Over July 4th I went to visit family and argued with some chuds. The conversation turned to the Civil War and lost cause nonsense. Somebody had brought up the treatment of slaves and democracy in the context of Lincoln being a tyrant. I then had the brilliant idea that the freed slaves should have been allowed to vote on what to do with their former owners.
I kept bringing up that this would be the most democratic and American thing to do and that only the bad slave owners would be killed. I just kept repeating that all the good masters who treated their slaves well would have their slaves vote to keep things as they are. The strange thing is, the guys who were talking about how well southerners treated their slaves didn't say that the former slaves would have voted to keep things as they were. Even past all their ideology they realized that that just wasn't something that would happen.
I didn't bring up that I was inspired by Mao.
yeah. reminds me of the phenomenon where people say some dumb shit like, "we can't judge the actions of historical figures by the values of today" when talking about being slavers, etc. they try to imply that the people of the time thought slavery was normal and fine, but of course if you bring up that many of the people back then were not OK with slavery, that many of the people not OK with slavery were slaves themselves and constantly resisting the system, escaping, etc.... their brains just shut off.
there's always this implication that we should only judge powerful white men in history by the standards of powerful white men in history, instead of adding in like POC, women, indigenous, etc. if you look at the accounts of the indigenous of the time, george washington was an evil, thieving, and lying murderer of unarmed women and children.
the "history from below" stories are ones that chuds absolutely cannot process.
Like, even by their own logic they're obviously wrong. There were Abolitionists in pre-revolutionary America! Even some Yakubian Devils figured out chattel slavery was an abomination! The rich genociders in power just didn't listen!
Edit: Potential Struggle session - is using "Yakubian Ape/Devil" ironically funny or problematic?
but of course if you bring up that many of the people back then were not OK with slavery, that many of the people not OK with slavery were slaves themselves and constantly resisting the system, escaping, etc.... their brains just shut off.
Nope, sorry. There were no abolitionists back then. The very first abolitionist was John Brown in 1859 when he suddenly came up with the idea one day and promptly raided a federal armory. No one said slavery was bad before then. Also he was very rightfully stopped by noble member of the Southern Chivalry™ Robert E. Lee who was doing his duty as a member of the United States armed forces to put down this unlawful rebellion
Weaponizing “democratic” or common “American” (in my case, “Canadian”) values to own libs or chuds is never not fun and hilarious
Competition, meritocracy, freedom, democracy, etc…. Capitalism’s contradictions makes it kinda easy
I really think you're onto something here. "Heightening the contradictions" isn't something that only applies to capitalism but also to the systems that support it.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
You're probably right, but I gotta entertain myself in the meantime.
yeah lol
The "press them too closesly" bit can be fun. Oh it's not so funny now huh?
