Just now! Thank you for youre inside knowledge!
2023
Are you from the US by any chance?
2016
Around 12 when I started reading communist and black panther literature.
Late 70’s, just after I started working. My then Union rep. ( Remember them?) was a good teacher and saw Thatcher for exactly what she was.
2008 was when the conclusion was unavoidable
The Iraq invasion and all the Halliburton bullshit was when I began to realize that the justice system truly has two separate tracks.
Few years ago. Right before this face of the genocide in Palestine. I had an idea of it before that but I wouldn’t have called it a conscious thought until then.
12 maybe 13. I’m 38 now.
I guess I haven’t yet. Maybe you can help me: How do laws against, for example, rape, only benefit the rich while oppressing the rest of us?
They are enforced against poors. While rich rapists walk free.
That has certainly been the case in some places, though by no means all of them. Enforcement is also a separate issue to the law itself.
But to provide some maybe better examples, do laws that enshrine workers’ rights to form a union only serve to benefit the rich? Laws that limit donations to political parties? I really don’t think you can make that argument for all laws.
Then that’s not a problem with the law, but with enforcement.
If there was whatever glorious socialist revolution tomorrow, that law would stay.
Donald Trump violently raped his ex-wife because his hair plugs hurt. She was bruised for days, according to her book.
He saw no jail time. Not even a charge.
Not one Epstein Client has seen jail time.
The vast majority of cases against the Affluent fail to secure jail time, if they’re even brought at all.
In many cases it is not that the laws are written in a way that precludes prosecution, however they are written in a way knowing it is unlikely to ever bring prosecution against those in the Epstein class.
The US is a hellhole with a billionaire class living above the law, sure, not arguing with that. I guess maybe I should have assumed US defaultism for this question.
But OP made a blanket statement about all laws, and didn’t specify a country either. If your username is any indication you’re a Marxist. How do you think a Marxist state would work without laws?
One can assume they’re drawing from current material conditions, and not meaning to disparage the theoretical platonic form of ‘laws;’ specifically the fact that it doesn’t matter which country you pick (with few exceptions that do try their best), under capitalism those with capital statistically make the laws, and specifically make them to bind the working class while not expecting them to ever affect themselves.
Now one could argue all laws that could possibly exist do this to some extent. And some people would think you’re correct, but realistically the word society is synonymous with rules, which itself is synonymous with laws, so no one seriously believes that any group of more than one person would exist without some level of legality; though that last line itself is incredibly contentious given the hang up some people have on 'if there are laws then surely there must be a state to enact and enforce them – and to those people I say actually read your literature, either anarchism or communism.
Social cohesion is important for a smoothly running business. Unpunished rape creates problems on the shop room floor. Or to put it another way, rape gets punished extrajudicially in ways that are not good for business or social cohesion in general.
There’s literally not a law or crime the rich can’t buy them selves out of.
I understand why someone might think that, but it’s not true, except perhaps in the most corrupt of countries.
Yup. I actually know and work with politicians. It’s a sales job alright; the legislation is pretty secondary regardless of who it benefits. You can see laws that fuck everyone rich or poor being passed sometimes, if they sound good in a speech.
I don’t disagree that some are like that, and the only reason tax laws in many countries in particular are so complicated are because of politicians squeezing in exceptions that benefit them.
But it’s far, far from “all laws”. The quality of life and legality for average people has changed a huge amount for the better. Even in my lifetime in the UK. When I was a child, it was illegal to be homosexual. You were openly discriminated for being black, Irish, foreign, fat, old, young. Now there are laws to protect against that. My wife’s mother had to get her brother to sign the paperwork to buy a house because even in the 1950s, women couldn’t get a mortgage without a man guaranteeing it. Those are just a few examples.
If you’re American, then yeah, maybe your system is skewed far to the rich beyond what most countries do. It’s long been the case that justice in the US doesn’t apply to the rich, but the US is not everywhere and not everything, despite what the current news cycles might tell you.
I was agreeing with you, FWIW. They’re not puppets run by some shadowy group, and what they actually do is very public (if you bother to look). My country televises parliament, and publishes all legislation. The US does something similar. It’s also easy to get facetime with representatives, if you’re willing to knock on doors and attend boring meetings.
Over the long run, conditions have improved, in spite of representative democracy being a cluster-fuck in the short term.
Late nineties.
1890s or 1790s?
Late 80s here
Reagan was a fucking cunt.
Not yet.
