Yes that actually the key difference. We willingly enter those communist dictatorships and we are not prisoners there but can leave.
That is fundamentally different than a place like a communist dictatorship country, which builds walls to turn itself into a prison.
Being willing to enter and able to leave a dictatorship makes it a whole different thing than a dictatorship you are born into, and cannot leave.
Consent is everything. Like, a person can tie you up, beat you with a whip, pour hot wax on your skin to burn you, and put clothes pins on your nipples, and it’s okay as long as there’s consent. That is, objectively, a bad way to treat someone. But consent changes everything.
And it goes the other way too. Helping a person without their consent is wrong. This is the problem with a lot of the social movements these days: not seeking consent from those they seek to help.
OP I’m familiar with your sentiment. This rhetoric is too ideological for most, I’d dial it back and try again. Most are allergic to leftist words and ideas. Union recruiters say to never even use the “U” word, and even saying burgeosie will have libs mocking you.
Some might say it is not radical enough. OP made an okay point and doesn’t need to placate reactionaries.
The power a government has over you, and the power your employer has over you, are totally different.
The government is legally authorized to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, and even your life in extremis. Your boss can’t do any of that and if they try the government should stop them.
Some people believe democracy is what prevents the government from punishing you capriciously, or allowing corporations to just do whatever they want to you. So they are willing to die to defend it.
I would say traditional liberal ideals are closer to what they’d want to defend than democracy itself, and I don’t 100% agree in either case, but I can see the point of view.
The government is legally authorized to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, and even your life in extremis. Your boss can’t do any of that and if they try the government should stop them.
there was just a work email put out where I work about how employees shouldn’t be going to the bathroom super often and if they are in the bathroom they should only be doing bathroom things.
I can’t report them for that but it is fucking extreme and dehumanizing. To be policed in the bathroom. Because company time is more important than bodily functions. Or whatever other reason someone might be in the bathroom.
I get this sucks but you can quit your job and walk away from your employer, theoretically.
If the government decides to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, or your life, you can’t walk away from it and find a new government.
Your boss and your government are just totally different.
I get this sucks but you can quit your job and walk away from your employer, theoretically.
Yeah and be homeless.
And I don’t participate in government shit unless I have to like taxes cause they’ll come for me if I don’t pay for them kind of thing.
I mean that’s the difference right there, right? If you quit your job, you’re homeless. If you don’t pay taxes, you’re arrested.
Homelessness is almost always illegal either directly or indirectly through loitering laws, hostile architecture, bans against begging etc… Also, they almost always have zero protection from criminal behaviour directed at them (from either other citizens or the police themselves). Thinking there is legal room for being homeless is a pretty ignorant take no matter where you are from.
Democracy, the God that failed.
