Econgrad

He's a psycho

That's an absolutely bonkers take. I'm sorry but it's unhinged.

I will admit that I know nothing about Israel's current politics other than that Netanyahu is corrupt and if not for this war he'd likely have been impeached and ousted. I appreciate this post and all this information.

The British first started settling Jews in Israel when it was British Palestine.

It was British territory. You have to respect conquest and annexation. If you don't then I could make a case through roundabout historical arguments that Israel belongs to the Jews anyway because they were there thousands of years ago in 700 BC and Arabs were not! That would make us occupiers of native American land. Where does the madness end? An endless attempt to make things right in history by going back to the first peoples of the land? In that case all of England would need to be repopulated back in Northern Germany. Half of Northern Italy would need to be repatriated in Belarus.

We would somehow need to move all of South America into Spain.

Australia would become deserted and returned only to the aboriginals.

It's unreasonable to not respect conquest and annexation. Is it moral, no? We don't have the PHYSICAL capacity for perfect justice when it comes to a question of this large magnitude. I subscribe to realpolitik.

So if we're trying to maximize justice for those still alive and not judging up ancestral grievances of who conquered who... We need to focus on practical considerations only for the people currently alive not who was living there 100 years ago.

Furthermore I would say that displacing some Palestinians to give refuge to a people that were recently genocided on mass in World War II is a moral goal. Is it a perfect solution? No. Is it a reasonable and mostly good one? Yes.

How should it have been handled? They should have bought the land from Palestinians. In many cases they did. But that didn't stop false claims of colonialism.

I'm all in favor of giving Palestinians reparations but after that it needs to be in exchange for releasing all claims to the land. And they need to be resettled with equity and dignity in friendly Arab nations with a compatible culture.

You want to talk justice, it doesn't become easy, it gets very messy very fast and I'm fine with the taking on that approach. But I have the stomach for it and I'm not sure the vast majority of people do.

There's yet another solution that could be equitable for all. That of a UN protectorate. As far as I'm aware that's the only perfect solution. But it's the least practical and the most unlikely because it makes literally no one happy despite being what's truly just.

A UN protectorate would make sense anyway because technically the whole world has cultural claim to Jerusalem and the surroundings.

And it could lay the foundation for a sensible and accountable democratic world government.

But conspiracy nuts won't ever allow that. And there's other less fantastical reasons for opposition as well that are more grounded in self-interest and selfishness and monetary reasons.

As someone that has worked on Wall Street as a professional trader I can agree with what you're saying and I agree that it needs to change. We need to get rid of this idea of endless growth. It's just not reasonable to expect that from every industry considering that industries have cycles and eventually they mature.

You hit a point of maximum (Pareto) efficiency where people are actually driving the most possible benefit from a business and there's a good healthy return financially. And then businesses feel the need to overshoot that and water down the quality of the product until people stop buying it entirely.

Then they just blame changing consumer demand rather than taking responsibility.

It's a real problem and it's going to impact our lives going forward much more aggressively as corporations win the culture war.

I think the solution is a permanent occupation and annexation of Gaza using this as a pretext. This is something that I support because a two-state solution is not practical considering the geography of Israel and turns Israel into Swiss cheese when you look at the borders on a map.

Israel holds the high ground morally ever since they were attacked during the wars of the 20th century. There's not a shred of religious influence in my support. It's purely the fact that they've been the underdog throughout the 20th century and attacked endlessly by their neighbors yet they have been gracious to them in victory and yet all it has inspired is further enmity and war. That is why I side with Israel. When Egypt attacked them in the 1960s they took the entire Sinai peninsula and they gave it back out of Goodwill. How have they been repaid for their generosity in victory? They were attacked in a defensive war and then took enemy territory and then gave it back out of generosity. And what was the reward? Terrorist attacks and more war of aggression. Israel has made some mistakes in the way they've handled the Palestinian situation. There have been times when they have unnecessarily harm civilians and they certainly don't have blood free hands. But they are light years cleaner than all their neighbors. They are absolutely 100% the lesser of all evils in that area.

So I support the occupation of Gaza and I support the permanent annexation of Gaza. Its very clear to me that that's what this is about. But annexation and occupation do not equate to genocide. You can annex a territory and give it citizens civil rights. Over time they become more like the original state. They become israelized. Romanized. Americanized. Etc.

When Israel controls all of the territories within its borders including the West Bank then there will be peace. And they should give civil rights to those conquered peoples and treat them with respect.

You've lost me entirely.

This is a waste of my time because you're not listening to what I'm saying.

And this my friend is exactly why communism is a dead philosophy. This right here above any kind of technical details or doctrinal differences or ideological issues.. It's this right here that you just described which is why communism will never succeed. Because communist themselves, in 2024 are nuts. I came to the same conclusion you did which is why I stopped calling myself one despite sympathizing and being a fellow traveler.

That's good because they are. Sometimes they don't even have the prices accurate I've actually had to report my local Target to the department of weights and measures because they don't even have prices at the register that match what's on the shelves.

I would say something around 10 to 15% would be an appropriate profit margin. But they would need to not try and get around that just by boosting executive pay. Now if they give the workers themselves better pay...

Man that's ridiculous

So under this ridiculously broad definition any war whatsoever is genocide.

We both know that's not a good definition nor is it really an accurate one historically. Nor is it what the vast overwhelming majority of people think genocide means.

And if the vast overall majority of people think one thing of a word that it doesn't matter that a book says this is the actual meaning because people collectively decide what the meaning of words are.

Either way even this broad approach fails anyway because Israel is not trying to destroy Palestinians They're trying to destroy a terrorist group that routinely murders people en masse.

Communists are inherently radical/extremist and radicals/extremists don't care about other opinions and will actively suppress them.

As a former extremist myself, you're absolutely right. It's not even really about changing the world or actual meaningful activism which is why these extremists are also totally useless in any movement they get involved. All they are is cancer. They just serve to alienate hard-working regular people who care about whatever cause it is.

You should absolutely not abolish the stock market because it's the single way most average people have to becoming wealthy. What you should do is change how it operates. Here's a novel idea I've had for a long time.

Make more and more companies worker co-ops going forward by incentivizing them the attacks credits and local government health in getting them started. Preserve 75% of the company for the people who actually work there which is what makes it a worker's co-op.

Reserve 25% of the company for speculation on Wall Street and to raise capital if they need to.

This way you can have sort of a socialist economy that avoids abuses and a stock market at the same time that provides liquidity and efficiency.

I mean communism is trash and tankies are literally against freedom of speech so I'm just glad all of Lemmy is not like that

Camacho/Not Sure 2024!

That kind of attitude leads to totalitarianism. You need robust debate for a democracy to actually succeed.

Furthermore when you're surrounded by echo chambers of your own opinions you get dumber over time. That applies to the left and the right and it's a big reason why the right is so bonkers now.

You shouldn't support creating a maga of the left.

You've nailed it. I couldn't have said it better.

That's because communists are literally nuts and they're not worth listening to in the modern day. Marxism has some valuable things to say. Communism does not.

Look, despite the appealing nature of some of the things Communists talk about they're the last people that should be looked to to provide those things.

They haven't even tried to acknowledge the horrors of communist regimes that have existed. There's not even like an attempt to take responsibility and intellectualize it. It's all just hand waved away as not real communism or blah blah blah or it didn't happen or it was justified in truly horrifying cases. What kind of movement is going to be successful that can't even acknowledge its mistakes? Acknowledging our mistakes is how we grow as individuals and it's required to keep movements accountable and on the right track.

You cannot have a movement full of people who refuse to acknowledge the mistakes of the past... in charge. Best case scenario it doesn't work which is what you see in communist circles today: Endless in-fighting, superiority complexes and toxic personalities.

Worst case scenario we have another genocide.

Communism is a joke philosophy and it's not something that should be taken seriously by anybody. It's one thing if it's an entry point into the world of Marxism where there are legitimate things to be accomplished and to think about. But if you try and apply a communist philosophy or worse a Marxist leninist philosophy towards life and politics you're not on the right track in the slightest.

It's a doomed philosophy and a failed approach. Furthermore communism is not even necessary for the workers to seize the means of production. It's just a particularly violent direct way that has been outmoded and is out of date.

Hyperbole. Why don't you stick to the actual facts? It's okay to be wrong. In fact being wrong is an opportunity! It's an opportunity for growth and improvement! You literally cannot do either of those things unless you acknowledge that you're wrong at times.

DM me and I'll give you my phone number.

Communists are by default and especially the tanky variety, not respectful of people having different views. That's why people don't like them.

That's a tiny minority of Christians whereas it's not a tiny minority of communist and tankies.

Furthermore it's an aberration when it comes to how people believe Christianity should be practiced that it involves such violence towards homosexuals, whereas it's the norm among communists.

Literally the only reason I'm here is to avoid censorship so if this place starts doing that I'll just delete everything and walk away and find another replacement.

There's nothing to respect about authoritarian communism. It's an ideology that advocates literally shooting people for having dissenting opinions. For all the good things in the ideology (and there are many) that completely negates them. It turns it into a parody ideology, a clown ideology that can't ever actually bring the good stuff inside the box to fruition. It's a poison pill.

It's a box full of your favorite snacks but when you open the lid there's nerve gas on the latch. Can't eat the snacks if you're dead.

Which was exactly the problem with Reddit. Like exactly to a t.

I'm a Christian socialist and you'll never find me locking arms with a tanky Communist. They're so disrespectful of other people's views they want to shoot people for having them.

Violence is a sin.

It's true though progressives don't show up look at what happened to Bernie the second time he ran and I donated a ton of money to him

I'm actually not and genocide doesn't have multiple definitions which is a thing that unfortunately people who claim to be progressive love to do... I'm progressive myself but I draw distinction between myself and many progressives by calling myself a moderate progressive. I don't try and redefine words to fit my ideology.

Genocide means to try and wipe out totally a people or an ethnicity through means of violence or deliberate actions. Things like the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide are good examples as is the Khmer Rogue terror in Cambodia.

However horrifying examples of violence on a grand scale like the rape of Nanking during World War II do not count because they are not attempts to eradicate an entire ethnicity or people nor do they end up having that impact whether the intention was or not.

If the rape of Nanking does not qualify as a genocide then there's no way in heck the Gaza war does. I need you to be honest and have integrity so that we can make the world better. As progressives we will only have ourselves to blame if we let emotion and passion override logic and truth. Because it WILL make the world worse long-term.

I'm in favor of a ceasefire at this point but it is absolutely not a genocide nor was it ever.

Well then I disagree with most Democrats on that.

I thought Lemmy was created to avoid the censorship and bans on Reddit

Well I won't get too attached I guess. I refuse to help build up another Reddit that is anti free speech.

Why is it that political extremists seem to dominate the conversation on social media? I don't want a forum made up of communists or neo-nazis. Lmao that's so cartoonish that I have to say that but here we are.

I mean I will absolutely just stay away from anything with .ml

People have warned me. I value freedom of speech more than almost anything after having it taken from me on the internet. I now understand how precious this constitutional freedom is. And I understand how the lack of it destroys society.

Words have meanings. Not every war is a genocide. There's no attempt to exterminate Palestinians. Gaza is as dense as New York City. If they were trying to wipe out Palestinians there would be far more deaths than there have been.

The gaza war is not a genocide

I mean that's what I am, the problem is whenever I use the word social Democrat as an American people have no idea what I'm talking about so I just call myself a Christian socialist instead. After all that's just a more muscular version of social democracy.

I agree that facts don't care about feelings. What's a woman? I'm just curious can you tell me what your definition is?

Yes as I've said many places and I probably should have been more clear in my original comment there should always be exceptions for rape, incest or when the mother's health is in life threatening risk.

I'll even go one further than you did and I would say that we should make contraception free and just pass it out like candy and I don't just mean condoms I mean all types. Not reduced cost. Totally free. I'm pro-life and that would reduce abortions tremendously. Most pro life people are not extremists or anti-contraception.

I'm also happy to pay higher taxes to provide prenatal care and I support Universal health Care in general. Medicare for all.