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Divide & Conquer
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
1211 points (98.7% liked)
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It's so cute when people who have never authentically considered another perspective weigh in on what leftists think and why.
Can you do people who can't afford cancer treatment next?
the medical system in the US is fucked because the system doesn't actually care about the health of the people; obviously that sucks idk what you expect me to say
I wonder what system people are increasingly upset about that doesn't care about people's health, but instead enriching the wealthiest people in the country?
i'd say it's christianity or the concept of natural law that's historically been pushed by christianity.
it roughly says that there are natural laws that are derived from god (i.e. unchangeable circumstances) and are therefore unchangeable themselves. they typically revolve around (political/military) power being the center and origin of all law; it roughly corresponds to the nazi principle "might makes right" which says that if you're too weak, you have to adhere to stronger people's rules.
that historically influenced US politics a lot. that's why you have the modern concept of "when people are 60 years old and they get sick from cancer, well that's natural and therefore good and therefore we shouldn't do anything about it." i think that's the major influence, not so much about shareholder value.
in fact medical companies would make a shitton of money if they treated every disease. it's actually hurting the economy that the US does not spend more money on social healthcare. but ideology seems to be more important to the US government in this case.
edit: eh after reading the above wikipedia article it speaks mostly about the medieval concept of natural law but that's not how the term is used these days. these days the term natural law mostly refers to things such as anarchy (as it's used by the media) and doing away with a (human-made-rules)-based world order. in other words "eat shit, be free" but for politicians.
it's used like this: "i am a politician. i want to suppress other people. because i have this natural urge, surely it must be a natural thing to do. that's why i do it". while things that would limit this behavior such as democratically elected laws and human-made laws such as the legal system are ignored because they are "not natural and therefore not to be taken too seriously". trump is the best example of this.
Our economic system is not Christianity.
You really don't know why we have lobbyists pouring money into Congress to prevent us from having universal healthcare? You think it's all religious, and in no way related to the parasite class rent seeking in the most depraved way possible?
Yeah. I bet it's because Jeebus.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, you've clearly spent a "lot" of "time" "thinking" about "this."
turn the question the other way around and ask yourself what motivates people to seek money beyond what a single person can spend. there's no short-term benefit in it so i argue there must be a long-term trajectory behind it. what is that and what do you call it?
Capitalism.
but then again what motivates capitalism?
anyways my point was that it speaks to some natural inclinations for some people such as greed and stuff, and why did those develop evolutionarily? because they put the people who had the traits at an advantage.
anyways religion imho is mostly a codification of the natural traits of people (called "natural law" as pointed out by my other comment somewhere in this thread), while also using some tricks to smoothen some edges. so capitalism is a direct consequence of it. and that's why i would say that yes, very much are the congreemen's decisions are in fact motivated by religion.
So even in your convoluted, roundabout way you still can't get around implicating capitalism.
Here's a hint: it doesn't matter what excuses people give.
They expect you to regurgitate Marxist or libertarian socialist rhetoric. Or at least social democratic rhetoric. Because that will show that you're the right kind of person with the right kind of ideas. Whether or not it will accomplish anything is another matter. I'm not sure they care about that. I mean, they probably care about it, but they care about ideological purity more.
I've never seen an AFD guy on lemmy, this is a first for me.
what's AFD?
German nazi party V2
The hand up your ass and the words in your mouth.
Honesty, I thought you were a far-right german, based on how you called all leftists lazy and your username and instance being german. But I see you deleted your previous comment, so I looked at a bit of your comment history, and I was apparently mistaken. My apologies for lumping you in with neo-nazis.
I just cannot fathom what brings someone to make blanket statements about giant groups of people like that, other than ignorance and/or propaganda indoctrination.
i think my worldview is well-founded and actually reasonable once you explore it more; maybe i just phrased it really badly in my comment above. well anyways i deleted it because i noticed this thread develops into a shitshow and i'd like to stay on serious discussions only.
Well lets have a serious discussion. According to your worldview, why is there such wealth inequality in the USA?
These are just some charts that display some basic data, of course the matter is more complicated.
like i realize now that my original wording was rude when i said that "leftists are lazy" because it is seen as an insult by the people. which at the moment that i said it was not at all meant as an insult. and i support worker's rights overall, i think my comment just came out wrong. anyways, i'm closing this thread now because it's too deep into mess.
Why is leftist in scare quotes
it's not scare quotes, it's just quotes because people call themselves leftist so it's a self-describing term. i always put those in quotes.
also note that there's no universal agreement on what "leftist" means. note i'm not putting that in scare quotes but normal quotes to distinguish the word from what it refers to. it's famous that leftists always infight because they can't agree on what leftism actually means.
Explain to me why shareholders, who do exactly 0 work and sit on their asses all day, should receive free money?
Why are people allowed to be parasites on society just because they have money?
Capitalism values capital and socialism values what?
I'm not necessarily arguing for or against capitalism. This cartoon is something I would've up-voted not too long ago. I understand the sentiment. But I don't think a lot of the people who up-vote this kind of stuff really think it through. Some do. Some people have thoroughly thought out theories about revolutions overthrowing capitalism and establishing some kind of post capitalist society. I know I did. But I am as certain as I can be about anything that the vast majority of people making $19/hr, and the vast majority of people making $50/hr, don't necessarily want to all join together, violently overthrow capitalism and create a post capitalist, moneyless society.
The thing is, I don't think the majority of people who up-vote a cartoon like this know what they want. They're mad, they're frustrated, they think it's unfair, but they don't necessarily know what they want to do about it. More than anything I just want people to think about it. What's the problem? Is there a problem? If so, what is it exactly? What do you want to do about it? Revolution? Socialism? Something else? If so, what?
I think people want to not be hungry, I think they want to have time for leisure, I think they want to not worry about whether they will pay the rent or put groceries in their fridge (forget about a vacation).
I think people want a guarantee that after working for 40 years they can retire and spend some of their life freely.
I think people want to know that they won't go bankrupt because they get cancer.
I think you're making it way more complicated than it is.
If the top 1% wasn't collecting an equal share of wealth to the bottom 40% people these things could be possible.
I think that's a fair assessment. That being said, you think I'm overcomplicating, but I think you're oversimplifying. I don't think all of what you just said encompasses all human needs, wants and desires.
But, for the sake of argument, let's say you're right. That's what people want, and they can't have what they want because the 1% have too much of the wealth. What should we do about it?
I never intended to posit my comment as encompassing all human wants and desires, but I do believe I have touched on the "basic bill of rights" that most people would agree on.
Tax the excessively wealthy.
I'm not an economist, so I won't sit here and give a number of what level of wealth should be taxed, but I think it fits under "I know it when I see it"
If you're buying multiple vacation properties, if you own a yacht or a private jet, you're probably it.
This comic isn't about any of that stuff.
This comic shows that when people who can barely make it complain, the average middle/upper middle class person get upset and fights them. It also shows that this dynamic greatly benefits the very people who benefit unfairly from underpaying the work of the poor (and the middle class).
Upvoting it is just a recognition that this dynamic hurts us all. Maybe someone who sees this will think twice when they hear a poor person complain about their living conditions. Think past their reactionary reflex. If the middle class doesn't fight the poor, the poor can move past that obstacle at least. Maybe if they REALLY think about it they'll join in solidarity, make it easier for the poor to fight for better working conditions. Maybe they won't, it's just a meme.
You're right, the current revolutionary meta isn't worked out enough or universally agreed upon enough to be plausible yet.... But this comic isn't about that. It's just about the fact that this fight helps the exploiters and we shouldn't fight people who want better working and living conditions. This comic can be fixed a minimum wage hike and a tax on the wealthy to mitigate the inflationary pressure this can create.
You're getting down voted because you're protecting a complex set of ideas over a simple cartoon and stating that your interpretation is the only logical conclusion/solution proposal of this cartoon. I don't see any solution proposal here. It feels like a bad faith argumentation on your part against something no one really said. People don't generally support arguments they see as bad faith.