It’s only western leftists who have liberalism and idealism to work through that still clinge to this type of rhetoric
Marx did too, you know. I quote:
It would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to establish any principle upon which the justice or expediency of capital punishment could be founded in a society glorifying in its civilization [...] and besides, there is history - there is such a thing as statistics - which prove with the most complete evidence that since Cain the world has neither been intimidated nor ameliorated by punishment
And he distinguished perfectly well between a revolutionary state of thing - no excuse for the terror and so on - and the machinery of post-revolutionary states.
Your ideal leftist state can execute people in little clean rooms with little bits of paper and little laws and even judges, I imagine, all they want; they're still fucking murdering people, and I'd have a hard time calling such a society "civilized", personally. Sentient life is a miracle, it is what we fundamentally fight for, and all of it is sacred, period - taking one is something you do when you have no other choice.
Again, I won't engage further; discussing this topic specifically always makes me sad on hexbear. I'm all for pragmatism over idealism; this isn't it, though. Keeping someone alive and in relative comfort doesn't cost a communist society much.
Marx also said when it’s our turn we will not apologize for the terror, and that an entire class of society had to be ended through state enforced violence
Marx did too, you know. I quote:
It would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to establish any principle upon which the justice or expediency of capital punishment could be founded in a society glorifying in its civilization [...] and besides, there is history - there is such a thing as statistics - which prove with the most complete evidence that since Cain the world has neither been intimidated nor ameliorated by punishment
And he distinguished perfectly well between a revolutionary state of thing - no excuse for the terror and so on - and the machinery of post-revolutionary states.
Your ideal leftist state can execute people in little clean rooms with little bits of paper and little laws and even judges, I imagine, all they want; they're still fucking murdering people, and I'd have a hard time calling such a society "civilized", personally. Sentient life is a miracle, it is what we fundamentally fight for, and all of it is sacred, period - taking one is something you do when you have no other choice.
Again, I won't engage further; discussing this topic specifically always makes me sad on hexbear. I'm all for pragmatism over idealism; this isn't it, though. Keeping someone alive and in relative comfort doesn't cost a communist society much.
Marx also said when it’s our turn we will not apologize for the terror, and that an entire class of society had to be ended through state enforced violence