The military industrial complex.

Of course, material conditions have nothing to do with what beliefs people arrive at or what movements spring up, no, it’s entirely 1) AI, before it existed, or 2) magic.

Finally, a grindset I can get behind.

Are we sure the Lenin one’s not real? Lenin’s plan for defeating the bourgeoisie was, famously, to work within the system to increase taxes through incremental reforms.

No, I’m simply calling out a lazy gish gallop. It’s the same in both cases.

How many sources are listed on the Wikipedia page for Christianity? If I accept your logic as valid, it seems I’ll have to convert.

Someone once put together a book titled, “One Hundred Authors Against Einstein.” Einstein dismissed the book with the quip, “Why one hundred? If I were really wrong, they’d only need one.”

The funny thing about this is that if it were possible to reform the democratic party, it would only be through demanding change, and credibly threatening defection if those demands are not met. By setting conditions and giving those conditions teeth. What you’re suggesting is just asking nicely for people to act directly contrary to their material interests and hoping for the best. It’s complete nonsense.

Also lol at “enthusiastically voting.” Yes, it’s very important that you not only bend the knee to your corporate masters completely unconditionally, but that you do so with a smile on your face. You can trust me, I’m a leftist just like you, see how I say all the language about needing the downfall of capitalism?

And you’ve read zero of them.

Bastion of freedom and prosperity? The US?

They did enslave indigenous people, they just found it harder to do. They knew the land, and if they escaped they’d just have to make it back to their own communities.

The very first ship that returned to Europe from America had native slaves.

Exactly right.

Tell me you’ve never read anything Lenin wrote without telling me:

Trotsky arrived, and this scoundrel at once ganged up with the Right wing […]

What a swine this Trotsky is: Left phrases, and a bloc with the Right.

This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism… The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue.

Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other.

Trotsky behaves like a despicable careerist and factionalist of the Ryazanov-and-co type. Either equality on the editorial board, subordination to the central committee and no one’s transfer to Paris except Trotsky’s (the scoundrel, he wants to ‘fix up’ the whole rascally crew of ‘Pravda’ at our expense!) – or a break with this swindler and an exposure of him in the CO. He pays lip-service to the Party and behaves worse than any other of the factionalists.

I love it when other leftists offer criticism. It makes the movement stronger, not weaker, by allowing us to root out wrong ideas or approaches. “Ruthless criticism of everything that exists,” as Marx said.

The problem I have with Trots is that they are incredibly obstinate about criticisms that make no fucking sense. For example, the chief Trotskyist criticism of the USSR is the whole “permanent revolution” thing, the idea of expanding the revolution globally. What that actually means is a permanent state of warfare with every other country on earth. Because supporting a revolution in another country’s borders is a violation of their sovereignty.

This is a completely impractical and self-destructive approach to foreign policy, and to the extent that the USSR did try to expand communism to other countries, for example, in Afghanistan, it is rightfully criticized for it. But Trots will simultaneously criticize the USSR for things like invading Afghanistan and critize it for not being expansionist enough!

They’re just contrarians for the sake of it. It’s impossible to know what the Trotskyist position on anything is going to be unless you know the Soviet position, in which case you know it’ll be the opposite. There’s no actual reasoning beyond that.

The tortoise was Hamas.

Yes, because that’s exclusively what soldiers do when on deployments. They literally only shoot children.

I literally just acknowledged that they do things other than shoot children. The problem is, “I don’t just murder children, I also do other stuff” is not any kind of defense whatsoever.

EOT on my end. You’re just shouting naive platitudes from an imagined moral high ground, when in reality you’re just ignorant. No point continuing this thread.

And you’re just blindly licking the boots of your oppressors.

I never said anything even remotely similar to “the military is inherently moral”. Is moral of you to put words in others’ mouths?

Calling any form of military “unethical” is the absolute peak level of clueless wishful thinking.

Right, you only said it was “idiotic” to claim that any military was anything but moral, my mistake, that’s extremely different from saying that the military is inherently moral.

Military in normal countries is used in times of peace to help fighting natural disasters, like floods. I don’t see that as immoral. Do you?

Spend a month helping out with natural disasters, but then you go and murder one bunch of kids and everybody just remembers you as a child-murderer 😔

Or I’d have to support people who actually fight for my interests instead of blindly licking boots and rallying around a flag while dismissing all criticism because “the military is inherently moral.”

Your position can’t withstand even the slightest degree of scrutiny, lol. As expected of a bootlicker.

Hmm, but if I’m conquered by the despot one border over, then I suppose I’d have to start supporting his military, wouldn’t I? After all, I’d be an idiot to not support the only people protecting me my despot from the other despot one border over, right?

There’s no real difference between offense and defense. The more secure my position, the more easily I can attack from it without fear of retribution.

Sorry, I’m not sure I’m familiar with this particular school of moral philosophy. What’s it called? Bootlicking?