Seriously though, don’t do violence.

  • Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    When you crush folks into the ground for decades, ensure there’s no legal recourse, and bleed them for every dollar until the money runs red. It’s hardly a surprising outcome.

    Here’s the song that’s been playing in my head last couple days, for no related reason: https://youtu.be/o9mJ82x_l-E

    • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Not sure if you know the reason for the song, but here is the info behind it… the actual footage was brutal as well.

      A Song Inspired by an Infamous Suicide

      Patrick found the lyrical inspiration for “Hey Man Nice Shot” from the January 1987 suicide of Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer. It occurred on the day Dwyer was to be sentenced for 11 counts of bribery for which he had faced up to 55 years in prison and a $305,000 fine, according to an Associated Press article from the time. No money was said to have exchanged hands. The public official spent 20 minutes on live television proclaiming his innocence, then shot himself to death. The incident shocked family, friends, and political associates, not to mention the viewing audience.

      • tacosplease@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Wasn’t that the guy who was later found to be innocent? He tried to fight the charges, got convicted, killed himself, and THEN they figured out he really didn’t do it?

      • Zetta@mander.xyz
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        7 days ago

        I saw that video when I was in middle school and found out later in my teens that song was about that headshot. It’s a good song.

  • SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
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    7 days ago

    Seriously though, don’t do violence.

    Why not? It’s a perfectly fair response to the violence perpetuated upon millions of “customers” annually, made “legitimate” by paid off lawmakers. Why should we not be allowed to respond in kind when they’re allowed to kill us - just because it’s in a more roundabout method? Fuck 'em. I’ve never been a gun type, but right-wingers have really been getting me to rethink that stance.

    • Demdaru@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago
      1. If you are USA citizen, you have the right to bear arms in case goverment turns evil
      2. While yiur giv turned incompeten/insensitive instead, it also soldd itself out to corporations.
      3. Thus, corporations = gov
      4. Thus, you have right to bear arms in case corporations turn evil
    • pjwestin@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 days ago

      I’m mostly saying it because I don’t know the mods on this sub or if/when they’re gonna start nuking posts and comments like the News mods did. But also, I don’t want to be responsible (or at least feel responsible) in the unlikely event that an unhinged person sees this and does something stupid.

      Like…look, am I weeping because a man who profited by denying people healthcare is dead? No. Am I happy to see billionaires suddenly afraid of the people they’re exploiting? Yes. But does that mean I want people who see this meme to start gunning people down in the street? In all seriousness, no, don’t take this as a call to violence.

      I know there’s some hypocrisy in that statement, but that’s kinda the point I was getting at with the post: “I can’t condone this action, but damn, it appears to have been very effective at enacting change.”

      • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I couldn’t have said it better, tho we have yet to see if it’s effective at change. It’s really too early to tell.

    • UnkTheUnk@midwest.social
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      7 days ago

      murder is in general bad, fed-posting is inadvisable

      also there’s a broader boring argument about the dangers of violence being normalized as means of political change, but those arguments are boring

      • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Self-defense (or defense of others) is not murder.

        Brian Thompson killed thousands, and contributed to the suffering of millions more. The judicial system was both unwilling and unable to stop him.

        What choice was there? What alternative to stop him?

        • UnkTheUnk@midwest.social
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          7 days ago

          I didn’t make any arguements about this specific situation? Murder in general is bad

          The problem is that there’s no clear endpoint of that thought process. The number of people that exact thought process applies to would require a level of violence that I doubt anybody sane wants.

          Edit: to be more precise here. I’m leery about trying to apply the logic of individual self-defense to broader questions about social murder. The entire system is complicit, but if we go to burn the system down without a replacement ready we’ll end up sorrounded by nothing but ash and corpses

          • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            You’ve been propagandized to hell. Both in defense of systemic violence, and the belief that these systems would cease to exist without a financial class to absorb profit from them.

            You need to wake the fuck up.

            • UnkTheUnk@midwest.social
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              6 days ago

              Wow very convincing. thank you, directly calling me an idiot without addressing the core of my argument really has brought me over to your way of thinking

              I very deliberately said “in general”, i did not say “in all cases whatsoever”.

              For health insurance there is a replacement ready, the answer is to have Medicare do everything.

              • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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                6 days ago

                Didn’t call you an idiot. Just propagandized.

                So then expand on your comment about burning systems down without a replacement. What systems do you believe will cease to function without a layer of financial class to soak up the profits?

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      7 days ago

      Violence is clearly justified. There’s only a question of it being the most effective means.

      I’m currently reading “Why Civil Resistance Works”, which strongly suggests that non-violent means of protest are far, far more effective.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        The opposition to the south african apartheid did a campaign of sabotage because it wanted to reduce casualties. I would say it was very effective.

      • A7thStone@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Yes, someone who worked at the state department wouldn’t have any motive to push for “civil” protest.

      • Makhno@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I’m currently reading “Why Civil Resistance Works”, which strongly suggests that non-violent means of protest are far, far more effective.

        Oh yeah all the peace marches ended slavery. All the peaceful sit-ins that took down the Nazis. I remember all of those… never happening.

        Kill your masters and oppressors. Full stop.

      • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        The French Revolution ate the nobles, sure, but then it ate itself, then went on to try to eat the rest of Europe. It was a loooong time before it had positive results.

        • bitwaba@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          For the most part, the French revolution really only took down the royal family. A large portion of land owners and business people made it out perfectly fine with both their assets and heads.

          • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Is it weird that I’m ok with people in the $50 mill range? Like yeah, they’re stupid rich. But they’re still closer to us than to people with $100 billion. And also, a lot of them just inherited it. Which is also bullshit, but they may not have done any evil to become that rich, necessarily. The question is whether or not they keep up with the evil. Bezos ex wife is a great example as she has spent tons of money on charitable organizations that opposed her ex husbands bullshit. There’s a handful of good, rich people out there, but they’re few, and far between.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              7 days ago

              We can put a number on the difference between “rich” and “filthy rich”. It’s about $10M.

              I say this with regard to the Trinity Study, which backtested a retirement portfolio to see how long it would take for a given withdrawal rate (and adjusting for inflation each year) to fail. It went all the way back to 1925, which means it would have seen boom and bust, high inflation and low. What it comes out saying is that if you withdrawal 2.5% per year of a balanced portfolio, you can live on that indefinitely.

              2.5% of $10M is $250k. That’s enough to live very comfortably anywhere you want. Yes, even Manhattan and San Fransisco–lookup median household income for those areas and you’ll see that $250k is far above it. Also, you can live basically anywhere if you do this, so maybe don’t live in a high cost of living area. There’s plenty of nice places to live that are cheaper. That said, if something is keeping you there, you can do it and still live pretty well.

              So that’s the limit. Anything above that is just hoarding wealth.

              Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      It is bad if used as the first approach.

      It is fine when used in self defense or when all peaceful approaches have been exhausted in response to oppression and other malicious actions. It does matter when and why it is used.

      • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Agreed. This happened because both parties are bought and paid for by big corpo. Our vote is only on how to address some of the social issue symptoms, if at all, of our crony capitalist economy, and only if they don’t meaningfully effect corpo profits.

        Example “please leftwing Obama, save us from this for profit healthcare hell!” proceeds to further enshrine for profit insurer leeches in a plan made from the heritage foundation because big corpo demand line go up.

        The people don’t get a vote on the crony capitalist economy.

        When we wish to protest, we’re now sent to designated protest zones out of the eyelines and profit operations of those we protest, making such “protests” as effective as masturbation in creating change.

        This is happening because they have made us this desperate,and taken away/castrated our non-violent options. Some are apparently finally realizing that our votes and our protest have been manipulated by the capitalists that know they’re doing us harm into still technically existing, but no longer mattering.

        Gotta hand it to them, it’s far more insidious than overt slavery with chains.

  • nomad@infosec.pub
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    7 days ago

    The legislature and violence monopoly are there to ensure all people have legal recourse instead of needing to turn to violence. If you corrupt that system and use it to oppress the masses, they become violent.

    I neither agree with, nor condone violence, but it does not surprise me at all. Just surprised that it took so long.

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Violence from the masses requires the masses to feel like they are starving, sick, and dying with no way out except death. We have been slowly accelerating towards that violence for a while now.

      Watch for an increase for those CEO’s, (at least insurance and pharmaceutical CEOs), to have much increased budget for private security measures. Both in surveillance and personnel. I think we will start to see more ‘black limo caravans’ like the the POTUS moves around in. And being surrounded by people in black suits with guns openly visible. They will do whatever it takes to stay alive and be evil.

      The next question is: how long before politicians start becoming targets?

  • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I was really hoping we would avoid violence by electing people like Bernie Sanders. Instead it looks like the class warfare will come to violence.

  • devfuuu@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    If it works it works. Humans have been using as an effective way to accomplish things for millennia.

    The current capitalism overlords may not be happy when it’s used the other way around to what they are used to.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      “Violence is a precipitation of two sides unwilling to compromise.”

      • Sun Tzu The Art of War
  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    For legal reason I wish to say that I don’t advocate violence. I also say that, I really think this was the only way this was going to happen.

    Billionaires only do the right thing if it’s profitable or if they’re afraid.

  • Iapar@feddit.org
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    8 days ago

    If violence isn’t a solution why does the government use it?

    • MissJinx@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      My experience with human rights acrivists is that they only fight for the assholes. Never saw a human rights activist in a foundraiser for children, but talk about murderers and rapists they are all love.

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Yeah, because nobody else speaks up for those who’d be railroaded through court otherwise. You don’t ’see them speak up’ because those same people’s voice get lost in the crowd of everyone else’s outrage/support.

        It’s trite but true, failure to defend the fringes leaves a smaller and smaller pool of resistance/solidarity:

        First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
             Because I was not a socialist.

        Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—
             Because I was not a trade unionist.

        Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
             Because I was not a Jew.

        Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

        • MissJinx@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Look I’ve heard human rights activists say that over and over again but you know what I think? You can look at a CHILD that was raped and say "sorry he deserves to be treated nicely, your values are crooked.

          I’m NOT talking about the legal system that is indeed corrupt, I’m talking about people that confessed to murder and rape and you still go out of your way to defend that “he need nicer food”. He needs to burn in hell

          • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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            6 days ago

            If rights aren’t universal they may as well not exist. To defend the rights of another is to defend your own. Remember that next time you see the rights being violated of someone you feel deserves it.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Depends on your dataset, confidence, and margin of error.

        Assuming that 95% of billionaires will act similarly and 750-ish total billionaires in the US, if you want to have 99% confidence and 1% margin of error, you’ll need a minimum sample size of around 600.

        We really should be thorough. For science.

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          Usually I would nit pick the hypothesis you want to confirm and the math you used, but for some reason 600 sounds right.