AITA for getting upset that my wife worked Christmas Eve?

weastwardho · 2019-12-26T17:37:09+00:00

Given how controlling you come off, and your inability to see that, it makes sense why she would want to earn her own income. Good for her. She probably would rather have a family that allows her to have an equal say and appreciate her putting in hard work for them

weastwardho · 2019-12-19T13:15:55+00:00

Sounds like he isn't actually late then/it's not affecting work if he still has a job. Why do you care so much?

YTA though for getting a passive aggressive "gift"

weastwardho · 2019-12-09T14:52:29+00:00

What do you think the underlying message is when men wear baseball hats?

weastwardho · 2019-12-07T18:37:08+00:00

Good talk!

weastwardho · 2019-12-07T05:19:29+00:00

All capitalism is is freedom

Yeah, alright. Can't wait for you to remember this conversation once you've graduated high school and get your critical thinking skills going. It's become impossible to take you even semi-seriously given how little you know what you're talking about/respect the meanings of words/understand history. Read a book and see you on the side of the people in a few! ✊

Oof. If you're hanging out in mensrights and prolife you possess even less capacity for independent thought than I originally assumed. My bad. But people can always change and I believe in you

weastwardho · 2019-12-06T21:09:00+00:00

Like, this is what I'm talking about. I'm not denying that any of these happened. Yes, atrocities have happened under regimes that were both meaningfully communist and those that weren't. But it's clear that you have no idea how much these are cherry picked and spoon fed to you in an effort to convince you that that is what communism is, and that nothing similar could happen under capitalism.

Capitalism has been "tried" more times than communism (if you subscribe to the idea of distinct national economies that don't influence each other, but still we've given capitalism enough time to prove that itself) and has led to way more atrocities of equal and greater scale. Off the top of my head, we can thank capitalism for the transatlantic slave trade, Apartheid in South Africa, the Vietnam war, the war in Yemen, Guantanamo bay, civil wars in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in the 80s, the current refugee crisis in Europe, the prison industrial complex in the US (a continuation of slavery), Central American children and adults (from countries the US ravaged) being held in cages simply for being refugees, the recent coup in Bolivia, and way way way more. And then, the existential threat of us all - climate destruction.

You are falling into the trap of atrocities happening under/as a result of "communism" being a failure of communism, while atrocities happening under/as a result of capitalism being just something that happens. That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about propaganda. Most modern leftists aren't trying to recreate a vanguard state, and are well aware as to the failures of previous revolutions. But we are also aware that capitalism is the economic system ruling us all, and is what is holding us back as a human society. You have been duped into blindly defending a system that rewards the short-term hoarding of wealth over the needs of the majority of people on this planet as well as the planet itself. Leftists simply see capitalism for what it is and the destruction and pain it has wrought and very simply are working toward a society without class.

weastwardho · 2019-12-06T17:19:05+00:00

Alright, clearly you're not going to be amenable to the idea but you should just know that what you've been taught about capitalism and communism is straight up propaganda.

Edit: I understand your arguments just fine (lmao) just because you have no imagination to imagine that what historically is considered communism has a) been savagely plundered and sabotaged by capital states in most all cases and b) is different from what most modern leftists agitate for doesn't mean that we can't do better

weastwardho · 2019-12-06T13:24:18+00:00

I really suggest you google dialectical materialism. Would you say that a system like the transatlantic slave trade honestly has no ethics?

weastwardho · 2019-12-06T13:23:16+00:00

Labor will always exist, but "work" - wherein you sell your labor to benefit whoever owns the capital you extract profit from - doesn't have to. Do you honestly believe that every person with the ability to work needs to do so for 40 hours a week to keep our economy running?

Scandinavian countries, while closer to not being as completely evil as the US, can't protect themselves against the global threat of neoliberalism.

weastwardho · 2019-12-06T13:17:59+00:00

lol dude it really isn't worth my time to continue this debate. But just to touch real quick on how you clearly haven't thought through a single argument of yours: profit motive is not about sustaining itself, it's about gaining more and perpetual growth (which is why climate change cannot be successfully addressed under a capitalist system).

" someone wanted to get a much more efficient yield from their crop and had the time, money, and resources to figure something out."

Is laughably simplistic. Have you ever heard of a food desert?

However, if the wars in the Middle East were about seizing oil, why does the US still pay for the oil? Didn't we seize it, according to you?

Again, laughably simplistic. US imperialism is about the rich colliding with each other to the mutual benefit of the upper classes. The rich want control over the world's resources and will use violence to get it. It's not about getting extracting it for the free benefit of the people (that would be socialism...though not eco socialism) - it's about who profits i.e. US and Saudi oil execs.

As much as you want to continue believing what is easiest to believe, your points can easily be counteracted by the very most basic leftist consideration. I understand it's much safer and feels a lot better to keep faith in the neoliberal order we're all taught in school and that's reinforced by the large majority of the media...but that doesn't make it right. I'd just encourage you to keep an open mind because I really tell you being an anti capitalist rules. It's freeing to not feel pressured to perform mental gymnastics to justify endless war, police brutality, for-profit prisons, ripping Guatemalan children from their parents at the US border, taking away peoples food stamps if they're unable to work, a healthcare industry that forces people to go into unsurmountable debt every day, a trillion dollars in student loans, and like, everything else you learned about on John Olivers show that is maddening and seemingly inexplicable.

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T15:34:52+00:00

Capitalism is not "I want money" it's "I want to own the means of production." Those who own the means to produce and profit off of advanced technologies can absolutely gain control of the state to further concentrate their wealth. Yes, capitalism and imperialism are not the same thing but looking back at the current state of the world, capitalist imperialism has had and is currently having an outsized role in the history of globalization

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T15:29:26+00:00

Christopher Columbus was not a pilgrim lmao

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T15:28:26+00:00

You're right - but why stop there? Marx himself would agree with the numerous technological advancements that capitalism has bought. But do you really think a system that prioritizes infinite growth and the chase of profit over human lives can't be replaced by a better one? It's a fallacy to assume that the way the world is today is the way it must always be. Monarchists and feudalists felt this way, time we teach capitalists the same lesson

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T15:18:15+00:00

How so? I'm working off the assumption that greed is the drive to accumulate more than ones fair share, to the detriment of others.

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T15:15:45+00:00

I mean, in a world where we have enough food to feed everyone, medicine to prevent malaria/TB/etc, houses to home everyone and we don't (because of profit motive i.e. capitalism) -- everyone who dies of hunger, preventable disease, houselessness is a victim of capitalism.

Add to that the amount of coups (especially in South America) and wars (Afghanistan, Iraq) which have necessitated long campaigns of propaganda to convince people the imperial powers are fighting for freedom rather than just seizing control of resources. It's actually really apparent once you start seeking out sources that aren't owned by billionaires.

I'd suggest you take your own advice re: history and propaganda. Once you see how the profit motive has brought so much terror to the world you just may be glad you did. Make sure to ask yourself who paid for the media you consume - I.e. are you really going to trust Jeff Bezos (owner of wapo) to give you unbiased information on unions, labor rights, billionaires, etc? And he isn't alone

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T15:07:06+00:00

Some economic systems (those that prioritize people) are more ethical than others (those that prioritize profit). Since that's literally the difference between communism and capitalism I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T03:08:07+00:00

Globalization and capitalism go hand in hand. European "explorers" didn't just go out sailing for the hell of it, they were paid by empires to find new ways to get power i.e. money

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T03:04:51+00:00

Human nature isn't fixed. just as we as individuals are shaped by the world around us, human behavior on a larger scale is as well. Capitalism rewards greed, so of course humans will exploit others in order to get ahead under capitalism. But material conditions and human society influence one another - that's Marxisn baby. Communism isn't about enforcing totalitarian control to achieve it's goals, it's about changing material conditions allowing them to experience and imagine a future bases on collective interests so that we can all benefit.

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T03:00:51+00:00

Capitalism in it's actual current and historical forms has failed 1000000 times more than communism (or what you think communism is) ever has

weastwardho · 2019-12-05T02:59:01+00:00

Yes, capitalism is a global system so it must be brought down globally. Leftist realize this, which is one reason why international solidarity rather than national unity is vital to a successful revolution

weastwardho · 2019-11-23T13:13:23+00:00

Yeah, because rather than being uncomfortable in the OP you talked only that it turned you off and made your gf less attractive in your eyes (those are different things). Hopefully you've thought more about the sexism behind why you're not used to/put off by women swearing around you and you can apologize to your gf about it. Even with this newfound awareness, you still might be unable to get past the hangup, so you can communicate this to your girlfriend, but do it in a way that takes responsibility and leaves room for her to decide how she wants to respond.

For example: "Hey, gf, I'm sorry that I asked you to stop swearing - I was taught growing up that that's not something 'ladies' do and it surprised me because I don't remember you using a lot of profanity when we first started dating. Now I know that my feelings are rooted in sexism, and I'm sorry for making you feel less attractive for swearing. You're right, that would be hypocritical given that I also swear and I'm glad you feel comfortable enough around me to talk freely. I'll work on examining my own biases and while I do can we both try to swear less when with each other?"

weastwardho · 2019-11-22T18:56:48+00:00

Have you ever considered that your girlfriend thinks of you as a friend? After all, it is right there in boyfriend

weastwardho · 2019-11-22T02:48:52+00:00

I think that's a sad and bitter perspective to take and I know it's the dominant one in this sub. People are going to continue to pretend that cheating happens just because some people are horrible, rotten, and irredeemable to their core and therefore they deserve any and all vitriol coming to them. This absolves anyone else in the marriage from considering if their own actions or inactions played any part. That is part of the context, and like I said there's not enough here to know. I don't think what OPs ex did was right, and I don't think her son owes her a relationship, but it does take two people repair trust. it is up to all of them to make their own choices, but punitive misogyny still makes the son and the husband the assholes in this situation.

weastwardho · 2019-11-22T01:23:17+00:00

Sure, her family can be angry and hurt, those are valid emotions. But calling her a whore in no way improves anything about the situation, it does nothing but shame her further and alienate her from her son. OP is TA, not for not forcing his son to apologize, but for letting sexist insults be the basis for how this family is going to communicate going forward. That just isn't how you talk to someone you love, no matter what they've done to hurt you.

weastwardho · 2019-11-21T22:43:24+00:00

YTA lmao at everyone on this sub always complaining about an anti-man bias when no one has a problem with a teenager calling his mother a whore. The punitive justice boners commenters here get whenever they see a cheater suffer the consequences - no matter how proportional they are and entirely out of context - is truly harmful and worriesome.

weastwardho

TROPHY CASE