It seems like a contemporary example would be people (Prager Edu is a particularly disturbing example) using selected quotes from historical anti-slavery activists and civil rights leaders like Franklin Douglas and MLK to criticize the modern civil rights movement
-
For all readers and writers
After much ado, our new tagging system is here and being rolled out to the userbase. Read more here!
Controversial Historical Opinions You Have
It seems like a contemporary example would be people (Prager Edu is a particularly disturbing example) using selected quotes from historical anti-slavery activists and civil rights leaders like Franklin Douglas and MLK to criticize the modern civil rights movement
- Location
- Patriarchova
Maybe if Smith's name was co-opted by a rival sect that was strong within the security state, and the prison rioters were made out to be mormons.
All of this nonsense implies that it's in any sense remotely acceptable to mistreat, belittle or otherwise abuse people because of something a handful of people of their demographic did something to your ancestors / imaginary messiah 2 millenia ago.
By that logic maybe I should skullfuck Gregg McGregor and his family down the street because his great-nth-ancestor Grug did skullfuck am great ancestor Zumbee for their saber tooth pelt.
Just because someone's ancestors took a shit somewhere doesn't mean they automatically have a right to shit in that same place today if other people have been born into and/or earned their right to shit in that land, and just because someone's ancestors shit on someone somewhere doesn't automatically make them responsible for that.
Besides, if your messiah was weak enough to be killed by a collective rabble of decadent clergy, merchants and date farmers why are you mad at them when you've paid back that horror a thousand fold to varying pagan, indigenous and other christian denominations that don't align to your flavour COUGHLOLLARDSCOUGH
Last edited:
- Location
- The Final Frontier
The Jews didn't kill Jesus. Me, a Jewish guy, personally did in Jesus. Sorry, folks. That's on me.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I try to argue with a persons stated values.
Like if the GOP yaps about "Free Markets" but then tries to get a government involved if a company decides to support solar panels then a critique it according to stated values.
If people say "we hate the Jews because they killed Jesus" then I'l try to follow them on there own value system.
Also isn't the justification for several "untouchable" groups that there ancestors did something "unclean"
Also didn't Jesus say "forgive them they know not what they did".
So even if the Jews did kill Jesus. Which they historically did not it will still be wrong.
Last edited:
- Location
- Patriarchova
Nice try, but everyone knows it was really the CIA who killed Jesus.
I also think people have to remember that the Romans considered all sorts of Jews to be rebels because they refused to take part in the Imperial cult, which was already a key part of their government.
Stop: This Is Not Okay Either
- Location
- Singapore
this is not okay either
Going 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' is not especially acceptable either. Knock it off.
Love Train
stack of bats
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Staff Notice - Please do not do this
Nobody killed Jesus. Jesus is still alive
Source: am Jesus
Source: am Jesus
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong
You can hear that protest singer singing a protest song
Tithed_Verse
Vainglorious
- Location
- Iowa
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The Enfield Cartridges were never actually greased with pork nor beef tallow, despite the propaganda that they were, but the lie was one of the more effective works of propaganda in the rebellion of 1857 and helped build a unified Indian resistance to British culture.
Tithed_Verse
Vainglorious
- Location
- Iowa
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Burning was an unpopular method of execution, actually. It's loud, it's dangerous, and it's messy in a bad way (Rope and dry leather burns better than wet people). It's actually very rare that people were burned at the stake.
Cultures that did regularly engage in burnings, like the Greeks, generally invented devices to hide the victim from view as the messiness was considered disturbing, see the Bronze Bull. They also usually relied on water as a heat regulator to keep the restraints from burning away before the victim is done dying.
Beheading by axe was the most popular form of execution in Europe at the time, followed by hanging. People found guilty of witchcraft, when put to death, were typically hung, as axes were expensive in the Americas and the Americas were settled by religious weirdos who didn't fit into Europe because they were too religious and made folk uncomfortable.
The Inquisition was also always more concerned with heresy then witchcraft, and also usually didn't burn people. They actually preferred to drown people! Through a process with many similarities to what we would call, in the modern day, 'waterboarding'. This was done 'accidentally' while attempting to force them to confess. When they 'deliberately' killed people they usually beheaded them, as a good clean sharp axe was an advertisement for the wealth and power of the church, and it made for a less disturbing spectacle that a family could feel safe bringing their children to watch: People screaming while they're burned alive is disturbing, but a quiet quick beheading was just clean family fun.
There, uh, wasn't a lot on the TV back then, TVs being a few hundred years away from being invented yet.
The bodies were often burned afterwards to dispose of them, when they weren't simply being dumped into mass Graves.
Last edited:
- Location
- The Old Dominion
It be noted that burning alive wasn't limited to heresy, it was also used as punishment for forging coins, arson, sodomy, bestiality, aggravated theft of religious objects.
It also apparently the punishment for rape in the late roman empire and the Byzantine empire and eventually became the replacement punishment for Parricide.
Outside of that in England the traditional punishment for women who committed treason was burning at the stake because it was considered more humane and dignified than subjecting women to being publicly hang, drawn and quartered which was carried over to England's colonies in the Americas.
Burning alive also wasn't strictly a medieval/early modern European punishment, outside of its use in ancient Mesopotamia, Rome and Egypt it was also common as a punishment for apostasy and heresy in some medieval Islamic countries and a some north American tribes also executed people by burning them alive.
It also apparently the punishment for rape in the late roman empire and the Byzantine empire and eventually became the replacement punishment for Parricide.
Outside of that in England the traditional punishment for women who committed treason was burning at the stake because it was considered more humane and dignified than subjecting women to being publicly hang, drawn and quartered which was carried over to England's colonies in the Americas.
Burning alive also wasn't strictly a medieval/early modern European punishment, outside of its use in ancient Mesopotamia, Rome and Egypt it was also common as a punishment for apostasy and heresy in some medieval Islamic countries and a some north American tribes also executed people by burning them alive.
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
Though even then I think a lot of those would have been decided to be like, the gravest of capital crimes and thus sins to be burdened with, with burning on the pyre as a slow excruciating death so as to maximize the chance for the condemned to make peace with their god and repent as the thief on the cross did. Still very much wrapped up in religious imagery and ritual.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
How about the mass killing of people for worshiping the same G-D in a slightly different way like the Protestant vs Catholic divide or Sunni vs Shia which killed thosands.
Heck it went on until relatively recently
They killed the Jews for religious reasons.
If you told a Mesoamerican person of the murdering of whole cities for worshipping a Teotl slightly differently they'd be shocked.
In China where neither Islam or Christianity where a dominant religion a Jewish minority existed but peacefully assimilated into Chinese culture because there was no current of antisemitism that made Jews stay in there on area.
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
I mean, can you really disentangle the religious reasons from the geopolitical and greed reasons? The Protestant/Catholic divide was as much about the politics of the time as it was about religion, arguably more so in some cases like the Anglican church. And a lot of Jewish pogroms, as I understand it, were as much about shaking them down for money as killing them for religious reasons.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
let me know if this is offtopic but I think the idea of communism only works in a pre-moden or tribal society mostly on the level of or around the bronze age and before that due to it low amount of people and the hostile living area as it would encourage more collectivist like thinking needed for communism to work
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It depends on what you mean by "work". The Soviet Union fight of the Germans, advanced science, and pulled millions out of poverty.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is the controversial historical opinions thread, not the milquetoast mainstream modern opinions thread, so yeah, this doesn't belong here. If you want to discuss this try News and Politics or the Corncob forum.
You are missing quite a few other features of the Soviet Union which would indicate that it was not a "working" example of communism (famines from mismanagement, oppression of dissidents, lack of democratic process, imperialism, allying with Nazi Germany, ETC) or even not communist at all but instead a variation of authoritarian oligarchy.
There is quite a bit of difference between recognizing that the Soviet Union has provided some positive benefits to its citizenry (I leave aside whether this was balanced out by all the negatives or could have been equally provided by other systems) and believing that it was a "working" example of communism.
PS: Here is some further discussion of the topic that I found to be interesting
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean capitalist countries have similar failures.
America allied with so many dictators in Latin America for cheap Bananas along side food insecurity in the richest country on earth to this day.
The FBI sent a letter to MLK Jr to kill himself like a YouTube commentator and did it best to stuff left wing activists.
My point is that I would not consider the "communism" of a country to be "working" if the best you can say of that country is that it has roughly the same level of abuses and benefits to its citizenry as that of "capitalist" countries . This is not even counting the fact that the USSR and PRC only manage to approach this rough comparison if you discount the worst abuses in the reign of Stalin and Mao.
I am not getting into the game of which country is worse as that is not relevant to the question of whether the Soviet Union had "working communism".
Last edited:
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is assuredly not the topic of the thread.
A quick look through search also shows that the Soviet Union seems to be regularly mentioned in this thread. Would you care to elaborate on the problem here?
PS: Nevermind. I read the earlier post explaining the issue and can see its point.
That said I would still recommend everyone check out the segment of the Choamsky Q&A I linked as it is absolutely fantastic.
Last edited: