There are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. We must instead make a decision that reduces the most harm.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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I wish it were /s, but I don't think so
Seems pretty tasteless to call something "harm reduction" when it literally involves supporting the person making a genocide possible. Imagine being a person who lost their entire family in Palestine to torture and starvation and reading this post.
You'd prefer the party that got Roe v Wade overturned then? Cause not voting Dems is being fine with whatever happens. And no, no silly revolution is gonna happen that will save you. Get out of dreamland now and accept this shitty choice put before you and just do the bare minimum at least.
You won't get through to him, he's way too deep in dreamland. Just check his history.
Oh hi, I think you meant to reply to this person, because I didn't say any of that horseshit you're arguing against
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Pretty bold of you to bring up Roe V Wade as an example of why we need more democrats. Roe V Wade was one of the best examples of democrats effortlessly orienting liberals with the democratic party by sitting on their hands for years as the threat of having abortion rights taken away become more and more clear. The democrats could have codified it, but they didn't because they knew that abortion rights were one of their main avenues to muster up enthusiasm and support for their party. By letting Roe V Wade get eviscerated, the democrats secured support from oblivious liberals for years to come.
"Vote for us, or you'll lose abortion rights! (as the democrats do jack shit to protect the right)". The democrats would rather lose than shift left, and that revelation becomes terrifying when the issue comes down to genocide.
The same is true for Trump. The man that liberals get into such a tizzy about was literally propped up by the democrats in order to orient liberals and centrists with the democratic party. By propping up Trump, democrats have coerced liberals into writing a blank check and offering blind support to whoever isn't the republican. And now we've seen the logical conclusion of this strategy: liberals supporting genocide since at least genocide isn't as bad as orange man.
The point is never that we need more democrats. The point is always that we need fewer Republicans. Democrats refuse to make things better, but they typically block things from getting worse, which is a better starting point than anything the GOP would give us.
So please, organize, protest, do whatever activism you can do, but on voting day take the little bit of time and effort to block Republicans from undoing all that hard work, even if it means voting strategically for a pile of shit.
The left will always be fighting against the administration to some extent, and through voting we get to pick our enemy, and the dems are going to be an easier fight and on fewer fronts.
There are things you can do outside of voting for one shit party. You could vote for a different party for example, push for voting reform, protest, bomb military installations and other guerrilla tactics, go and help people directly, make propaganda, etc. In my own country that just had a local election more seats were won by the lib dems (normally a minority party) than the conservatives who are the party currently in charge.
Revolutions don't happen because people like you don't want them to happen. That and because people fall for pro-government propaganda.
Not in the US you can't. It's basically the same as not voting. You can argue that it's in favour of republicans, even.
It's pretty weird that you hold up the fucking lib Dems as your party of radical revolution.
The fact of the matter is that we are never going to get a radical left government, regardless of the voting system. Unless you're spending time in an ivory tower of academia, you will know that the majority of people in this country are centrists of some flavour. Corbyn got massacred at the polls, and he was Labour leader. Going back you've got Foot.
The best we've ever had it is when Atlee, an ex army major who practically ran the home war effort, couched left wing reforms (foundation of the welfare state, nationalisation of coal and rail) as nationalistic. That's how we get these things through. You're never going to change the minds of British people by bombing.
If you're of an anarchist mindset, then it's far more beneficial to vote for harm reduction one day per four years, and organise in parallel outside that
I am not holding them up as a revolutionary party. All I was saying is they are becoming more popular than a current majority party. I am trying to make the point that voting for a traditionally minority party isn't always fruitless.
My comment was aimed at Americans who don't want to vote for the democrats. Not at labour voters in the UK. I am not against voting for labour. If I am still here at the time of the general election I will probably be voting for them or for the Green party. I wasn't able to vote in the current election as I wasn't in the country and also wasn't on the electoral register for the area I would be living in if I was.
I don't think I qualify as an anarchist. Though I do like some anarchist ideas. I personally don't understand politics well enough to have an exact position with certainly like some people seem to. I am somewhat of a fan of socialist market economy, but I don't think you can truly know if something does or doesn't work until you actually try it.
I'm thinking about the people who could lose their lives and families because there is something that can be done about that.
I'm not sure voting will do anything about that
We have a full-blown fascist party and a right-wing liberal party that has shown itself willing to capitulate in every way to said party
Directly or indirectly, Project 2025 is coming, it seems
The United States needs to cease to exist before it's too late
We need to change the United States into a socialist country with unimpeded majority rule before it is too late. Our only chance to do that is by delaying the fascist takeover for another four years. The United States becoming a christo-fascist dictatorship would be disastrous for everyone not just the US. Authoritarian dictatorships would start carving up the world into spheres of influence. Millions of people would die from dictators enacting genocide and ethnic cleansing in their spheres of influence.
I don't think that voting for the same two parties is going to change that. Those two parties got us into this; they aren't going to get us out.
The Democrats are not going to get us out of this, but we need time to convince people that socialism is the answer to our economic problems. We are going to have to elect socialist politicians. We need our democracy, as flawed as it is, in order to do that.
You might be interested in reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels. Ideas take hold in a population based on their material conditions, not by "convincing them." This was tried numerous times in the past, all of them abject failures.
Yes, convincing people that Socialism is good is a good thing to do, but that isn't going to be what makes or breaks the movement.
This is certainly a defensible position, yes. I'm just not so sure we're going to avoid the christo-fascist dictatorship with the Democrats. They forever capitulate to our christo-fascist party, and they themselves are authoritarian at heart. Just look at the White House and its support for genocide, border fascism, subjugation of protestors, defending of an inequitable hierarchical economic system that relies on forced labor, and those are just the first examples that come to mind
I think the Democrats are not a great political party. I'm registered independent. They are the only mainstream political party for pursuing progressive change that we have at the moment. We have to take our chances with the Democrats because it's the clearest path to a better future that we have.
We do need to adopt socialist policies as a country in addition to that though. If we stick with neoliberalism then we are going to keep having this problem. The fascist movement will inevitably grow as the wealth disparity gets worse in the US. People are going to be looking for solutions to their problems, but neoliberalism inherently denies them the tools to fix the systemic issues they face. Neoliberals cling to civility politics and value property over justice for people to name a few. Fascism will provide them with easy, but incorrect, solutions in the form of out-groups to hate. The answer to our problems is socialism, but we need time to convince people.
I know it's a long shot, because people are effectively conditioned from living in a neoliberal society to reject socialism without any evidence. But we have to try. The only way this gets better is convincing people that socialist ideas have merit while neoliberal and fascist ideas do not. People's lives depend on nations developing and maintaining inclusive political and economic institutions. We are going to need to have this ideological reckoning at some point, so we might as well have it sooner rather than later.
Trying and then failing presents the same consequences as not trying. So we might as well do it now.
It's not just about president, but also cabinet positions. And Bidens cabinet is pretty decent. Trumps cabinet is awful
Yeah, luckily not voting and Trump getting elected that person wouldn't be thinking of their lost family. They wouldn't be thinking about anything for that matter, as they'd be fucking dead. Trump has demonstrated his support for expanding the conflict and finishing the job. It is absolutely better for that person who lost their family to not be dead.
"Luckily"???
Luckily was sarcastic you idiot.
And yeah, it sucks but so do so many other things we have to choose in life. Cleaning up shit from a pet isn't fun, but sometimes it needs to be done. Sometimes we also need to choose the president that's not going to do as much damage. You have to get your hands dirty.
Not voting shouldn't keep your conscience clean. Its like the trolley problem. 100 people on one track, one on the other. You can choose to pull the lever or not. Not pulling it is still a choice. There's no option where you aren't complicit because you could have done something.
Also, there's no need to call me "idiot," and being honest it's quite ableist
Funny how liberals are always calling leftists things like "idiot" -- really shows their complete disdain for anyone to the left of Reagan. I've had liberal Democrats straight-up gloat that they don't care what leftists think. Mask. Fucking. Off.
Dude, I'm an anarchist. Don't kid yourself that you're the only real leftist because you tell people not to vote. Just fuck off with that shit.
Idiot also isn't really ableist. It isn't the medical term it used to be. It's to call someone stupid, which was either willful or not. I don't know. It feels more like prupsoeful misrepresentation of what I wrote, or you didn't even try to understand it, because even the most impaired person almost certainly could.
Totally an "anarchist" who relentlessly echoes pro-state neoliberal propaganda and insults anyone who doesn't accept it. Mhm surrrrrre you are
Yeah, because only neiberals say to vote! Only a true leftist would be self-defeating! /s
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels stated in The Communist Manifesto and later works that "the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy" and universal suffrage, being "one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism)
There is something to be said for the idea that you only have two choices, although that is a matter of fact because of the "[c]onstitution…which makes it appear as though every vote were lost that is cast for a candidate not put up by one of the two governing parties." (Engels to Frederick Adolph Sorge, December 2, 1893, in Marx and Engels on the United States (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), p. 333.) We need to change how this works, but that needs to be done through a grassroots movement for local level elections at first. This requires voting and participation.
A revolution almost certainly isn't happening, and it's not going to go the way you want. If it were to happen, it'd be bloody and brutal and you wouldn't enjoy it. Also, it's not exactly guaranteed that the leftists win. If anything, I'd bet against it because the other imperialist nations wouldn't want that to happen.
Good thing we're off to a great start showing unity by calling allies "idiots" and discarding the lives of Palestinians and immigrants
Solidarity means if they harm one of us, it harms us all. What they do to Palestinians, they do to me.
I'd say the same about immigrants except I've actually had family deported under his fascist ass
If voting is best, so be it, but fuck right off with being so callous as to refer to it as "harm reduction"
Don't be an asshole and seemingly purposefully misrepresent what people say. That's far more harmful than anyone being called an idiot. Practice what your preach if you're so high and mighty with speech.
Where am I discarding their lives? Please, point to it. I've only said things that say they need us to vote or things will be worse for them. Stop strawmaning me and sealioning. If Trump gets elected they're going to be massacred. Trump will endorse the genocide and he'll also ramp up anti-immigrant actions. Sure, Biden sucks but he does speak out against Israeli actions now and they are trying to limit some support.
I didn't call it that, but what would you call it? Its something that decreases the amount of damage that's being done while not fully resolving the issue. It's reducing the effects of something harmful. It's harm reduction.
Ok but what else are we going to do? What can we do to stop the genocide? Are we in favor of dismantling the system that made this happen, or are we ok with it?
Protest, take direct action, whatever you want. Get organized with some other groups. There are plenty. (Edit: nothing you do is going to stop this genocide though. It's far too late, though we can decrease the harm that is done.)
Telling people not to take an action isn't helpful. You always see people (who say they're leftist, although some are certainly right wing trolls) saying not to vote, and they never advocate for doing other things. How about protest, but also vote? Why would anyone advocate for not doing something? The only reason I can think of us to get their guy elected instead.
If your contribution is saying to do less, fuck off. If you're saying to do more then welcome. You may actually help.
Yes, a million times this. Voting is just one small part of what we must do to fight for a better future. Giving up is not an option, there is far too much at stake. Vote, protest, occupy, run for office, take direct action, organize, and create a better world for the people who come after us. Solidarity forever.