals would rather delude themselves with boundless hubris than correctly assess the situation.
"the system just needs some better rules!"
I’m a staunch pacifist and also 100% behind helping Ukraine.
Co-opting of pacifism is peak liberalism, it's such a blatant example of liberals trying to paint themselves as "peace-loving" while being imperialists and accepting none of the flak that actual pacifists receive, and even readily engaging in that flak. "Oh, but I only support defensive wars," motherfucker, it's called the "department of defense" because every fucking side in every fucking war post-Ghengis Khan always frames themselves as "defending." If you accept that you can still be a pacifist while saying war is acceptable if you believe it furthers the aim of peace, then you could be a full blown neocon and still call yourself a pacifist.
Actual pacifists may be cranks, but I have some respect for them for having actual principles that they will stand by even if it means incurring a personal cost. Liberals want to steal valor(?) for their own self-aggrandizement while believing in nothing and sacrificing nothing. And that's not even getting into, "I'm a pacifist, so I just got out of the situation and called the cops."
"Look, I'm as left as they come, but..." proceeds to deliver a take that Reagan would've thought was a little much
Cut them off and say they absolutely aren't.
"You're one of them gays aintcha? [insert resistance movement/socialist state/ect here] would kill you for that dontcha know?"
It feels like the people who say things like that are deeply queerphobic and they would be would be utterly delighted to see LGBT+ people dealt with of in such a way. I don't think they would bring it up otherwise.
"The fact that you can criticize the government proves that we live in a democracy!" (especially funny when it happens on self-hosted fedi platforms deliberately operated in third-party jurisdictions due to censorship on Silicon Valley platforms).
If it were a democracy wouldn't those criticisms be able to amount to more than nothing in terms of policy?
It's especially funny because they can turn around and make the "CIA excellence in journalism award" joke to refer to journalists said government killed, all without a trace of awareness
I like pointing out that calling Mitch McConnell a turtle ten billion times hasn't removed him from power.
Obamas tan suit
That openly-fascist people can be reasoned with to abandon fascism.
I feel like words are the only non-monetary thing that liberals truly value. They don't value action, they value discussion. And sure, in most situations, starting with diplomacy is the sane thing to do. But sometimes words aren't gonna work. Dealing with Hitler would have ended up with gunfire no matter the specifics. He wasn't gonna be talked out.
They don't seem to have any problem not using diplomacy with Russia though, even though the Russian government is now the exact kind of liberalism they were hoping to install in Russia.
It's almost like the hatred there is racially motivated, and not ideologically.
The liberal in my head gets very depressed when I'm trapped in a conversation where this is the case.
Power concedes nothing without a five-paragraph essay
a socialist leader is filthy rich because le ebil dictator owns literally everything in the country.
I like to hit em with this graph when they try to suggest socialist governments are new boss same as the old boss.
Liberals will trot out decades old propaganda as gospel, not realizing that their unwavering, unshakeable belief in this dogma is precisely the reason why they are incapable of changing the system in which they live, and in which they, their friends and their families suffer.
They are fundamentally incapable of identifying the sources of their problems because of this. If you base your logical calculus on contradictory axioms, nothing will make sense as a result.
My current favorite is their weird presidential calculus where anything you do other than voting for Kamala is a vote for Trump. In their math even 0 equals 1 because not voting is somehow also a vote for Trump
Mine is every variety (and there are many) of "you can't have (society improving somewhat) because that's not how things work, sweetie. This is the grown-ass adult world where (society improving somewhat) can't happen because (sophistry here)." 
Earlier today I showed my mom the Soviet animated short film Polygon. It is a stunning and dark anti-war film, and at the end of this film she said, "Someone should show this to Putin!" — and this bothered me a bit, though I didn't air my grievances out loud. There are certainly some implicit points I would agree with, that Putin is an untrustworthy bourgeois leader, that world leaders often wage wars without knowing their actual human cost, that objectively speaking Russia has invaded Ukraine; but I still felt like my mom's heart was coming from a place of really just buying into propaganda by the same Western capitalists who profiteer from making the war as long and destructive as possible, eager to further their interests in the region even if it leads to a nuclear third world war.
My mom's remark reminded me of when I was visiting relatives across the pond in occupied Anishinaabewaki a number of years ago, and one of the things we did for one of our get-together traditions was to talk about a goal we had for the next time we'd see each other. And I had said that I'd just started learning Russian, so I wanted to become proficient in that language by the next time we saw each other. And one of my relatives said something along the lines of, "Hopefully you can get to the bottom of who's meddling in our elections!" — and even being a radlib at the time I just thought that that was a really inappropriate thing to say to someone taking an interest in another language and another culture... Indeed, I recall the whole room being kind of awkwardly silent after that, so it seems the other libs were in agreement.
That relative who made the "election meddling" remark is of course still a settler who is reinforcing and benefiting from an illegal occupation of the country in which she resides, a country which isn't even given the dignity of dotted lines on a world map. And when she concerns herself so much with elections that are fundamentally illegitimate, I don't have much hope for her to suddenly "become based". My mother on the other hand, she grew up in that settler-colony but has now spent half her life outside of it, and she's been very supportive of me being a communist and she has accepted or unlearned many things about the world, and even said that she treats me as an authority on politics to some extent; however, there's still so many things that she hasn't unlearned — and given that we live in the imperial core, and given her own background, that she might never unlearn. And that disappoints me to think about, because I generally do have a lot of respect for her and wish her only the best.
...So yeah, I guess "dae ebil Putler" is going to be my "favorite" facepalm-inducing take that libs regularly trot out. Even left-wing groups in my country with large Marxist and/or anarchist factions will do this tailist bullshit about Ukraine, that leaves me wondering how much I have to actually put up with their nonsense to get anything done.
The "evil Putler" narrative, combined with Israel's insanely brazen behavior, has made me give up hope that Western society has any chance of improving.
I'm sorry, but if you can't draw the connection that the very same countries who demonstrably, enthusiastically support an ongoing genocide, and are actively spreading lies about it MIGHT NOT have told you the truth about the Ukraine war, then there simply is no hope for you.
Call me an optimist, but I do think that Europeans can and will be better — because before one can develop a thorough and principled opposition to imperialism, one will necessarily have a superficial and unprincipled opposition first, just from seeing things that don't make sense. Right now I think we are in that phase, increasingly, because the rhetoric about and widespread solidarity with Palestine that we see in the public today is unprecedented, right?
I think belief is also often a very social thing: though people often pride themselves on "being rational", in reality people often will not accept an idea until it reaches a certain threshold of popularity that "proves" it should be taken seriously, or otherwise people will not accept an idea unless it comes from someone specific that they see as trustworthy. So the more people with a low threshold are convinced, the easier it becomes to convince those with a medium threshold, then finally the high threshold — so like basically all things, a society's Overton window is like a chemical reaction, right? People buy bourgeois narratives because everyone around them does and says that bourgeois media is trustworthy, and bourgeois media itself says that it is trustworthy, and so this has become a self-reinforcing cycle that regulates which ideas are open to discussion. But ultimately it is inevitable and in Europe's interests that Europe will align itself with Russia rather than with the USA, and it is equally inevitable and in Europeans' interests to realize this; so the question is more when people in Europe will start to realize this rather than if — what will it take to break this self-reinforcing cycle, and will the satisfaction of "Told you so!" outweigh the frustration of "You only got that now?!"
Is it available online? I googled "Polygon Soviet movie" and got a Red Scare propaganda film.
Bizarre that it didn't show up for you. I googled it and got the correct result right away.
Oh, wow, this is good stuff. Thanks!
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Opposing genocide is "privilege"
They hate to hear from militant trans poc who say "don't use us to justify your support of genocide!"
any rambling paranoia about russia tbh
its just stupid and im sick of it
There is a Russian propaganda in my closet
You can pressure democrats left after voting for them unconditionally
I mean you can but it's just not effective.
What is their incentive to listen to you if you make it clear you'll vote for them unconditionally
Most are terrified of their constituents. If there are mass protests and people pressuring constantly they will listen even if this vote was unconditional.
But this is why they work so hard to keep us just poor enough we can't afford to revolt but not so poor that we have nothing left to lose.
Like I said ineffective but not impossible.
I feel like the systemic response to BLM completely negates your assertion. If mass riots don't get even token police reform as a result, then it's pretty clear that our leaders don't give a shit about anything short of someone putting a gun to their head.
Hey the NYPD created that discipline matrix in response to it to hold cops accountable. Why yes it is in the news recently because that corrupt police chief just weakened it, why yes he has already weakened it before and yes Garcetti had whined about how unfair it was and weakened it already before that, and yes both of them are alleged to have ignored it and let cops get away with things on the matrix.
Oh Hrm forget I said anything
They're terrified of their electorate not voting for them. If everyone has already committed to voting for them regardless there's no leverage to exert pressure
Idk but recently my favorite is the person that is losing their shit about getting banned from c/games and for some reason tried to complain about Russia and the news mega in the same post.
WHY DOES EVERYONE CRITICIZE BIDEO BAME I COULD CARE LESS WHICH IS WHY I HAD A MELTDOWN ABOUT BIBEO BAME 