Thank you for linking this video. A lot of the political compass stuff never really made sense to me but this articulates the feelings I had about it really well, and I learned a lot (esp. the comments about gun control, and how gun freedom serves the ruling class by creating terror in most cases)
That video is great! To add a small caveat to the gun control point, you’ll find a few users here who are into guns, own their own and/or attend a range with some regularity, and it’s not inconsistent with their socialist/communist principles.
While it is true that gun freedom, as it is spoused by most people who support it in the US mostly serves the ruling class, many leftist organizations or leaders have understood the power that having the means to defend oneself from the orchestrated violence of the state, or other actors who will not hesitate at using violence against leftists/racialized or LGBTQIA+ people has, and how it is sometimes necessary when trying to build power structures that attend to those same peoples’ needs outside of a capitalist system.
A key difference between a right-wing and a left-wing gun owner is that the left-wing one, given the conditions for it, will prefer those guns to be in collective control and ownership, and not at the service of an individual and their needs. Well, that, and that the left-wing one will be anticapitalist.
I just wanted to preemptively introduce this concept before you saw one of our gun fans in the wild and were confused by it.
Thank you for linking this video. A lot of the political compass stuff never really made sense to me but this articulates the feelings I had about it really well, and I learned a lot (esp. the comments about gun control, and how gun freedom serves the ruling class by creating terror in most cases)
That video is great! To add a small caveat to the gun control point, you’ll find a few users here who are into guns, own their own and/or attend a range with some regularity, and it’s not inconsistent with their socialist/communist principles.
While it is true that gun freedom, as it is spoused by most people who support it in the US mostly serves the ruling class, many leftist organizations or leaders have understood the power that having the means to defend oneself from the orchestrated violence of the state, or other actors who will not hesitate at using violence against leftists/racialized or LGBTQIA+ people has, and how it is sometimes necessary when trying to build power structures that attend to those same peoples’ needs outside of a capitalist system.
A key difference between a right-wing and a left-wing gun owner is that the left-wing one, given the conditions for it, will prefer those guns to be in collective control and ownership, and not at the service of an individual and their needs. Well, that, and that the left-wing one will be anticapitalist.
I just wanted to preemptively introduce this concept before you saw one of our gun fans in the wild and were confused by it.
Cheers!
Thanks for the response. I’m only scratching the surface on these ideas, and I’ll give your response some thought. I appreciate it.
no problem! We’re pretty eager to share whatever little we know, so it can be a lot at once… just take it easy and ask all the questions you need