Leftists keep forgetting that our extermination of nazis and other reactionary elements are not because of "revenge" or other stupid shit. It is because it's the only practical way to secure the revolution. This is why reactionaries get the wall or are otherwise executed coldly, quickly, and without mercy. No prolonged or extra suffering if at all possible.
Capitalists, even though they are scum of the earth shit, should not be killed under a a stable communist system. They should be tried, jailed, and contained based on the severity of their crimes. Under a revolution in which they are an active element, it is probably safer give quick trials and executions.
Don't confuse the necessity of the material conditions with your personal moral values. If you think they should be tortured out of "revenge" or some similar concepts, I'm not here to argue. Just don't say that's derived from communism.
I’m not even talking about Nazis or revolutions. I just don’t like certain people enough where I wish the worst things happen to them
They're my worst enemy!
If anything, I want even worse things to happen to them!
I want them to get pushed through a fine mesh screen while also being set on fire and/or splashed with acid
If there are things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy you need worse enemies.
Eh...I wouldn't wish the American Christian concept of Hell on anybody. An eternity of suffering without a chance of growth or reprieve? No way. I get nothing from seeing someone suffer. A quick and clean death is the worst I'd wish on anyone, and people regularly suffer worse, so there is a lot I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies.
I don't have enemies because I don't go around being a jerk to people
Some people deserve be treated with jerkassedness. There is work to be done.
The notion of me causing harm to another person makes my stomach turn
I don't wish suffering, even for the worst scum of the earth - a swift death is preferable. Someone sticking around while suffering is demoralizing to the humanity an in all of us. To me our energy is better spent working towards a world with material conditions that doesn't push people towards fascism.
Because suffering is bad, no matter who the person suffering is. Even if a person has caused a lot of suffering in the past, causing that person to suffer does not undo their actions, but rather increases the suffering in this world, when our goal should be to reduce it as much as possible. The idea that some people deserve to suffer is cerainly one of the reasons we can't have nice things.
I personally would like to agree with you because I prefer universalism, and I think the alternative, utilitarianism, leads to extremely bad outcomes in practice, despite seeming like a pragmatic option in theory.
However, is it perhaps also true that another one of the reasons we cannot have nice things is because we cannot practically do away with those who would themselves never hesitate to increase the net suffering of humanity if it benefited themselves?
It's emotionally satisfying to see assholes taken down a peg and it usually coincides with The World Being Made A Better Place™ but human suffering is bad even if it's happening to a bad person. So if we're talking, for example, Shinzo Abe getting got by some dude with a contraption, yeah it's funny because that's one less fascist ghoul and it was totally from left field for everybody. If he were instead being tortured in a basement somewhere, I would say that would not be funny to see firsthand and it's bad. If we're talking beyond idle wishing, taking part in violence, even justified violence, chips away at something deep inside you. Revenge is like throwing a tantrum; cathartic at the moment, but habit-forming and an awful habit to make. If they were a bad person, the best thing you can do is move on from them. Lingering resentment is a curse.
I have both impulses tbh: "I want to see the monsters suffer" and "however monstrous, they are still human beings." I flip between these impulses depending on how mad I am.
