chemical_cutthroat ,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, but then you gotta build your own, and provide protection for yourself, and maintain your own power grid, water supply, garbage, and sewage. I get what the libertarians dream of with their limited government and no taxation, but we can’t do it all ourselves, at least not anymore. If someone wants to live in western Wyoming and work the land, then good for them, but I like my internet and my frozen pizza.

I’d like to expand (ramble) on this a little more and say that “necessities” aren’t free and never have been (Disclaimer: I’m America, and this written from an American’s perspective, ymmv). You could find a cave near a river and try to make due with what nature gave you, but you’re gonna fight a bear for the cave eventually. Can you kill a bear? Or would you rather pay someone who knows how to kill bears to kill the bear for you. Suddenly your free housing isn’t free any more. Humanity is based on the exchange of goods for services. Money facilitates that trade because it allows the buyer and the seller to determine what they need and be agnostic to where the money comes from or goes to. A lot of people (not you, I don’t know you), think that we should return to a bartering system, but the current economy is still just that, but instead of trading a three loaves of bread for a pound of chuck we give the equivalent of three loaves of bread as slips of paper that can be exchanged for things other than bread because not everyone needs three loaves of bread.

Now, back to “free” housing, I agree. In a modern society like the one we have supposedly built, housing (and healthcare, basic food needs, education, protection, etc.) should be provided by the government as an assurance for a better civilization. However, that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is taxes. So, in order for those free things to be “free” we need an overhaul of the tax system and the welfare system, but neither of those will come because we have many different groups of people in power that have done an exceedingly good job of dividing us while consolidating their empires. So, we’re fucked.

However, there is a solution, and often you can see it tagged on the concrete monoliths erected to the power-hungry overloads. We have to eat the rich, and I mean that literally. We have to eat a few of them. Make an example of them. Let the other rich know that we mean business. If they start to get out of line, eat a few more. But we have to be united across borders. If I’m eating an oligarch in New York, I need to be sure that another is being eaten in Seoul, Paris, and Tokyo. We can’t give them a safe haven. They have to believe that no matter where there go, there is some dude with a bucket of bourbon maple glaze and stronger will than them. If Musk is going to Mars, we need to get there first. We must establish a base of operations throughout the solar system to ensure that no planet is a safe space for the masters. We need to be able to dip them in the atmosphere of Venus like a sulfur fondue. We split their yolk on Mercury’s sunny-side. We scrape off layers like Italian ice on Neptune. The universe holds a diverse and wonderful menu for us, we need but provide the ingredients.

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