I’m back and honestly, I’m only madder than I was two days ago because I’ve had time to mull the bullshit over. Link, for those of y’all out of the know.

It appalls me that any community of people that claim to be marxists, that claim to follow the scientific method in all things that would contribute to the betterment of the world we’re forced to share, that claim to be really out here performing praxis and making differences in their communities; it fucking galls me that a community like everything I just described can still look at a still on-going pandemic and still have such a tacit anti-mask stance.

More of you admitted to not masking than I’m comfortable with and y’know what, maybe we could’ve left it at that. It’d have been a form of liberalism to not dig my heels in on that and take a swing at that mindset because again: I took on a new disability in the wake of a COVID infection. My partner took on a new disability in the wake of their infection. I was put in a hospital bed, my grandparents were put on respirators, so many members of my family and my community were genuinely out of commission and a good number of us really had to question if we were going to make it to see the next morning under those infections-- but maybe, we could’ve left it at that.

But then, I have to see you people not only trying to justify it, but taking up for smuggards who just think it’s all some big fuckin joke, like they’re their favorite podcast crackerbro getting to have their own personal Matt Christman moment. I expect “u mad bro” smuglord fuckery out of crackers who can’t even be trusted to properly wipe their asses after they shit, or to wash their hands after doing so. And worse, you expect me to not be heated about smug-assed crackers making light of genuinely-disabling infections after the fact.

I stand ten motherfucking toes down on what I said to Cantaloupe Ass and Ghost of Faso; any plague rat motherfucker who wants to take issue with how I feel about people who won’t mask can catch the same cases my partners and my family caught. It’s a whole lot of you motherfuckers that are so unserious, so emphatically not my comrades that it sickens me seeing you call yourselves so.

Do better. Deuces.

  • -6-6-6-
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    I do want to say, wishing COVID on someone isn’t cool. I’ve lost one of my best friends to that. You have lost more. I don’t wish COVID or any disease on my worst enemies. I view it in the same breath as “biological/chemical warfare” sort of thing. There is just indifference to death. There is a reflection there that I see that I wish to avoid.

    • MaeBorowski
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      I don’t wish COVID or any disease on my worst enemies.

      You wouldn’t wish covid even on our billionaire overlords who intentionally sabotaged any chance we had of containing it and thus condemned millions of people to death by covid, and magnitudes more to a lifelong debilitation for the sake of profits? I would and I do. I wish that upon them and much much worse.

      • ComradeSalad
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        17
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        This feels eerily close to the line of thinking that libs use when they say, “Oh? You want to get rid of the death penalty and focus on rehabilitation? Even for murderers, rapists, and war criminals? You must be evil then too.”

        Taking an extremely uncharitable view of 666’s words and then somehow trying to say that he somehow believes that billionaires shouldn’t feel the consequences of their actions is bizarre.

        Obviously you can always find some asinine edge case for absolutely every statement, but that doesn’t make the rebuttal strong at all.

        • -6-6-6-
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          Exactly. Billionaires get the wall. Where you get to do with your hands.

        • MaeBorowski
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          2 months ago

          No, you have it completely backwards. I’m the one saying “in a communist country, the death penalty is not always a bad thing, but may be commensurate justice to be used against those responsible for the exploitation of an entire society and the torture and murder of thousands of working class people,” when a lib, in their usual cringe idealism, draws a blanket assessment like “noooo, killing is always bad and there are no exceptions!” Saying “it’s not cool to wish covid on anyone no matter how evil they are” is sheer idealism. “Wishing” alone will never make any material difference in the first place, but there’s nothing wrong with desiring the death of people who absolutely deserve death, which is fine, normal, in some cases even positive.

          Your analogy is what’s absolutely bizarre and asinine because you either totally misunderstand what’s happening here or, like I said, you got it very obviously ass backwards. Funny enough, your reading of what I said is far more uncharitable than anything in my response to -6-6-6-.

          • ComradeSalad
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            15
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            The death penalty has no place in a socialist state. Once the revolution passes the initial stage, the death penalty becomes purely a tool of retribution and vengeance, the same as it is in a liberal state.

            What’s ass backwards if your takes.

            • cayde6ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              2 months ago

              I’m somewhat neutral/leaning towards being supportive of the death penalty, and I understand your sentiment. And I’m not trying to be a contrarian or sound like a smug “know-it-all” or edgelord.

              But I genuinely want to ask, can you really say that the death penalty isn’t a necessity on some level?

              I do think and hope that the death penalty will be used less at least in a socialist society, but my opinion is that it should always remain an option.

              I am aware that it is a great tragedy that as many as 4 percent to 15-ish percent of those that are executed by the state are innocent of their charges. And I am aware that a lifetime in prison can arguably be “worse” and a more fitting punishment for the convicted.

              I’m of two minds: I think the death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous crimes where there is a mountain’s worth of evidence and nearly no shred of doubt, and if the person is a genuinely dangerous threat that refuses to respond to treatment, therapy, education by work and humility.

              I don’t understand how/why the death penalty should ever be completely removed as an option or last-resort.

              I am aware that China for example supposedly has long-term plans to stop the use of capital punishment, which I think is fairly commendable.

              I’m also aware that when capitalism is overthrown, crime and violent crime will drastically decrease.

              I’m talking like, in regards to people like unrepentant rapists/pedophiles, reich-wing agitators like Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro, people like Peter Scully, Shanda Vander Ark. I don’t see the benefit in letting them live.

              • ghost_of_faso2
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                But I genuinely want to ask, can you really say that the death penalty isn’t a necessity on some level?

                Yes, any government shouldnt have the power to execute workers. People get things wrong and the death penalty is permanent. Sankara believed that on some level, and I think the death penalty is too powerfull of a lever to hand out usually.

                I’m talking like, in regards to people like unrepentant rapists/pedophiles, reich-wing agitators like Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro, people like Peter Scully, Shanda Vander Ark. I don’t see the benefit in letting them live.

                I also do see this arguement, I think for me its the pre/post revolution arguement. When we’re in power we shouldnt kill our own.

      • -6-6-6-
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        Who do they spread it too? Sure, their servants or their “dogs” if you want to say that. Who do they then spread it too? It is not like a nuclear weapon; or any weapon of mass devastation even chemical. It is actual, ultimate desolation that will kill far, far more than you want to.

        It is not something to toy lightly with.

        • MaeBorowski
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          2 months ago

          If the people with the power and authority to mandate vaccines, distancing, “lockdowns,” and public mask wearing but who instead ensured those measures could never be seriously implemented had themselves all gotten fatal cases of covid and died slow, horrble deaths from it, then the world would be a much better place now. Who knows how many decent real people who did die of covid would still be alive, if common sense and normal community response had not been thwarted by those in power? Even belatedly, if the people most responsible for the scale of death from covid somehow got it now and died as a result, it would be a good thing worth celebrating.

          It’s very hard to take seriously any so-called ML who thinks that billionaires dying of the same disease they condemned millions of others die of is such a bad thing that no one should even be able to wish it would happen.

          Who do they spread it too?

          This isn’t about spreading it. You said you wouldn’t “wish it on” your worst enemies, which is pretty unambiguous in its meaning that you think that even your enemies don’t deserve to suffer as one does with covid. If you read my other comment in this thread, you’d know that I always mask and always will because I care about the well-being of people in my community, immunocompromised comrades, and all people of the working class in general. Preventing the spread of covid is deeply important to me, more so than to those who make excuses for their failure to mask. Don’t be disingenuous and try to imply I am not concerned about the spread of covid simply because I recognize that it would be nothing short of cosmic (if coincidental) justice if the people most responsible for its continued spread and resulting mass death covid caused were themselves to suffer and die from it.

          It is not like a nuclear weapon; or any weapon of mass devastation even chemical. It is actual, ultimate desolation that will kill far, far more than you want to.

          … You do realize almost everyone has been infected with covid now, right? You’re saying it’s cool to wish that capitalists get nuked (or suffer other weapons of mass devastation), but wishing covid upon them is a step too far because it is ultimate desolation? What are you even talking about? This is nonsensical.

    • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      Yours might be one of the only replies in this thread I plan to reply to, because I plan to massively cut down on how much I interact with this fed. I have no further faith in the moderation here, and lost a good deal of respect for a good number of regulars here in the doing.

      I do want to say, wishing COVID on someone isn’t cool.

      This is maybe the only place where I could see one having a genuine issue; and y’know what? That’s fine that that’s your take.

      I’ve already had to watch it ravage my community. There’s people I knew that don’t come around anymore. Became agoraphobic. That’s not even talking the people that did die in my community, and their families still feel those holes to this day. Most of the people in my personal orbit, I thank the divinities I pray to every day that they survived-- but not a one came away without something permanent left behind. Brainfog, asthma-resembling hacking fits, compromised immune systems, the works. I wouldn’t feel so comfortable saying what I did to someone if I didn’t already know, down to the scars at the bottoms of my lungs, what this disease does to the people who are lucky enough to have survived it.

      Way I see it, if (the hypothetical) you’re going to be as indifferent to death as to take up for anti-maskers, I’m going to be indifferent to what happens to (the hypothetical) you, because there is nothing that can unite us at that point. In fact, it’s my hope that surviving a tribulation like that might actually inspire a level of understanding of why I approach this the way I do; but gods only know I’m already out of reasons to unite with the average settler so it is what it is.

      “How did one straw break the camel’s back? Here’s the secret: the million other straws underneath it.”

      Edits for clarity.

      • -6-6-6-
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        “I’ve already had to watch it ravage my community. There’s people I knew that don’t come around anymore. Became agoraphobic. That’s not even talking the people that did die in my community, and their families still feel those holes to this day. Most of the people in my orbit, they survived-- but not a one came away without something permanent left behind. Brainfog, asthma-resembling hacking fits, compromised immune systems, the works. I wouldn’t feel so comfortable saying what I did to someone if I didn’t already know, down to the scars at the bottoms of my lungs, what this disease does to the people who are lucky enough to have survived it”

        As did I.

        “Way I see it, if you’re going to be as indifferent to death as to take up for anti-maskers”

        The way I see it is that you’re staring at something as brutally indifferent and deadly as disease and are advocating it upon anti-maskers who will then infect others who may, even by chance, infect people who truly do mask or take preventative measures. Nowhere am I standing up for them.

        “I’m going to be indifferent to what happens to you”

        So quickly. A shame. I can’t say the same. Peace to you.

        • heggs_bayer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          2 months ago

          The way I see it is that you’re staring at something as brutally indifferent and deadly as disease and are advocating it upon anti-maskers who will then infect others who may, even by chance, infect people who truly do mask or take preventative measures. Nowhere am I standing up for them.

          I don’t have much to say in this struggle session, but I do need to address this. Non/anti maskers are already infecting others, who are infecting others, etc. until people who are actually taking preventative measures may be infected. Plague rats choking to death on their own mucus, waterboarding style, would just be them suffering the consequences of the actions they’re already doing. Your concern wrt the indifference to death is still valid, but I doubt nurglers suffering from more severe COVID symptoms would affect the spread appreciably; it’d arguably even reduce it since they won’t be able to go out and spread it co others.

          • -6-6-6-
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            That’s part of the point. We know COVID isn’t always “severe”. That’s what is insidious about it and any other disease that could follow.

            edit: not always severe as in can cause long-term issues and other plethora of afflictions instead of death. Maiming instead of killing.

        • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          Nowhere am I standing up for them.

          Nor do I think you do; made slight edits to emphasize that the ‘you’ in my bit there is a hypothetical quantity, not meant to call you to the front directly on that.