Look, I kind of agree with your sentiment, but the historical event in question did involve what the commenter you’re replying to insists happened. I that instance, all the cops involved were assholes. In that era, law enforcement was tied to power by necessity, since only the powerful (read: rich) could start townships and such and afford to pay for law enforcers.

But now? Things are a little complex. This is on purpose, as the powerful class has continually meddled in police affairs through lobbying and unions (ironically the police union is hilariously well funded due to rich interests wanting am army to keep the poors in line), and we’re (in the US) trending back towards police basically being an official branch of Pinkertons.

Still, I’ve met good cops. Genuinely good people. Last year, I had a flat (entirely my fault. In CA) tire and a passing motorcycle cop stopped to help. He not only helped me replace it with a spare, he offered to call and pay for a tow truck for me. Truly a kind man, and believed in his social position perhaps more than the average.

But yeah, that’s not how it is in most places. Even in CA you have sheriff gangs, prison guard gangs, corruption, you name it. Like I said, the US as a whole is generally trending backwards as of late.

Anyways we need nuance. But we’re increasingly approaching a world where nuance is shunned or laughed at as missing the point, or being needlessly picky. Not only that, people seem even more desperate to feed into tribal groupings. Even on lemmy, you’re either pro US or pro China/Russia. It’s like people think they need to pick a side.

Sorry, just needed to rant I guess. I just hope we manage to keep the planet alive while we figure our bullshit out.

The web is currently a communal well. We all drink from it because people before us paid the foundations.

Google aims to be the owner of that well. Like the land and oil barons before them, they wish to monetize every last second of web access.

That same corporation, to spew such vile, ignorant nonsense is…well, I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise, should it?

Hey, I’m open to trying anything. The current biggest problem is oligarchs and power centralization though, which capitalism sort of encourages.

Without much heavier regulation, sticking with capitalism will essentially doom us all. We need more localized, equal resource management. We need logical transportation logistics, and we need more nationalized (federal) goods and services.

But I do agree with the spirit of your message. We do need to all be working together towards a shared goal, instead of…this.

I do hope we see more of this bridging the gap with socialism, but you’re right. To current capital owners, a new system will mean the end of being capital owners. Since they’re defined entirely by their money/capital, to them it’s a legitimate existential threat. Or so it feels like, it seems, given how they’ve been acting.

But fingers crossed for a more sane future. Hopefully.

I like to think there’s a distinct difference, summed up like so:

Communism attempts to put the control and distribution of resources (capital) on the collective, ie everyone. Since everyone effectively owns it, it feels like nobody does.

Capitalism puts it on individuals. Nowadays, almost all of these individuals acquired their resource(s) by inheritance. If not, by dubious (morally questionable) means.

This is a simplification that may upset people on both sides, but it’s about as clean as I can think to make it.

Note: the following is from the perspective of a somewhat average person living in the US.

My personal thought is that the democratic republic political system would ideally be coupled with the communistic (I’d prefer federated unions, ie federations, but speaking broadly) economic one. They seem to be natural matches.

However, it seems the coupling of said republic with capitalism causes significant and repeated backslides on social issues and education. Capital owners, after all, are most interested in maximizing gains while minimizing losses; this has led to a fairly high number of people being convinced to think that education is bad, especially university level education. Which, in turn, makes them compliant voters and eager workers, often severely underpaid. Which they, of course, have no idea of knowing since they likely have never left their birth town.

That’s not to say that such things won’t happen with communism. They should happen a lot less, but only if we put controls in place to combat abuse and overreach. In other words, regulations. Capitalism…might be beyond hope at this point, given how capital owners have been acting lately.

I don’t know what will actually end up working, but I hope we try something new soon. Because this ain’t it. Preferably before we extinct more species. Hopefully before we extinct ourselves.

I keep ranting, sorry for the wall of text.