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Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.
I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.
California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.
It all adds up.
Communism might be responsible for more deaths than the Holocaust but all historical forms of racism put together are probably responsible for more deaths than communism. Not that it really matters. Probably the main reason why communism is more socially acceptable than racism is that communism seems more well-intentioned than racism. Communism mainly hates people for things that they can change about themselves (being rich, being capitalists, being landlords, etc.), whereas racism hates people for things they can't change about themselves. Also, whereas communists claim to fight for an unprecedented better world, racists have nothing new to promise because the world has seen plenty of racism before. It's old hat and does not have any air of novelty around it.
If there is anywhere left on planet earth that this conversation can be had, it's probably here. So I'm going to try. Let's take this as four separate assertions as see how they match up to what I will reluctantly call reality:
The Tsar could change the fact that he was the Tsar, but not the fact that he was born the Tsaritsyn. Communism did not demand his death because he refused to abdicate. He, and his entire family, including his infant children, had to die because of what they could not change about themselves. Namely, being more intelligent, more attractive, or born in any way with unequal (and from communism's perspective, unearned) advantage.
This is a 4-year-old's understanding of racism from sesame street in the 90's (the only time I can speak to as it's the only time I watched (growing up)). You are not in any way shape or form describing the modal "racist." The modal racist hates, for example:
Being raised in a country founded or dominated by a race other than their own
Experiencing discrimination as a child because of their race
Repeated negative exposures to particular behaviors exhibited by subgroups of a race
And I won't bother going on because you (the reader) gets my point. "I hate X because they're X" is an invention of Hollywood.
A better world for...whom? Only the very highest climbers, the one in ten thousand factory-worker-to-party-boss types, aren't worse off under communism than before. Because communists openly claim to fight for a world in which people like me and my family are murdered, and our homes and properties are given to people without any capacity or experience for proper care of either.
When was the last time anyone, in any position of any authority in the West, said something like "we'd expect fewer black people to qualify for xyz, that doesn't automatically mean the qualifications are unfair." Truly, I'm curious. Tom Buchannan was portrayed as a pigheaded racist 100 years ago
Other way around. It's only the one in ten thousand who's currently exploiting the rest who will be worse off under communism; without them everyone else will be either around where they already are or better off.
The people who believe this may not be correct, but it's what they believe and are fighting for: a better world for everyone except those with unearned privileges. They certainly don't believe they're fighting for a world where 9,999 people out of 10k are going to be worse off.
This does not pass muster; communism does not suggest that only one in ten thousand people are exploitative. One in ten is closer to the truth but a compelling argument could be made for even more.
I used it as a mirror to your own number.
But it's not the 'other way around' if it's a false equivalence? Communists clearly and explicitly advocate for murdering far more than one in ten thousand people? I'm confused what our miscommunication is here
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