Non-negotiable.

Mooooooooom, autism dragon’s going to die on this hill again.

Whether or not capital punishment is acceptable is actually a pretty highly debated subject in leftist circles, even in ML ones, believe it or not. Ive spoken to many leftists (including MLs) who, like myself, think that retributive “justice” is a poisonous policy for a state to carry out, no matter how evil the individual being killed or otherwise punished. Others believe it should only be carried out in the most extreme situations, the iceberg tip of evil only. I’m pretty damn close to being an absolutist about rehabilitationism and restorative justice. My list of exceptions is very short and mostly based on pragmatism rather than “this person is evil enough that I would kill them”. And I do carry that out to Nazis, maybe not like, Himmler, but definitly rank and file Wermacht members who I see as absolutely capable of being rehabilitated. Killing them just because its easier is a waste of a life that could be saved.

I know, I know, “dont execute Nazis” seems like a bad hill to die on. And if after a revolution the state decides that executions of reactionaries is necessary then its not like I’d betray the revolution over it. I’d advocate against it (in a democratic centralism way) but I’d still stand strong in communism and support the revolutionary state. And I wouldn’t weep over a Nazi corpse. But my position on capital punishment, and retributive justice, remains what it is. My preference for how these things are handled remains what it is.

Obviously, there are situations where for practical reasons capital punishment is necessary pragmatically, like the Romanov killings, but I consider that a tragic situation and not something to be celebrated. And also obviously, the actual process of revolution will involve a lot of killing of those who take up arms to oppose revolution, and the leaders of the counter revolution and such. But again, I see that as a practical necessity not something to be celebrate. It should be something we HAVE to do, not something we WANT to do.

The bloodthirst in leftist circles has always been the one thing I’ve found difficult to vibe with. I’ll engage with it for either reasons of catharsis or genuinely believing killing a particular person would prevent worse things from happening, but I try to fight even the catharsis urge and don’t celebrate pragmatic killings. I don’t weap over them either, its a neutral necessity to me.

I know the responses I’ll get her already so

• “No excuses for the terror” - I really can’t say anything but "Yeah, I know he said that, but I don’t agree with the extent that leftists take that as an excuse to be rabidly bloodthirsty and pointlessly cruel. I also think that since the days Marx said this we have developed quiet a bit on the front of things like restorative justice. And finally, I think Marx was talking about the process of revolution here, not a post-revolution State.

• “What, so you think the Nuremberg trials were bad?” I have trouble with this one admittedly. I think there was some practical necessity to going through the process here, and that the Holocaust was so horrifying there was some practical need for some people to be punished for it. And I dont think anyone executed in Nuremberg could have been rehabilitated. But if I’m going to actually stick to my principles here, then I think everyone executed here should have suffered the same fate as Hess at worst instead.

Basically, I think in cases of someone who we know can’t be rehabilitated, we should just separate them from society somewhere minimally comfortable where they can’t hurt anybody. We shouldn’t even make them suffer, since again I think retributive justice is poisonous and infects the state and people doing it. The goal should be to keep society safe from them, but not try to “punish” them either.

• (in counter to the above point) “Its a waste of resources to keep them alive” - I think whatever minimal resources we use to keep such people alive are worth not poisoning ourselves with retributive justice, but I understand if you disagree. I don’t think the number of people for whom rehabilitation is truly impossible is large enough for us to say that keeping those people alive is a waste of valuable resources, because it wouldn’t be that many resources lol.

• “killing those 4 million nazis instead of releasing them after forced labour would have made the world a better place today” - Understandable argument, but my counterpoint is that rehabilitive justice wouldn’t be about putting someone in prison or forced labor for a “term” they “serve”. It would be about separating them from society until (and if) rehabilitation is achieved. And when a process of restorative justice is successfully carried out. This isn’t what the Soviets did, what the Soviets did with their 4 million Nazis is totally different from what I advocate for. And if a person never successfuly rehabilitates, then they should never reenter society. I would generally advocate that we keep trying with someone until either we succeed or they die, baring those extreme cases mentioned previously where we know there’s no point in trying, in which case we just put them somewhere where they can’t do any further harm.

I also think the vaaaaaast majority of our modern Nazi problem doesn’t exist because we freed former Nazis. Neonazis sprung up on their own and as far as I can tell were not guided by living former Nazis. A lot of the currently most Nazified areas are areas the German nazi party would have seen as Undermenchen anyway lol.

That said, I once again emphasize that I will not cry over Nazi corpses, and if the Soviet state had decided that executing all 4 million of these prisoners had been the way to go, I would defend it as something I personally wouldn’t have done, but understand the motive behind.

• “what about sociopaths who can fake rehabilitation and manipulate the restorative justice process” - First of all, this is a small percentage of people and not worth changing our entire policy over. Secondly, these people would simply be identified and treated differently as a result (that way would still not be execution). We definitly would have to be careful not to allow such people to abuse the restorative justice process to further abuse victims though, I agree with that. But a well crafted program would avoid those problems I think.

If this breaks the “no idealism” rule in the mods eyes, then well, I disagree because I know plenty of MLs who agree with all or most of my take here, but I’ll accept it if so.

And yes I know this is mostly a meme subreddit. But I’m autistic. Nothing is just a meme to me!

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0