Good thing we (the US) lost the war, or this lady would probably have her own team of lobbyists running their country.

85 points

While celebrating a billionaire getting their just desserts is always fun, not really sure that this is a reflection of the decency of the Vietnamese government.

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36 points
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Since there’s no rational hope of addressing the other 3k or so billionaire parasites on Earth without building a really big Titanic wreckage tour sub and making little paths of stock certificates leading to it like reese’s pieces in ET, I’ll take whatever incidental vicarious revenge against humanity’s oppressors I can get.

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30 points

I mean, celebrate the revenge, for sure. Just don’t mistake it for decency. Vietnam is about as corrupt as India.

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20 points
*

We’re no less corrupt in the US, merely more expensive.

Our cheats just hire lobbyists to make their corrupt practices legal, shout out to Citizens United, and/or hire enough lawyers to make the consequences meaningless, like fining a company that makes billions a year thousands for profitable criminal activity.

Our “solution” to corruption is simply to make it legal for the right price. Donald Trump should have lost his empire and gone to jail for his business practices long before he was a game show host, let alone POTUS, but he learned and inherited enough from daddy to understand how to wield American style corruption, and he’s still free.

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7 points

I can’t get behind a government giving the death penalty to anybody for any reason

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-3 points

Or just those that are not on “the line”? Like Russians falling out of windows. What is the actual truth behind this?

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3 points

the actual truth appears to be that she committed an incredible amount of really basic, egregious fraud

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5 points

What do you mean by that? The articles about this have been all over on lemmy for the last few days. She got away with ~$9 billion in financial crimes for over a decade, with total damages estimated at $12.5 billion. Her husband was also caught for embezzlement of billions and is receiving a 9 year prison sentence.

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8 points

Sounds like she must have gotten caught stealing from rich people for it to have been that much. You’ll get in trouble for that anywhere. You may not get the death penalty but you may die in prison.

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126 points

The death penalty is always wrong.
Murder is not a punishment and once you’ve stripped her of her ill-got gains there is no longer any reason to kill her.

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8 points

While I agree in principle I tend to think there are still unforgivable crimes and irredeemable people out there.

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30 points

While I agree in principle I tend to think there are still unforgivable crimes and irredeemable people out there.

Then you don’t agree.

I wasn’t aware crime was about forgiveness.
I thought in-so-far as societies implemented systems of justice, their purpose was restitution and rehabilitiation.

No one gains anything from a person—irrespective their prior actions—being murdered and we all lose a bit of our soul each time a state execution is allowed to take place.

I really expected better from Vietnam, whose “quarantine at gunpoint” public health policies I heartily endorse.

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-5 points

If child predators get executed, I don’t lose “a bit of my soul”, I gain more confidence that the world is now a better place.

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1 point

then you don’t agree

Allow me some cognitive dissonance because I really don’t know what society should do about psychopaths, predators, or cases like those execs who put melamine into milk to spoof the protein metrics, leading to the horrible deaths of a large number of babies.

Holding them indefinitely is a useless drain on the state, killing them leads to the inevitability of innocent people dying.

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2 points

Alright. I DON’T agree.

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19 points

The way these people affect so many lives negatively with their fraud is much worse than a person committing murder.

The literal misery they cause to so many people for their own benefit without a fucking iota of shame and their sociopathic behavior is enough to consider eliminating them from society.

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8 points

The way these people affect so many lives negatively with their fraud is much worse than a person committing murder.

Irrespective how is two bad things better than one bad thing? I would think fewer bad things would be net better.

The literal misery they cause to so many people for their own benefit without a fucking iota of shame and their sociopathic behavior is enough to consider eliminating them from society.

You speak of “sociopathic behavior” while advocating state murder. 🤨

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2 points

I know. It sounds fucked. But these people are a cancer on society. There’s very little that can be done to reform these people. And the problem is that capitalism rewards this kind of behaviour.

These people currently are ruling the world. If they aren’t the head of some large company, there the head of a government. Because of their large wealth, they have a huge influence on the policies. They’re basically dictating the laws that are governing them. It’s like playing Monopoly with your own made up rules.

You can’t stop those people any other way. The French understood this. When the price of food was out of reach, heads started to roll. Literally. Nowadays the people can’t be violent anymore. Heck, the mere act of peacefully protesting is met with police violence and oppression. How the fuck are we supposed to get the message across when those people have their own militia protecting them and their interests?

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4 points

fraud is much worse than a person committing murder

you may be right but that’s still no reason to murder them

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1 point

Up vote for use of iota correctly

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50 points

I hear you but if I’m honest, and tomorrow America announced it was going to execute every billionaire, I’m not going to put up too much of a protest.

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39 points

Take the money, sure. Then they’re no longer billionaires and there’s no need to kill them.

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58 points

In other words, you don’t murder disarmed prisoners of war.

During class war they are the enemy and deserve what comes to them. If taken alive and their weapon of war removed, they don’t need to be dealt with the same way.

Once they are no longer a threat you can work on rehabilitation and restitution.

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13 points

I disagree. I don’t subscribe to a world view where every life is sacred. Society has a right to protect itself from persons that will always endanger other people and that includes killing them. However, it has been quite clear that we cannot guarantee that no innocent people are killed. And that’s why I’m OK with the death penalty only in principle, not in practice.

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3 points

persons that will always endanger other people and that includes killing them.

You cannot know that, and if you have the ability to strap someone down and end their life, you have no need to do so since you clearly have complete control over their person.

I’m OK with the death penalty only in principle

You shouldn’t be. States qua arbiters of justice should not intentionally kill people under their control.

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2 points
*

you don’t keep that control over billionaires.their money has too much loyalty.

so they need to be killed. I do agree that the state shouldn’t be making the decision, but Vietnam is weird and still at least dresses up as communist.

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8 points

This is a discussion about personal morals. Some people think it’s OK to execute some criminals, others are completely opposed to that idea. There is no objective right or wrong here.

For you your arguments might be compelling, but they don’t convince me. I can have complete control over someone and still decide to kill them because I don’t want to bother with locking them up, for example. And who says a society should not kill? That’s not even an argument, just an opinion.

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3 points

the death penalty is always wrong, billionaires should die in unpredictable extrajudicial ways. like aneurisms, pianos, etc.

but its something.

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I’m sure all those Vietnamese workers love walking past statues of Ho Chi Minh and liberationist/progressive/commie monuments on their way to work for multi-national companies or when speculating on the Ho Chi Minh stock exchange

It’s just social democracy at this point tbh
Tho don’t get me wrong, this one is not entirely on the CPV (even though the party bureaucracy plays a huge part in this), but simply losing virtually all networks of solidarity to other socialists contries (especially with China being on the capitalist road)

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-2 points

Says someone from a high horse in a wealthy neo-colonial Capitalists country that’s allied with various genocidal regimes.

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yes that is smth I am also critically aware of and highly condemn, does not mean that I’m blind to revisionism or the fact that a lot of it is caused by said (neo-)colonialism/imperialism

just fyi: your comment kind of has “but you posted that from your iphone”-vibes tbh

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-2 points
*

What are you saying is a product of revisionism?

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-1 points

Hey, I asked a simple question.

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5 points

On one hand, you have to appreciate a little win here or there. Not often they see consequences.

In the other hand, you should probably have a beer or a nice, refreshing glass of fruit juice or something. Whatever you like, you know? Treat yourself, it’s a special occasion!

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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the “ML” influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.

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If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.

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Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people’s/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.



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