Satire is indistinguishable from stupidity

I had an argument with an American once over whether health care should be free or not. They're so brainwashed into thinking that they'll somehow be disadvantaged by a universal healthcare system even when they're paying out their ass for private health insurance, and at the same time blaming patrons of their restaurant who don't tip enough for their poor income while happily accepting minimum wage from their employer. It's absolutely mental.

What we really should have:

Fully automated luxury gay space communism!

It's even cooler

Thats the thing, im past the stupid naming and everything. I just want policies that help people and not billionaires. Call it marxism, stalinism, whatever the fuck you want.

Call it butt sex and then we can also claim this was the gay agenda we kept hearing about.

It’s the primary symptom of being infected with the broke mind virus, which effectively all republicans suffer.

Should bring actual communism back toexplain the difference.

There's plenty of studies showing that conservatism, sadism, and psychopathy correlate.

I think this is why we'll never have a UBI/leisure society/Star Trek style utopia. We are miserable biological apes and revel in other's misery.

You forgot "woke communism"

I mean, maybe they are a communist, and like the ideas and are endorsing him!

dont you mean marxist part.

it’s not safe to use sarcasm

Learning this myself the hard way.

protip: xcancel is also a good nitter instance you can use!

assets get concentrated, rent goes up

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief. “Bad news, detective. We got a situation.” “What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?” “Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.” The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?” “Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.” “Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.” He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.” “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.” I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside. “Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t. “Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up. “Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?” It didn’t seem like they did. “Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.” Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing. I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it. “Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled. Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him. “Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen. I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!” He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose. “All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.” “Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy. “Because I was afraid.” “Afraid?” “Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.” I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head. “Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.” He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

cost of living goes up quality of living goes up (for some) and the poor get poorer

Existence, privatized.

PLUS it generally pays for itself

That's just how taxes work when done right: you take some money from everyone to make everything better so that it's cheaper for most people to be alive.

SNAP, for example, benefits the economy to the tune of at least $7 for every dollar invested. That's the kind of return on investment that makes greedy fucks like Pitbull cream their pants.

*social democracy

The nypd is larger and better equipped than many national armies. The city of new york could cut them by 15%, still have a credible army and minimal navy, and fund all of this plus tax cuts.

Yeah, but then they can't line their pockets with tax money if it actually benefits people.

And also completely unrelated to Communism.

They actually do. They will all have the same stuff and it will have a low price.

That is basically step two after forming a council.

Woah woah woah stop there Lenin

You're right, is Social Democracy. But that's where we are, politically these days. The largest socialist organization in then U.S. (the DSA) is ostensibly not socialist in policy. Anything slightly left of RAGING corporate handouts and bombing brown people is COMMUNISM now.

hold on i thought communism is when government does stuff and the more stuff it does the more communism it is.

on the other hand these are reforms that marxists and communists should definitely support even if this is just basic social democracy.

It's funny that they never complain about the "free" roads or the "free" police.

I feel like this doesn't get called out more often as the straw man that it is. Right-wingers just love mocking the left for supposedly wanting "free" stuff.

$20 is socialism and $30 is communism. I'm sure Karl Marx said something like that.

They need to base politicians salaries off minimum wage. If they only earned a salary based off 4-5x the minimum wage, that shit would never be lagging as bad as it is now

It's not the already obscenely rich accumulating more wealth to the detriment of everyone else, which is the inevitable consequence of the current system of laissez faire capitalism.

For some reason the quotes around the word free make it seem not satirical to me.

“let’s all take up arms and pillage every home, rich or poor”

then you really need to look into what marxism actually is instead of believing stupidity online.

Renting is an option and convenience for a lot of people, that's why it exists. Some people don't want to be tied to a mortgage and might have reasons they only need a place for 6 or 12 months - temporary employment, contracting, studying or whatever.

Anyway renting can work as a model. Germany has a very large proportion of property which is rented. But they have strong tenant protections and place limits on rent hikes, evictions and so on.

I don't think an outright freeze is a good idea but rent controls and tenant laws would help. As would making casual letting (airbnb etc) a bullshit onerous proposition so that more housing stock is sold or converts into long term rent which lessens rent pressure.

There will always be a market for relatively short term living spaces; a gap currently filled by rentals.

Any person who is not living in a place temporarily, eg, for school or a temporary job posting or something, should have the ability to buy a home at an affordable price, without fail.

The housing market is saturated with house flippers and people with more money than sense looking to become a landlord so they can have an "income property".

IMO, all rentals should be either run, controlled, or at least strictly overseen by a specific branch of government dedicated to the task. Anyone who wants to become a renter has to get their rental property approved for renting, and approvals only happen if more rentals are strictly required.

I agree but that's not going to happen overnight and there needs to be a lot of work done beforehand. People need help now.

this but unironically

I thought it was gay space communism, not gay automated communism? HAS MAMDANI LIED TO US ALL?!

I am a wealthy American (well, top 3%) and I'm a democratic socialist. I have no education in either. I'd be the first to increase taxes in my bracket to support Mamdani's ideas. I think you'd be surprised how many of us there are.

Also I hate it when people say "Democrats NEVER vote to increase their taxes, how do they plan to pay?!?". Yes, I do. I don't think money grows on trees.

But I also support your idea. Most people in my wealth bracket probably disagree with me. I'll lower my voice if those I think I'm trying to represent speak for themselves.

No, communism is moneyless. No minimum wage in communism

Because he's reading from his open positions of awesome stuff

This isn't even the same Pitbull lol

I mean, he IS objectively wildly successful and talented at accruing capital in spite of his music being lowest common denominator excrement..

Why you gotta bring him into this lol, that's not even him in the screenshot and by all accounts Pitbull isn't that bad a human being. His biggest crimes being sexist lyrics followed by being born to Cuban immigrants (meaning he too hates "communism" but probably in name only)

But what does Ja think?

dale

provide more affordable groceries. depending on where they would be, they'd either provide food for food deserts, or create competition for other grocery stores, which should lead to cheaper food overall.

No necessity should be for-profit (exclusively).

If it is required (by nature, civilization, or by law) it is literally extortion to make a profit on it.

There are "food deserts", or large areas where it isn't profitable to open a grocery store, so no one does. The people that live there have no healthy food options. The state owned stores would operate in those unserved areas where no business currently wants to operate.

Most importantly, it's not ALL grocery stores like the fear mongers like to pretend. It would be something like 4 stores in the entire city.

To lower prices presumably.

Price gouging has been a major problem at Canadian grocers since COVID. Basically prices went up with supply chain issues / inflation but have not been adjusted for improvements in inflation since then.

These are for profit entities. They would steal a quarter from the poor and hungry if they could.

That's the fundamental flaw to capitalism - not that it concentrates wealth and power (because that is perhaps human nature) but that it celebrates it.

It conditions us to think that concentrating wealth is not only morally right but something we should all aspire to. That competing is morally superior to sharing.

Ultimately, if capitalists accrue so much wealth and power that they can buy out the interests that would seek to regulate them through democratic will, we then relinquish our democracy for feudalism.

Yes landlords will just take their houses overseas.

Even if you just talk about building new homes, freezing rent just caps the profits that can be pulled out of a project. If it's profitable right now, why shouldn't it be with same income tomorrow?

Lol keep going, keep going! What happens when there are fewer landlords?

Less people wanting to provide the "service" of rent seeking? Could you elaborate on why that wouldnt be a good idea?

good, less landlords. Not only would freezing rent show us which people suck, but it will force the people who suck to sell their extra properties, since if they won't use them then the property is just losing them money.

And what, leave the apartments empty? Have them earn zero money, rather than some money?