For context: The thread was about why people hate Hexbear and Lemmygrad instances

  • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Sorry, but the protection of rights requires that governments limit freedom. All societies and nations on earth do this. If given absolute freedom, some would kill and brutalize to gain power, forcing everyone who wants to avoid this to band together and enforce rules that prevent that behavior. This is the biggest reason to rationally want a government. Even if you believe rights aren’t social constructs themselves, everyone knows they must be fought for.

    Some tankies use the fact that governments inherently limit freedom to claim all governments are authoritarian, and therefore states like the PRC and the USSR are no better than liberal democracies. Your definition of authoritarianism supports the bullshit arguments tankies make.

    Authoritarianism is a sliding scale, and not every limit on freedom is equivalent in contributing to a country being more authoritarian. Not having the freedom to kill others without consequence doesn’t make a country very authoritarian. Not having the freedom to publicly disagree with the government is a large factor in a state being authoritarian.

    Communism and socialism do not necessitate having no freedom of speech or bodily autonomy. Communism, as defined by Marx, was the final stage socialism and anarchistic in nature.

    The idea that communism is always authoritarian uses the idea of communism popularized by Marxist-Leninist movements, where dissent is highly controlled and limited. In reality, these regimes were socialist at best, calling themselves communists to claim that only their version of socialism would deliver Marx’s communism. Even to the authoritarian communists themselves, their states never achieved communism at any point.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re deluded. A proper liberal and democratic government doesn’t limit individual rights and freedoms, it only ensures that one’s rights end where rights of others start, resulting in an equilibrium for everyone.

      Communism is authoritarian as it destroys individual rights and freedoms. If the ideology is not liberal in nature, it’s authoritarian. There’s no way around it.