this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Communism
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I took a look back through my comments in this thread, and I suggest you do the same. At no point did I comment on the reason that the law is what it is. Of course our laws are written by property owners, everyone in the country is a property owner. Why do you think that matters?
Let's say there's a magic world where there is no owned property. There is only stuff, and people can use or not use stuff as they see fit. Who gets to make the laws here? Answer: people who get to use the stuff.
But wait, maybe we just can't own the property, but the country can. It's the country's stuff, and we get to use it because we belong to the country. Who gets to make the laws now? Answer: the people running the country.
You're acting like "property owner" is some bourgeois upper-class term, when it literally just means you have a thing and can decide what happens with it.
Oh ffs I should have known you'd be this pedantic.
Capitalists. The owners of private proerty.
The average person has ZERO private property, even including owning their own homes.
Jesus fucking christ that is such an insufferable attitude. You must have known this is what I was talking, and decided to ignore it anyway, to score debatebro points.
Your definition of private property must differ from "a thing that a private individual owns", then. Please enlighten me, so we can be on the same page.
...But of course it does. I'm intrigued that's what you think it means. Every individual is a private individual - that would make all property private property, even your own toilet paper. That's absurd. That's personal property.
Private property is absentee ownership; property owned for profit. A house owned to rent out, a copper mine, a business. Property that is owned by someone despite others making use of it, and the owners' presence being unnecessary.
Ah, I see. No wonder we were butting heads. I will admit, then, that I had been operating under a misconception, then. Mine's the legal definition, yours is the Marxist one. Given where we are, I suppose that makes more sense to use.
So with this new information, do I understand correctly that your stance is that police only exist to protect private, non-movable property?
Okay, i respect not raising the tone along with me. I got a bit flustered there but I've had some sleep since then so I can chat mote sanely.
Yes, I've been working under the Marxist definition - I believe it makes more sense. It delineates the class divide we are living within. Those without private property are working class, and those with it are largely capitalist, with some grey area where small business owners are concerned.
Capitalists are able to leverage their assets and wealth to exert untold influence on politics, and have done so across centuries to establish the world we are currently living in.
That's their distinct purpose, yes.
So why do traffic stops exist? Vehicles are personal property, police shouldn't care at all about what happens to or in them.
Social control. Y'know, i actually thought we were having a conversation for a second, there... Just like in the original image, I didn't say protecting private property is their only function. And you haven't really pointed out a contradiction - yes, cars are personal property, but traffic stops aren't protecting the car...
Social control is keeping people in line.