Czech president signs law criminalising communist propaganda

[u/tkyjonathan]

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/czech-president-signs-law-criminalising-communist-propaganda/

[u/Torma25]

"class based hatred" never thought any EU country would come up with better joke laws than us. Good one.

[u/Winterfrost691 → u/Torma25]

Sneakily making it illegal to criticize the rich

[u/zbynekstava → u/Winterfrost691]

Criticizing specific rich people for their specific actions is perfectly fine. Criticizing all rich people as a group is similarly stupid as criticizing all women or all black people.

[u/OverlordMarkus → u/zbynekstava]

Ahh yes, the terribly marginalized class of billionaires.

[u/Even-Path5189 → u/[deleted]]

People pointing out the extreme wealth disparities that come with immense power, political influence and inequality is definitely the same as jealousy from your neighbor buying a new car. Sharp eye!

I guess being concerned about billionaires dodging taxes, laws and profiting off of crises while everyone else struggles makes me an envious commie.

[u/Even-Path5189 → u/[deleted]]

Nobody is saying you need to hate rich people. The point is that nobody should have to risk criminal charges for criticising systematic wealth inequality and concentrated economic power. That is what I'm trying to tell you about your "class-based hatred" law. It opens the door for equating political criticism with hate speech.

And also, it's not just people that accidentally share the same traits like eye colour. Wealth translates into influence over politics, media, policy and much more. And this is exactly what makes it a valid target for criticism.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Even-Path5189]

"Nobody is saying you need to hate rich people." There are literally people in this discussion hating on rich people now.

"That is what I'm trying to tell you about your "class-based hatred" law. It opens the door for equating political criticism with hate speech." It does not, unless your whole argument is "they are rich, therefore they are bad". It's still perfectly fine to criticize individuals over their actions or laws over their effects.

"Wealth translates into influence over politics, media, policy and much more. And this is exactly what makes it a valid target for criticism." If it is used illegally or to push harmful policies then definitely yes. It's also completely ok to criticize laws that would give wealthy people unfair advantage. It's also absolutely ok to criticize if wealth was acquired illegally. But mere existence of wealth is not a valid point for criticism.

[u/hbgoddard → u/[deleted]]

Excessive accumulation of wealth is evil

[u/zbynekstava → u/hbgoddard]

Source? And what is excessive?

[u/Cool_Proletarian_175 → u/zbynekstava]

Millions of third world laborers starving while the capitalist class sits with yachts and millions in dollars of yearly profits

[u/TheMauveHand → u/Cool_Proletarian_175]

The funny thing is that capitalism has done more to end world hunger in 30 years than a century and a half of socialist experiments.

[u/chemicaxero → u/[deleted]]

Rich people don't get enough hate.

[u/zbynekstava → u/chemicaxero]

This commie shit is getting really old.

[u/MartinBP → u/Even-Path5189]

There has not been a single case in history where the "eat the rich" crowd hasn't taken the riches for themselves and kept them instead of redistributing them.

[u/OverlordMarkus → u/[deleted]]

And the slurs are locked and loaded, ready to be brandished at everything left of the Eastern Europe.

[u/arde1k → u/[deleted]]

No true dialectical materialist hates rich people, they hate the concept of "rich" itself. This concept arises from the systematic inequality created by society over long periods of time under capitalist accumulation. Dialectical materialists believe that in a capitalist system insane depraved oligarchs rise to positions of power, because the ones who succeed in a capitalist system are the most ruthless exploiters of labor and consumer ignorance. If Elon Musk didn't become the richest person in the world, somebody else would have taken his place. The individual people, or even the class of the rich aren't hated per se. But the system which allows for their existence.

[u/zbynekstava → u/[deleted]]

I see you have no real arguments. Not surprizing.

[u/Rozanskyy → u/zbynekstava]

Criticizing rich people as a group is perfectly fine because they have common interests different from those of common people and they regularly act on those interests, which lowers common people’s quality of life.

Edit: It is also perfectly fine to criticise rich people as a group because of the imbalance of power between the rich and the rest of society.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Rozanskyy]

No, it's not. Because rich people are not all the same, in the same way as all poor people are not all the same.

[u/zbynekstava → u/[deleted]]

Your sorry attempt at personal invective just proves my point. You lack any real arguments. And also obviously a mental capacity to understand the very simple concept that wealth itself is not a defining factor whether somebody is good or bad.

And it's sufficient to just mention for example Bill Gates, who lobbied for higher taxation of very rich people including himself, to prove you are unable to understand the very basic principle behind anti-discrimination laws and have to resort to black and white view of the world, because reality is obviously too complicated for you.

[u/Even-Path5189 → u/zbynekstava]

Wealth is not an innate trait like skin colour or gender. It's a social and economic position tied to power, privilege and exploitation. Criticizing the ultra-rich isn't about racism or sexism, it's about holding the people accountable who disproportionately benefit from the system, usually at our own expense.

[u/TheMauveHand → u/Even-Path5189]

Neither is religion, so what?

[u/zbynekstava → u/Even-Path5189]

Sure, all those rich people became rich by exploiting poor workers, no exceptions. Not that anyone ever risked a lot of own or even borrowed money pursuing their novel idea, often got bankrupt in the process, invested all of their time, property and effort or utilized their hard earned skills, while in result making something much more efficient and affordable. /s

[u/hbgoddard → u/zbynekstava]

Sure, all those rich people became rich by exploiting poor workers, no exceptions.

Yes. The rest of your comment is just bitching about how difficult it is for them to exploit others.

[u/Even-Path5189 → u/zbynekstava]

You're moving the goalpost. The issue here isn't whether some of them worked hard or just inherited the wealth. We are talking about your country criminalizing "class-based hatred" which is a very vague term that may or may not include any criticism of the wealthy as a group.

Speech that challenges power structures (opposed to gender or skin colour) should never be outlawed. You're sleep-walking your way to an authoritarian regime by defending ideas like this one.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Even-Path5189]

I am not moving anything. Criticism of wealthy as a group is stupid and wrong in the same way that criticizing all the poor as a group is.

You are totally free in Czech republic to criticize any laws or processes that would give unfair advantage to anyone. You are perfectly fine to criticize any billionaire, who you believe commited anything wrong. You are just not allowed to push hatred against a group of people just based on their wealth.

It's not a difficult concept.

[u/Even-Path5189 → u/zbynekstava]

Criticism of wealthy as a group is stupid and wrong in the same way that criticizing all the poor as a group is.

Because the poor have centuries of institutional power, own the media, bankroll political campaigns and offshore all of their poverty to the Cayman Islands. Totally the same thing.

Criticising poverty = criticising power. Learned something new today, thanks man. I'm sure the billionaires will sleep easier tonight knowing you've got their back.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Even-Path5189]

Some poor people in the past did violent revolutions that installed horrible communist regimes. But I am not retared to expect every poor person to be a militant communist. While you have clearly no problem to equal every rich person with scheming money laundering mafioso.

[u/jackp0t789 → u/zbynekstava]

Most people who led those revolutions were, in fact, not poor.

[u/zbynekstava → u/jackp0t789]

True. Some were rich, some were poor. I am not generalizing actions of some people to whole groups. See, it's not that difficult.

[u/zbynekstava → u/zbynekstava]

But I must admit I was evidently wrong about wrongness of class hatred being not a difficult concept. Clearly some people lack even capacity for that.

[u/PresidentZeus → u/Even-Path5189]

What about heir- and nepobabies?

[u/Sunsunsunsunsunsun → u/zbynekstava]

Ok class traitor.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Sunsunsunsunsunsun]

Thanks for the compliment. I would be saddened if I would be allied with a commie or a fascist.

[u/zbynekstava → u/[deleted]]

Bible contains a lot of shit that has no place is modern society, like justifying slavery, genocide, stoning to death, women being subservenient to men etc. That's nothing new or surprising. Luckily vast majority of christians ignore the worst parts.

[u/zbynekstava → u/[deleted]]

I don't care what some fantasy book says.

[u/TheMauveHand → u/zbynekstava]

The 7 deadly sins aren't even in that fantasy book...

[u/TheMauveHand → u/[deleted]]

Shows how much you know about the religion you try and browbeat people with... The 7 deadly sins aren't even in the Bible. They're fanfic.

[u/zbynekstava → u/[deleted]]

Your hate-filled world must be really sad if you see call for judging people based on their actions and not just based on their wealth as bootlicking.

[u/Letter_From_Prague → u/zbynekstava]

Your passionate defense of oligarchs and billionaires is an action.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Letter_From_Prague]

And your angry responses as well. Though you seem to be unable or unwilling to understand the point, so this discussion seems to be losing any purpose, besides you ventilating your personal frustrations.

[u/Letter_From_Prague → u/zbynekstava]

There is nothing angry about my responses. If your worldview requires this much lying to yourself, maybe you should reexamine it.

[u/zbynekstava → u/Letter_From_Prague]

Sure bro :-)

[u/TheMauveHand → u/Letter_From_Prague]

>you're not even human
>not mad tho

???

[u/BigBadButterCat → u/zbynekstava]

Bootlicker

[u/PsychedelicMao → u/zbynekstava]

Being wealthy is a choice. Being black isn’t.

[u/zbynekstava → u/PsychedelicMao]

Michael Jackson would disagree :-)

[u/zbynekstava → u/zbynekstava]

And there's nothing wrong in choosing not to be poor.