1. I didn’t ask a single question about communism.
2. The question that you originally responded to was IMO about early socialism and revolution. It assumes that people have something to give (besides labor) and you picked up on that when you referenced robbing.
3. You’ve moved the goalposts. First you conceed that yes there will have to be “theft” (your word not mine), then when I agreed with you (while not being so judgey as to call it theft), you pivoted to “no, we only start counting what happens after we’ve seized power. Everything before that doesn’t count” (paraphrasing of course).
4. I agree with you that if you laid out a timeline and point to where the economy would be reorganized, it comes after seizing everything at gunpoint. Obviously you can’t reorganize till you’ve taken ownership. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen.

I’m not taking a normative position here. I’m not saying anything about morality, or good guys and bad guys. I’m offering up moral frameworks to justify those actions. My takeaway from Robin Hood wasn’t that he was the villain.

I just don’t get why you’d act like the idea is NOT to take from the ownership class at gunpoint when that’s the whole idea. None of the rest of it works unless you do that. Just say it with your whole chest. Don’t bitch out.

That’s the singular aspect I’m judging.

That’s a bit of a cop out. “There’s no Robin Hood at that specific point because it’s already been taken at gunpoint by the time we dole it out”.

That doesn’t erase the fact that they’re very much is a Robin Hood figure with a gun. And if you want to seize everything at gunpoint You should at least be up front about it.

If your point is true and right in virtuous you do not need a spin on it.

That’s what I was getting at. Don’t soft pedal it.

“There WILL be a Robin Hood type taking shit at gunpoint”.

That’s a fine perspective to have. But it is the textbook definition of robbing someone at gunpoint.

They have something of value that you want, you don’t want to exchange said value for it, so you take it by force… at gunpoint.

Maybe there’s a moral justification for that. Maybe you think they don’t deserve it, or you need it more, or you think their ownership of it represents it’s own form of theft… But they’re definitely getting robbed at gunpoint.

That’s a pretty rose tinted view. It is, generally speaking, “collectivized” at gunpoint.

Thank God for Tylenol.

It’s part of what I find so frustrating with the American discourse on drugs. We talk about the drug trade in the United States as if innocent victims in America are being poisoned against their will by foreign bad actors.

In reality American consumers have pumped so much drug money into their neighboring countries that the cartels are a threat their governments.

The cartels and the dealers are very bad guys, but the consumer’s hands are not clean.

You shouldn’t let consumers off the hook entirely. Every time some idiot buys new mop they saw on TikTok or a Dubai chocolate bar they are pumping money into the system and reinforcing the idea that spying on us and clogging our space with advertising is a viable business.

IMO ad blocking is not only a quality of life improvement, it’s a moral imperative.