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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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I would not want to live off of United States social security if I had severe short term memory loss
The alternative for the market is just someone else probably renting the building out anyway. Would rather have a disabled old man as a landlord than some corporate slime
Perhaps, but what happens when he passes away?
ghoul son takes over sure but I still think it's bad to con a disabled person out of their only viable income...
Why is this random stranger expected to support this old man until death instead of the old man's family or the government? Its on them to figure out a way to support the old man now that he can't extort someone for a living. Like what are they even offering this guy in exchange for taking care of their father? Nothing but litigation? Guess the old man wasn't that important.
The government should be supporting him. There should a good enough system in place that it's normal to care for our elders. That is not the reality.
Old man is a tiny part of a vast system. Yeah, fine, we can be scientific Marxists and outline the implicit relationships going on here, or we can be compassionate leftists and see that this clearly is a weird hill to die on.
In my eyes, if you're living with a serious disability in a nation where there is a terrible social safety net then hey, fuck it, landlord a small property. I don't really care. I've got bigger shit to fry. There will never be a ruling disabled class.
did he get the house for free or did he buy it?
he bought it every month he paid rent
true, just wondering if the ex landlord got another chunk of money for the deed or not, but it doesn't really matter
Here it is disabled old man as landlord, or owning the goddamn house yourself though.
through conning a disabled man
Does something immoral become moral because a disabled person is doing it? Wouldn't tricking an able bodied/minded landlord into giving up their property be good? Or do you think we have to just be better than our enemies at all moments?
Landlords delenda est
The weird thing about morality is that depending on the circumstances, the same action can become more or less justified.
An able-bodied landlord, at worst, would still be able to get a job like the rest of us. This man is entirely dependent on the income the property provides and has no way to augment his income at this point. The stock market is also unethical, would you feel the same if his 401k got signed over to someone? The answer is the dissolution of these predatory means of ownership while ensuring a good standard of living for everyone. Not taking an disabled, eldery man's main source of income for your personal gain.
The tenant is not some hero of the working class fighting against the landlords. They're most likely some shithead swindler who would have stolen someone's primary residence if they thought they could get away with it.
Why are we believing the best in the landlord's kid and the worst in the tenet? If we are believing someone is acting in bad faith, why chose the exploited and not the exploiter?
I agree with this take.
I just think this rigidity is pointless and feels like leftist internet edgelording. The disabled elderly man will be rendered helpless. He's taken a source of income that fits his means in a barbaric system. I don't see a viable alternative, really. Short term memory loss. That's severely debilitating.
Maybe he did it back when landlording wasn't his only means of income - I don't know. It doesn't matter to me because he probably wasnt educated about why landlording is exploitative. It's sadly a normal thing to do, and sort of a natural reaction to alienation from normal labour for many people who again, are totally uneducated on the topic and inundated in capitalist realism. The chances are, elderly man was and is just some guy. Not inherently evil, and in my eyes deserving of compassion. It doesn't sound like he owns a whole raft of properties.
Landlord delenda est but this particular one I have sympathy for.
No, we don't have to better than our enemies in all moments. I don't have a civility fetish. This is a fringe case.
Not begrudging him taking an abusive method of getting money is one thing, but acting like he should beyond that be insulated from any consequences of that abuse, even a relatively mild consequence that doesn't involve him losing the home he lives in, is ridiculous. If he wants to play the game and make enemies, that is his fucking choice.
Just pretty weird to me for a person with Mao in their name to be defending a landlord, any landlord. If the man is truly that disabled, let his kid sell the man's house and put him in a rest home of decent repute, or move him in with them.
To be honest I don't even think Mao would've been appalled by this landlord. Rogue take I know, but read up on accounts of landlords in 50's China. Enslaving, raping, pillaging, torturing. Compare what they do to what this old man is doing. I don't even think rural peasants in the throes of revolution would've considered killing this defenseless old man.
If they dispossessed him of his house - well, alright - the conditions in which landlording has become normalized have now changed. It's fair. I just think this is not one of those scenarios, and the guy who stole the house off him probably isn't some epic internet leftist. Probably just a generic swindler.
this is a lot of sticking up for landlords for someone with Mao in their name
Correct. If I somehow had the chance to persuade Biden to leak state secrets while he was sundowning, I would.
An elderly man with severe short term memory loss and one extra property is not even close to the same as Joe Biden and national security secrets.
I know you're sort of doing a bit, but that's a bad comparison. Of course I would con an establishment warhawk rapist out of national security secrets. I would not steal a house outright off an elderly man with short term memory loss.
Class antagonism applies in both cases, and when we have a means to benefit as a class, we should leverage it to the hilt. This dude seems to have several extra properties, but if it was just the one, then congratulations to him, he gets to be a prole like the rest of us and receive that level of consideration. Perhaps he should have asked the renter why they were in the situation they were in first.
As long as the landlord chooses to obstruct progress, he has made his bed and he can lie in it. We should not systemically discriminate against people with dementia, but not using a concrete practical advantage that you have over someone in terms of functional competence, whether the senile, confused codger is a landlord or the President, is bullshit moralism. If someone is on a crutch and threatening someone else with a weapon, you can be damn sure that I'm kicking it out from under them unless they can be talked down. That such an action could be confused by fools for ableism is of no interest to the person being threatened.
We have no choice but to live in brutal capitalism, and we must brutally use it or else abstain all the way to the grave knowing that we failed to improve the world but at least were able to save the very people fucking us over from getting hurt by the consequences of their own fucking actions.
Yes, but are they fucking them in some crazy way, or is this old man just doing what is often done by people are capable of it?
With severe short term memory loss, I would say this is a fringe case where landlording is fair enough.
Maybe he did it back when landlording wasn't his only means of income - I don't know. It doesn't matter to me because he probably wasnt educated about why landlording is exploitative. It's sadly a normal thing to do, and sort of a natural reaction to alienation from normal labour for many people who again, are totally uneducated on the topic and inundated in capitalist realism. The chances are, elderly man was and is just some guy. Now he's some guy with no alternative means of income possible. Not inherently evil, and in my eyes deserving of compassion. It doesn't sound like he owns a whole raft of properties.
Yes, but the tenant, to my knowledge does not have short term memory loss. That is the key difference for me. They seem to be capable of working a normal job.
Slaves using their elderly slaver's dementia to their advantage is bad if slavery is normal in that society, I guess
clearly not the same thing
Not clear at all to me chief.
All Landlords are Bad. I don't make the rules, sorry