• gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      20 days ago

      Before unions were a thing, if a workforce wanted a raise, it was traditional to say “hey boss, give us a raise, or we’ll burn your fucking factory down”

      • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        And now that they’ve made unions all but illegal, we’ll eventually return to that trusted tradition.

        Either we settle things collectively and politely, or we settle things not so politely.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          This was the whole purpose of our founding fathers.

          Kings were getting beheaded. They knew enough that if they didn’t want to watch their backs constantly, they needed to spread power thin.

          It’s the point of good faith in government. It goes back to the Code of Hammurabi. We have these laws so that we can all mostly agree on how things should be handled in a reasonable way.

          When people can’t rely on laws and justice, eventually blood spills.

          These people have been so intent on gathering money and power, they haven’t realized why the founding fathers did the exact opposite.

          • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            When people can’t rely on laws and justice, eventually blood spills.

            Agreed. It’s pretty much just a question of how long “eventually” is.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            19 days ago

            I thought the purpose of the US founding fathers was to gain power to prevent the British government from having a say in abolishing slavery. Also so they could ignore the treaty the British made with the Indigenous peoples living to the west of the 13 colonies. They wanted that land and didn’t like those assholes in London preventing westward expansion via genocide.

            These people have been so intent on gathering money and power, they haven’t realized why the founding fathers did the exact opposite.

            You might be surprised about how consistent they are with the “Founding Fathers” by saying some nice words about “freedom” while their actions say the opposite. The American Revolution didn’t fundamentally alter things (slavery existed before and after the revolution) it only changed who was in power. Pretty words on a paper didn’t give people freedom. It was people voting, unionizing, and oh yeah, a bloody civil war that brought freedom. And then even more voting and unionizing and protesting for over a century.

            The US is a weird place not too dissimilar from the society depicted in 1984, just with Big Brother replaced by Founding Father. Founding Father isn’t watching over you. Founding Father was hypocritical slave-master that would have more in common with the likes of Elon Musk than they would ever have with you.

            Writing nice words about freedom while acquiring wealth from the work of slaves, isn’t that consistent with Elon Musk?

            • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              Most of the founding fathers wanted to abolish slavery, but they also knew they needed the economic power of the southern states’ cotton trade and that they would be virulently against ending slavery. They kicked that can down the road, but laid the groundwork that eventually led us there for the most part.

              • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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                19 days ago

                Most of the founding father fucking owned slaves.

                Elon Musk writes about rights and freedoms. Thomas Jefferson wrote about right and freedoms. Elon Musk is shit to the workers he gets his wealth from. Thomas Jefferson got his wealth from slaves. Elon Musk sexually harasses his female workers. Thomas Jefferson impregnated his slaves.

                Elon Musk and the other billionaires are being 100% consistent with the Founding Fathers you idolize. This is why arguing that these billionaire assholes aren’t “in keeping with the Founding Fathers” is so weak. Deep down we all know that these guys are acting exactly like the Founding Fathers. It really makes sense for so many people to think Trump, Musk and all the other scumbags are like the Founding Fathers because they actually are. They just aren’t like the mythologized Founding Fathers that you believe in. But the Founding Fathers you believe in never existed.

                The actual people were just a group of rich slave masters that wanted to take away more land from indigenous people. They wrote some nice words about rights and freedoms to fool people into being willing to die to serve their interests. Which is exactly what MAGA is all about isn’t it? Rich people talking big about rights and freedoms to get people to support them having more power.

                • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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                  19 days ago

                  You may want to freshen up on your history. Ending slavery was a huge debate right at the beginning. They chose poorly in the end, but not for no reason.

                  Also, there’s a reason the only person you could come up with for your silly comparison was Thomas Jefferson. He was probably one of the most flawed of the founding fathers. Though he’s still a significantly better man than Musk on the whole.

      • Damionsipher@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        Molotov cocktails remain a cheap and effective workforce bargaining tool. 2nd amendment silenced handguns just got added to that tool belt.

    • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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      Eh I think it does us a disservice to call the rich idiots. Sure some are, but strips agency from them for the real damage they do.

      Elon is at least smart enough to turn his emerald slave money into billions.

      • Infynis@midwest.social
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        20 days ago

        That’s not a sign of intelligence, it’s just that he had so much money, he could afford to fail a bunch of times, so he could get lucky every once in a while

        • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          And this pattern holds across a shitload of rich people too. Singers who could afford to not have to have that waitress job and just focus on promotion. ‘Entrepreneurs’ who got ‘small’ ‘loans’ to start their 10th business that finally hit. Real estate moguls who had actual intelegnt people bring them plans they rubber stamped and claimed to be brilliant businessmen.

          They are rich so they must be smart is the biggest pile of bullshit.

      • qarbone@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        They’re dumb, not handicapped. An idiot is still culpable for the damage they do. We’re all just lucky they aren’t smart enough to effect their malice.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    20 days ago

    If this starts a spat of CEO killings, most people will just continue sipping their tea.

    • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Republicans are going to start being in favor of gun control laws if the gun violence pendulum starts swinging in that direction. Not sure if that would be a win or not.

      • modifier@lemmy.ca
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        20 days ago

        I would say they have a reckoning ahead of them either way because I don’t think that the 2nd amendment is actually all that compatible with fascism.

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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        20 days ago

        Gun control is fundamentally a right wing policy. Just because it aligned with *some people’s preferred right wing party on a culture war wedge issue doesn’t make it right.

        Like look at California; the only reason their gun laws are so strict is because they were scared of the Black Panthers doing open carry observation of police. It was a targeted, racist attack on a political movement that was completely bipartisan, because the political class has solidarity with one another against the rest of us.

        Like what do *liberals think about abortion bans? Do they reduce the number of abortions? What about drug & alcohol bans? Do they work? We know these things don’t actually stop anyone from doing anything, they just make those behaviours more dangerous.

        So why do *they think gun bans will actually be effective? Do *they think the cops will actually use it to protect children? They had all the power at Uvalde and they used it to keep parents from saving their kids.

        The US is an unprecedentedly violent police state with the largest military, the largest criminal population in history and a fetishistic obsession with guns, of course their children turn to guns to take out their rage. That’s what they see modelled all around them.

        Edit: removed the words that assume this is the position of the person I’m replying to. I still stand by the points.

        • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          Nobody said anything about gun bans. Just gun control laws. I’m also well aware that gun control laws disproportionately affect minorities and I myself am not in favor of strict gun laws. (Though common sense screenings make a lot of sense to me)

          I was merely poking fun at the right’s pro gun rhetoric and proclivity to completely disregard rhetoric when it inconveniences the rich.

          • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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            19 days ago

            Do you think bans reduced the amount of drinking & driving, or was it education?

            Like you can’t just name another thing that you’re confident I disagree with and assume I’m going to suddenly support the ban.

            You’re doing the thing ban advocates always do: “thing bad”. Okay, thing bad. So how do we actually, effectively, reduce it? Because bans don’t work.

            • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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              19 days ago

              This is a stupid conversation but just so someone cites actual data and not just opinion slapfighting:

              Ban

              In 1982, President Reagan created a national commission on drunk driving which resulted in several important recommendations that would become foundations to the U.S. approach to stopping drunk driving. The commission issued a report in 1983 which called for raising the minimum drinking age to 21 and for tough enforcement of drunk driving laws. src

              … there has been a 38 percent drop in drunk driving deaths since 1982. src

              Education

              Laws aimed at alcohol-impaired driving have been shown to change behavior in ways that reduce the problem. Alcohol education and public information programs, in contrast, rarely result in short-term behavior change. In part, this is because drinking, and combining drinking with driving, are lifestyle behaviors shaped and supported by many ongoing social forces, and they are not readily amenable to change through brief, one-time education/public information efforts. Moreover, those who contribute most to the problem have characteristics that make them least susceptible to behavior change through educational programs. However, education and public information programs have an important role to play in combating alcohol-impaired driving. They can provide support and impetus for passing laws; transmit knowledge about the provisions and penalties of laws in ways that increase their deterrent effect; and generate public support for law enforcement programs. src (emphasis mine)

              In contrast, an education program that research has shown to be effective simply refers back to the ban itself in the first place, i.e., the You Drink, You Drive, You Lose program was successful, and was focused around informing people that DUI activity will be caught and punished. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/ktc_researchreports/244/

              In summary, chill out. Both bans and education have contributed to the improvement we see today and your narrative that bans are conservative and somehow ineffective is so easily refuted by the data.

              • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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                19 days ago

                The “since 1982” statistic, unless there’s something I’m missing, is literally confusing correlation for causation.

                Your other quote on education has a strange emphasis on “short term” changes, especially given that the part regarding bans is talking on the order of decades. Presumably that is a long term effect, yes?

                That paper talks a lot about changing social norms and increasing public support for laws. So if laws pass with broad public support, then presumably that broad public support is indicative of a change in social norms which confounds the data. In the end the drink-driving issue is a bad example for this kind of discussion of bans because it’s not banning things that the public broadly would otherwise want to do.

                Also, the logic that the “high-risk-but-hard-to-reach” group won’t be reached by education also supports the notion that they won’t be reached by laws either. It makes this point:

                Various studies, mostly of male populations, have noted the interrelationship among certain personality traits (rebelliousness, risktaking, independence, defiance of authority ), deviant driving practices (speeding, drinking and driving), and crashes and violations. Deviant driving and crash involvement have also been found to be related to a syndrome of problem behavior including marijuana use, heavy alcohol use, smoking, trouble with the law, and various other delinquent behaviors.

                The obvious thing that would reach people like this is social pressure, which again is something that requires broad social support, which confounds any notion that bans have any real effect.

                Sorry, but you have a bunch of sources but they don’t seem to say what you want them to say.

              • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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                19 days ago

                Just so we’re clear: you’re not going to answer the question about whether it even works?

                Why would you care if it’s legal if you can’t even say that it’s an effective measure? If you don’t even stand by it to that extent, why are you asking?

  • Bob@feddit.nl
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    20 days ago

    I started writing a song about a year ago that started, “have you ever noticed how no one has assassinated Elon Musk?” I need to get off my arse (and write the song, I mean).

  • DankDingleberry@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    maybe not. but it is based to kill a person that used to be a merely CEO but now, due to a lack of empathy and grounding to the real world, has become a cincere threat to humanity. EDIT: JUST TO BE CLEAR: i mean elon

      • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        getting firearms across international lines is a little trickier than shooting dumbfuck CEO’s, though. Not advocating anything; just commenting on availability and transportation of firearms.

        And personally, I’d rather see billionaires sit in prison and watched their assets get nationalized than to see them die, but given the stranglehold money has on justice systems around the world, one of those is a less likely solution than the other…

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          20 days ago

          personally, I’d rather see

          You can take it a step further, I wish they haven’t fucked us to the point where the violence is getting cheered on. They’re caging and starving a leopard, it will eat their faces eventually.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          and watched their assets get nationalized than to see them die

          The fun thing is, with enough estate taxes, we’d reach that end goal in a way.

          • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org
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            20 days ago

            Those have been carved away as well and there are always other ways to transfer wealth:/ Eventually, seizure is probably the option if there’s a group willing to make that happen. Depends on the trajectory of the government, though, but my money is on more BS tax breaks and moneyed protectionism unless there’s a significant upheaval.

            • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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              20 days ago

              Those have been carved away as well

              They have, though not completely. In the end, the rate at which such wealth is transfered through such a method is largely irrelevant, as it only effects the number of burgoise needed for the same effect. And as evidenced by this week’s events, everybody* is ok with that, ignoring the increased difficulty.

              • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org
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                20 days ago

                True. I mean, it really is a bit of Vulcan chess with regard to all the external factors. Historically, at some point, there is likely a group that will come around and hoover all that up or destroy/squander it. Depending on their goals, this could be better or worse lol