My point is that it’s not necessary to use language that puts down entire groups of people in order to offend someone. The phrase, “bigoted piece of shit,” is obviously ‘insulting language,’ but it is categorically different from calling someone a slur.

I see people going around saying that the only way they can possibly offend people with their insults is by calling them slurs. That’s nonsense. And it’s very ironic that these same people get really, really mad at me when I call them something like “bigoted piece of shit,” which just proves my point - if it were actually true that slurs are necessary to get that ‘sting,’ then they wouldn’t get so upset when I call them out for being the bigoted pieces of shit they are.

Saying that you need slurs in order to insult people is basically an invitation for people to lay into you as harshly as they like, short of using slurs. And I am more than happy to accept that invitation by calling such people what they are.

This is complete nonsense, it was already an insult 10-15 years ago and was largely phased out because most people agreed it was problematic and offensive. Now, the right is trying to bring it back and sow division by introducing the idea that it isn’t, an effort which you are choosing to be complicit in, god knows why.

It’s meant to divide people who would otherwise by united.

“I want to avoid using language that offends others in order to be more inclusive and reduce division.”

“Stop being divisive!”

That’s literally been the strategy taken by leftist in the US since the 1940’s and it’s only gotten worse and worse, to the point that people like Obama, Harris, and even Biden get labelled as “socialist.” It literally does not matter how much you try to avoid being associated with the USSR or other socialist states, you will be accused of being like them if you try to do anything even remotely good. So, since that’s going to happen anyway, we might as well stop punching left and stop letting misinformation about such states run wild out of fear of being associated with them.

Your lack of critical thinking and willingness to believe anything the government tells you isn’t my responsibility.

I’m so shocked that you’re completely dismissing the possibility that Zenz is a capitalist pig-dog liar, when it’s very obvious to anyone who knows anything about him that he is.

if you don’t immediately accept it without evidence, it means you’re a genocide denier, a bad person, basically a fascist who shouldn’t even be engaged with (conveniently averting the need to provide evidence).

As usual, by failing to accept a claim made without evidence, I have proven that I don’t “deserve” real evidence. Funny how that works, isn’t it? I mean, if you think about it, if you were wrong, you’d never find out, since you never seriously look at the evidence.

Some of us actually practice something called, “critical thinking.”

Can I also get a recipe for chicken noodle soup?

You just asked an AI to assemble a list of sources, which you haven’t actually read or examined. Now I’m expected to go through each of them, putting in substantially more work in order to refute them. Work which you will most likely disregard anyway. You didn’t even bother to provide links, so apparently I’m supposed to hunt these documents down myself.

Give me two to three sources, that you have actually read, that specifically call it a genocide, that don’t come from the US government (or other Western governments), and also don’t rely on far-right crackpot Adrian Zenz.

No, I would like actual sources.

When you start denying genocide, it doesn’t matter how good your economic policy is.

Perfect example of propagandized individuals hating communists because of propaganda.

I deny lots of genocides. For example, when Elon Musk talks about the “white genocide” I deny that. But somehow libs have gotten it in their heads that claims of genocide get to bypass all standards of evidence and fact-checking, because if you don’t immediately accept it without evidence, it means you’re a genocide denier, a bad person, basically a fascist who shouldn’t even be engaged with (conveniently averting the need to provide evidence). The state is more than happy to exploit this nonsense by putting out claims of genocide with zero credible evidence, because they know you’ll do this.

I’m just responding in kind, what I said is no more “lashing out” than what you said.

I’m more than happy to have a conversation, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize and call out impossible standards. You want a state that never persecuted anyone, show me a society where people didn’t knock out all their teeth that didn’t persecute anyone. Every society has murderers, and every society makes mistakes, and someone who is unjustly punished for a murder they didn’t commit could certainly be said to have been persecuted, no? So I don’t accept this standard.

And I was hoping you’d ground your views in reality.

Non-states or weak states very quickly run into collective action problems which are made significantly worse at large scales. Generally, they work when the material conditions allow for it, for example, the Zapatistas are in rural mountains that nobody really cares that much about. If they happened to be sitting on top of a bunch of oil, then the situation would be quite different.

States are the most effective means of solving collective action problems that currently exist. Even the fundamental goal of keeping people safe from other states cannot be achieved in most cases without some degree of centralization. “I can’t go up and defend the pass, I have to stay here and protect my farm.” That’s what decentralization gets you, and the result is that the enemy, who is solving such collective action problems through the mechanism of a state, is (generally) able to subdue each individual with overwhelming force. But it extends beyond defense, “I can’t help build that bridge so we can all trade with our neighbors, I have to tend to my crops or I’ll starve.” While these problems can be solved on a very small scale, on a local level where people know and trust each other, it generally cannot be scaled up to similar situations beyond that.

That’s an impossible standard, and doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. I’m not interested in impractical moral perfectionism.

Yeah and white people have also done that while having teeth so clearly that means we need to knock out all our teeth.

The state has been used to persecute and exploit people because it is an effective means of wielding power, so virtually everyone everywhere uses it, if they can. There’s just this silly martyr complex where people would rather lose and get themselves killed in practice, so that they can remain pure in their ideals. I suppose it’s useful for winning arguments. Not so much at actually achieving anything.

Only white people have states, yes.

Really, just about anybody that looks to historical examples to inform their perspective.

Serious answer:

Every proletarian has been through strikes and has experienced “compromises” with the hated oppressors and exploiters, when the workers have had to return to work either without having achieved anything or else agreeing to only a partial satisfaction of their demands. Every proletarian—as a result of the conditions of the mass struggle and the acute intensification of class antagonisms he lives among—sees the difference between a compromise enforced by objective conditions (such as lack of strike funds, no outside support, starvation and exhaustion)—a compromise which in no way minimizes the revolutionary devotion and readiness to carry on the struggle on the part of the workers who have agreed to such a compromise—and, on the other hand, a compromise by traitors who try to ascribe to objective causes their self-interest (strike-breakers also enter into “compromises”!), their cowardice, desire to toady to the capitalists, and readiness to yield to intimidation, sometimes to persuasion, sometimes to sops, and sometimes to flattery from the capitalists.

-“No Compromises?” Lenin.

In other words, you can’t really say that compromise in general is good or bad. It depends on the specifics of the situation. There are plenty of cases where compromise is the best way to advance one’s interests, but if you commit to one path or the other, you’re showing your hand too early. If the party you’re negotiating with knows ahead of time that you’re committed to compromising, then they’re not going to offer very much to do it, but if you never accept compromise, then you may miss out on a mutually beneficial arrangement.

There are historical examples where compromise was necessary, but there have also been cases where it wasn’t. If you’re going to take a position that says compromise is generally preferable, I’d ask whether that includes, for example, trying to find a compromise with Russia over Ukraine. Because it seems like the same people who say that the left has to compromise and sacrifice every demand will also call for fighting to the last Ukrainian and not giving up an inch of territory. That makes me think that it’s less about whether compromise is good or bad, and more about what we consider worth fighting for and what points we see as negotiable.

Good post 👏

That was entirely unnecessary and missing the point.

I don’t want to ignore the human cost here. But we’re talking about specific quantifiable metrics here, not the emotional trauma

Then it’s not a valid analysis.

What question are you even trying to answer here? Because whatever it is seems to be entirely unrelated to anything I was talking about.

I just realized you wrote the infuriatingly wrong claim, “North Vietnam traded manpower for resources, accepting high losses.” No, dumbass, they didn’t skimp on equipment because they were “willing to accept casualties,” they didn’t have money for equipment and fought tooth and nail with everything they had to avoid colonial subjugation. It wasn’t some kind of policy choice.