Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
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Tbf, sounds kinda like the homeless man wanted to get caught, maybe for the free rent.
You are showing your innocence.
Yeah, that wasn't remorse. That was not wanting to live on the streets and being desperate to have a consistent amount of food.
Yeah. No wonder they threw the book at him.
I mean come on, who is really the one more deserving of punishment here: the fine upstanding job creator who had a small and momentary lapse of judgement, or the clearly bootstrap-deficient monster who – after choosing to be poor – doesn't have the moral fortitude to live on the streets like he should?
I think the right answer here would be to sell the guy to the upstanding job creator. The creator gets to prove how upstanding he is. The feckless man with no bootstraps gets a place to stay. Everybody wins! How lovely and compassionate that world would be.
But surely you can't be suggesting that the homeless man should be housed for free, so that someone who has contributed so much to society has to bear the costs?
Maybe we should let the free markets decide: first, the criminal should sign a completely voluntary contract which specifies that his new owner is entitled to assign to him any work they deem a suitable compensation for his upkeep during his sentence (not signing the contract or shirking work duties leads to a doubling of the sentence and immediate transfer to an isolation cell for the remainder of his sentence), then put him up for auction and sell him to the highest bidder
Well that's it. We've solved homelessness once and for all.
Y’all are making a lot of assumptions none of which involved asking if this man was wrongfully imprisoned.
The homeless guy? He was definitely wrongfully imprisoned. There are plenty of homeless people in locations with poor social safety nets who commit petty crimes to get a roof to sleep under for a while. But the prosecutors and cops get to inflate their numbers so they're more than happy to throw the book at someone who can't defend themselves.
You have completely changed the subject. You and the other user said he probably did this on purpose to get food and shelter.
I firmly believe he did. Otherwise he would have stolen more than $100 and wouldn't have turned himself in. A lot of homeless folks at shelters will commit petty theft and turn themselves in if their time is up or if there are no beds left, especially during extreme heat in places like Texas and Louisiana with poor social safety nets.
You're the one that brought up the question of wrongful imprisonment so I spoke to that. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough for you, I was trying to speak to your specific concern.
Yes, he was wrongfully imprisoned no matter the motive. $100 ain't worth that much time, or, honestly, any real time. He was likely looking for a few days to a few weeks of three squares and a cot. Instead he's sitting in the hoosegow for a decade with time off for good behavior which will make it that much harder for him to get out of his situation and, on top of the gross injustice by people who paint themselves as fiscal conservatives, it'll cost more than a properly functioning social safety net would have cost to get him housed, fed and back to being part of society where he could be comfortable.
I have a lot of feelings about this that are hard for me to articulate. There are a lot of subjects to cover here. It starts with how shitty we treat the homeless, moves to what some of the homeless have to do just to survive, and ends with how we're throwing away money just to keep someone down for the rest of their damn life.
It’s possible =/= it happened that way. You have no evidence this was a choice. The reasonable assumption is he did not expect 15 years for $100
This is going to sound like I'm being shitty, but I promise this question is genuine because I really feel like I'm missing something.
Is your issue the original language I used when making the assumption about his motive?
It’s not just the language, it’s assuming his motive period.
I don’t think you sound shitty I’m just a little surprised you two are being so presumptuous.
Fair enough. Then the best thing for us to do is part ways here.
I do believe that's his motivation because I've seen it happen a lot back when I was working in shelters and because he could have gotten more than a hundred bucks if he was robbing a bank if his motivation was money.
However, if you don't think I should be assuming anyone's motivation that's a perfectly reasonable stance. It won't stop me, but I get where you're coming from and I'm glad we talked it out so I could understand.
I promise you this man did not steal $100 to get 15 years in prison on purpose. I appreciate your polite demeanor but it also feels like you’re playing nice while not considering what I’m saying.
Have a good one man.
That may be where our disconnect is. I think he did it to get a couple of days to a couple of weeks. I absolutely do not believe he did it to get 15 years.
I promise that it's not that I'm not considering it, it's that I still feel like I'm missing something. I'm a pretty oblivious guy and that happens sometimes. I don't think you're coming at me with ill intent and I get the feeling that you and I would agree on a whole lot of shit, just not the minutiae here. I don't want to burn a good discussion bridge with someone that seems like a good actor and considerate person.
You have a good one as well, and I genuinely hope we get to have more discussions.
They covered him not expecting 15 years.
I don't think anyone expects 15 years over an unarmed robbery of $100 because it's completely disproportionate.
Imagine living in a country where you need to steel a bank in order to get the chance for shelter and food, albeit with no freedom anymore.
The way we treat our vulnerable is sick.
Right. Even if we assume that's the case it only explains one guy getting a harsh sentence. It doesn't explain the guy with a way harsher crime not getting a harsh sentence.
Think of it this way. If the other guy had robbed the bank empty, just for the sake of the argument he stole 3 billion, and he didn't turn himself out do you think he should've gotten 40 months?