Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
The American Genocide
Which one? The native american one?
Moreso the current one we're doing in palestine.
We aren't doing a genocide in Palestine... feels kinda wrong to diminish the meaning to include people not actually committing the violence while a large portion of their population protests any support the country gets.
Most Germans didn't support the Nazis either, but they were still culpable. Israel could never do this genocide without our help, and so we are culpable for it.
No. I disagree on both examples.
Edit: And I don't see how Germans asking Germany for a ceasefire is an argument against my statement.
There is certainly a genocide occuring in Palestine. The US is funding the Israeli military. Ergo, the US is culpable for genocide, just like all Germans were. Average citizens are less culpable than government officials are, but we are all culpable for it to a degree.
It's a similar concept to manslaughter. We were negligent in our enforcement of our government, and so even though you and I might oppose the governments actions and didn't directly cause them, we all had a duty to prevent a genocidal government taking power.
There is a degree at which idealistic humanitarianism is pushed to such an extreme that it swings all the way back around into the concept of original sin. I know, because it's where I've sat for years and I had to sit down about it when someone pointed out I'm basically so atheist I've gone catholic.
Guilt is indeed a matter of calibration. This is correct. But at a certain point of granularity, it becomes a pointless statement.
Anyone insisting on wearing clothing or utilizing objects they didn't make by their own hand is a capitalistic slaver. You and I both own slaves right now.
I could disappear into the hills and become a vegan goatherd, and it's probably the closest I could get to neutral. But by the mere act of minimizing my own harm, I'm also shutting my ears to the plight of all others, which is an implicit endorsement through inaction.
If I choose action and swing the tides over to Gaza, they still have their own weaponry. If bringing my corrupt genocidal government to its knees, I've created a power vacuum that harms countless and will most certainly kill. Doing nothing or something both make me a murderer.
Even in donating to a charity, you're deliberately choosing to ignore three others just as worthy. When everyone answers to everything simply by chancing to be born, this kind of thinking becomes at best a semi-interesting joke and at worst actually psychologically destructive.
What am I meant to do, to stop personally committing at least 4 types of concurrent genocide across the globe? Stop paying taxes towards the military? At least my below-the-poverty-line ass is already there.
Calling my representatives won't do much with the US so heavily invested in the area, but I suppose if I'm culpable for mass murder either way, I might as well go to prison for it.
Everything you've said is the exact explanation for why there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, and the inherent flaw behind it as a whole. But I do not accept that it's the same issue in gaza. It is not capitalism as a system causing the genocide, it is our elected president who is actively lying about both sides of the war in order to perpetuate it. It is our UN representatives actively blocking a ceasefire. The fact we haven't impeached Biden yet is very much on all Americans. Capitalism did not put Biden in the WH, we did. And so we are responsible for what he does and doesn't do while there.
As far as the sins of capitalism, I very much agree with your original sin argument. It's just a different issue when the problems are caused by our democratically elected government.