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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Unpopular Opinion
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Being oppressed isn't the same thing as being ignored. So if I simply refuse to help you, that doesn't mean you should feel free to take my stuff.
That doesn't make sense.
If you make it clear you don't care about the basic needs of your fellow citizens, what reason do they have to care about your property rights beyond the threat of violence by you or the state?
Why should they be responsible for respecting your property rights when you decline any responsibility for the basic well-being of your fellow citizens and human beings?
It sounds like you want the benefit of having your property rights acknowledged and respected while disrespecting, ie ignoring, the basic human rights of those you expect it from. Why shouldn't they ignore your property claims in the same way?
I think I see where you're coming from - "I respect your property rights, you respect my property rights" might sound equal but in practice what does a person with no property have to gain from such a rule? As the saying goes, "the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." My answer is twofold:
First, I consider respecting property rights a moral obligation. (You might find it strange that I think it's a more important moral obligation than helping people in need, but I do. I suppose that's why no one likes libertarians.) I wouldn't take from someone who had more than me unless I sincerely believed that he obtained it by unjustly exploiting me, not in the abstract sense of "the rich have rigged society in their favor" but rather in the concrete sense of "that guy stole my bike so I'm stealing it back." I imagine I would violate this principle if I was in desperate need (e.g. stealing a loaf of bread to feed my starving family) but I would feel pretty bad about it.
Second, I think everyone (including people who don't share my morality) is better off if we don't resort to violence. It's not just a personal matter of people stealing from me and my attempts to stop them via violence - individual acts of violence add up to create a violent society. I used to work with a guy from Brazil - he was trying to get residency in the USA because he felt like his upper-middle-class income was putting him in danger. In Brazil, people with money run the very real risk of being violently robbed or kidnapped. But people without money are also subject to more violence! Compare a slum in the USA with a Brazilian favela. So maybe if I'm rich and you're poor, you help yourself if you mug me but you're contributing to the creation of a society where no one except brutal organized criminals would be better off than they are in the USA right now.
If only the rich had elected to share. You would never have felt any need to make your "contribution" to society and the entire problem would have been avoided.
The lesson here is that the rich need to make sure no one suffers.
I think your logic is similar to the logic of someone who would say
This sort of class warfare is not only unfair but also bad for the poor. I think people on here believe that this time they'll get communism right, but the historical pattern is that usually "peasant rebellions" are crushed and in the few cases where they aren't, they make things worse.
(IMO this belief has to do with how the American Revolution is taught in schools - too much focus on how it went well and not enough focus on how it inspired people in many other countries to have revolutions that didn't go well at all. I think the difference was that the the wealthy upper class led the American Revolution.)
Good grief what a ridiculous retort.
Believe it or not our current system (in western countries) is actually very close to what I suggested. Despite the fact that most of us are dirt poor compared to the ultra wealthy, we still have pretty much everything we need, and most of us don't feel any need to commit crimes.
There is a small segment that does commit crimes out of necessity, and that segment needs to be cared for by the wealthy as part of securing the society they live in. Like we're this close, they only have to do a tiny bit more and there would be no homelessness. They only have to do a tiny bit more and there would be no hunger. And instead they're allowing the desperate to be desperate, and thus mar our society with crime.