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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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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