EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 4051
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brian
United States9616 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15596 Posts
On August 29 2023 10:36 brian wrote: in Kwarks own words, that’s the lowest bar to clear. is it GHs fault that it’s so fucking hard to clear? democrats are the other side of a coin forcing the majority of people to eat shit and like it and you both want to pretend like it’s the greater good? you (and most posters in this thread, this isn’t personal) want the republicans on this forum to continuously caveat their positions that they renounce the basest stupidity of their party, this seems like a good time to ask the same of you. is clearing the lowest bar the hill you die on or do you think there’s room to grow? what is the democratic party offering black people that you think gives reason enough to vote for? (and no need to call out one minority here really, just topical to the thread) or will you do what you expect of the republican voters in the thread and couch your posts in ‘i know my candidate is rancid garbage but it smells less?’ with their every post defending one defensible point? if so seems like a good time to start. when does it get tiring to admit democrats are also rancid garbage but still worthy of the vote? but you know, two party system, so, what can you do? hold your nose and pray they’ll stop wanting to line their pockets with your hard work. *punches the ticket for biden* (here’s my caveat that my vote is for the lesser evil, i did my part!) There are a couple things I disagree with here. 1: If we assume lesser of 2 evils is a valid thing to do, yes, it really is as simple as that. There is a lot of nuance to that discussion, though. 1A: The ethics of selfless activism A common argument against "let it burn down so that people get more angry and then revolution can happen" is that the poor will disproportionately suffer during this incredibly unpleasant process. However, it is important to note that many of the "luxuries" we now enjoy (like weekends) were forcibly taken from capitalists and people were killed fighting for that right. The people who died for weekends and other rights we now enjoy did so selflessly. They risked their lives for the good of humanity and they did not place undeserved importance on their small sliver of human existence. Doing what is best for humanity as a whole, which includes all of the humanity that comes after us, is always the more ethical thing to do. And it is hard to feel comfortable placing undeserved, special importance on this moment in history. The only way to do that is to decide all humans currently alive are more important than the previous ones or the future ones. When the rights we have were the result of selfless sacrifice, how in the world can we decide we should prioritize ourselves over the future of humanity? When people say "Yeah, I wish revolution would happen to, but people got mouths to feed and its not reasonable to ask these people to risk their family's well-being for overthrowing capitalism", we are condoning the basic assumption that it is ethical to prioritize ourselves over the long-term health and happiness of humanity. It would be dishonest for us to pretend we look up to the heroes who fought against child labor if we say it is ethical to prioritize ourselves over the future of humanity. We only earn the right to express support for a belief when we are willing to live that belief. 1B: The reality of what we are given In 1A, I established the ethics of selfless activism, but its important to consider what we do when humanity decides not to be ethical. In the absence of revolution, we ought to fight like hell during a primary, but the phrase "lesser of 2 evils" is essentially self-defined as being accurate when you consider the decision in a vacuum. In this situation, I think we can safely say that in terms of what is in front of us, yes, of course it makes sense to try to elect Biden over Trump. But based on 1A, could you not argue that sabotaging our current situation to force the hand of the working class such that they overcome their selfishness and engage in revolution is the ethical thing to do? It all gets a little difficult to sort out, and I have not reached a satisfactory conclusion myself, but I am just describing the dilemma at this moment. In short, when we assume the options we are given is "shitty" and "ultra shitty", yeah, I think it is easy to tell someone to choose shitty. 2: Your criticism of expecting better from Republicans comes across as moral relativism, which is of course problematic. For the same reason we don't say "its their opinion" when a father honor kills his daughter after she is raped, we can't pretend there is moral equivalence between voting for Biden and voting for Trump. Moral relativism is deeply intellectually lazy and it is reasonable to ask people to strive for more than that. We ought to put effort into digging into what is good and what is bad, and decide confidently walk the path of what we determine is ethical. There's really nothing better we can ever hope to do. Its essentially the scientific method. Put the most effort we can into determining what is ethical, then do that. If we learn something new later, we ought to change course. But we can't just shrug and pretend the bad guy is the same as the good guy just because they both have opinions. So, yes, I do think it is reasonable to shame people who enable Trump for bad reasons. The damage caused by Trump's movement is so severe to shrug at. We did not roll over when capitalists killed people who fought for the weekend. We did not roll over when capitalists killed people who fought against child labor. We fought back and we won. That is the right approach. | ||
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brian
United States9616 Posts
1a) i think the assumption that any one group suffers disproportionately in the choice is a tough sell to the majority of people who suffer the same under either choice. and i’m being generous here- i think obviously both choices are morally bankrupt. 2) i’m not expecting better, i’m expecting the same. you and other posters expect your republican counterparts to denounce their representatives abhorrent positions constantly, and i don’t see the same of you. i would like to acknowledge the choice being presented: persecute some minorities worse than others publicly, vs doing it less publicly. where you expect Intro et. al. to make clear their grievances with some positions, but holding their nose and voting for others, i would like you to do the same. constantly. my hope is that by constantly acknowledging the failings of our situation maybe it will be less easy to be so dismissive of the idea that voting for a democrat is hopeless. -edited this because i may have assumed ‘not voting trump’ was an implication to vote dem. that might be a bad assumption. sorry for this! i’ll put myself out there, frankly- as a privileged white man trump has done more for me in the last eight years than biden has. i also recognize that if his marginal tax ‘cuts’ stick, that’ll reverse course if they haven’t already. really, the president hasn’t done jack shit for me in quite some time. i’m not devoid of social responsibility, though, so republican politics isn’t for me. but why should i vote for a democrat for myself? out of some moral ethos that he won’t criminalize women and immigrants? is he doing that? no. our political system is built to exploit me, you, and anyone who can’t afford to pay their representation. that’s a pass from me. i don’t see me voting for a democrat anymore. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28630 Posts
But then I'm also pretty sympathetic to the guy saying but dude look, I agree we gotta do better but this is fucking Trump. And personally if it is Biden vs Trump I'm going Biden every time, insisting that my vote is against Trump not for Biden. But if Republicans fielded romney instead, I could see the 'meh' argument resonate more strongly. *the giant problem with accelerationism is that nobody can predict what the response will be. Maybe what actually happened was that climate reached an irreversible tipping point and people ended up agreeing to build a wall to shut out those unfortunate billions stuck in unlivable areas, not that the private jet fuckers get parted from their heads. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13855 Posts
On August 29 2023 04:36 Liquid`Drone wrote: Yeah the election stuff is clearly worse than the documents imo. Well I guess I don't fully know the extent of the documents but the election stuff is a clear as daylight attempt at stealing the presidency, it's just so incompetently executed that it ends up being kinda hilariosly ridiculous and that seems to make people kinda gloss over it Hes on tape showing people detailed battle plans for a strike on Iran, that they are classified and illegal for him to have, that he could have disclassified them if he was president but didn't. Theres evidence to show that he copied classified documents, theres evidence that he moved them to hide them from the FBI, theres evidence to show that he destroyed evidence after being told not to. There are a lot of photos and testimony from people saying how these classified documents were stored out in the open including but not limited to his bathroom. Its not worse than the election stuff but its a pretty straight and clear crime, thats well over the bar that is given to people who "just happen to find some classified documents lieing around". The recording of the tape alone where trump asks for one vote more than the exact margin of difference between him and biden in Georgia is the clearest proof of a crime I've ever seen. There is literally no way to excuse otherwise that Trump had clear knowledge of what he was asking on the phone call. Thats a straight jail sentence that he can't pardon himself on as president. the RICO stuff is also hilariously incompetent, but insidiously evil. He was clearly a part of a conspiracy on false electors that were on tape getting into the election computers to check the software The people who think this just political targeting simple don't want to accept the reality of the situation. Its the same people who think Trump could be 6 foot 3 215 pounds with strawberry blond hair. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24946 Posts
On August 29 2023 14:23 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't really have the impression that GH argues for accelerationism or for electing Trump to make stuff sufficiently revolting to make people revolt. * More plainly he argues 'earn my vote, it's not given freely just because the other guy sucks unimaginably hard'. There are both benefits and drawbacks to this idea and how strong the pull from both sides is depends, among other things, on how swingy your state is, and how shitty the other side is. In a single election vacuum, lesser of two evils is always right, but if this creates a perpetual feeling of 'well, we just have to be less bad than the other guy, let us try to make that side even worse rather than our side better', at some point, I gotta say I'm pretty sympathetic to the guy saying hey hold up this has been going on for way too long you gotta throw me a real bone now. But then I'm also pretty sympathetic to the guy saying but dude look, I agree we gotta do better but this is fucking Trump. And personally if it is Biden vs Trump I'm going Biden every time, insisting that my vote is against Trump not for Biden. But if Republicans fielded romney instead, I could see the 'meh' argument resonate more strongly. *the giant problem with accelerationism is that nobody can predict what the response will be. Maybe what actually happened was that climate reached an irreversible tipping point and people ended up agreeing to build a wall to shut out those unfortunate billions stuck in unlivable areas, not that the private jet fuckers get parted from their heads. Yeah was going to say much the same, less eloquently. If it’s an occasional event, going with the lesser of two evils is something most will do without much hesitation. If you’re continually put in a position where you’re making a choice for something that doesn’t enthuse you every single time you have to wonder why that is the case. For as long as I’ve been semi-mature and interested in politics, and beyond, things have been getting worse in many economic areas for many people, better in general on a social egalitarian level. But the former just continues to slide. About half my life of visible failure of ‘we’re better than the other guys’ in many a differing locale. And a pretty consistent theme is that shaming people to vote to keep out the greater level forever skews right and isn’t reciprocated. Corbyn in the U.K. being one such example. The tenor of the conversation very quickly shifted to the usual electability stuff, and back to the ‘we have to keep the Tories out’ now Starmer’s in. A hypothetical Sanders/Trump showdown being a more extreme example again, if it’s critical to keep out the lesser of two evils that should hold true in that matchup as well, unless of course one considers Trump as the preferable option by that metric. | ||
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Sadist
United States7215 Posts
The policies he wants enacted dont have enough votes to pass. Until you get people from West Virginia, Arizona, etc on the same page none of the progressive policies will pass. Saying the Democrats should just get these people on board is passing the buck. How would you convince voters of your ideas. Go tell them to read 10 books? Good luck. Its a hard fucking pill to swallow but its the truth. Theres an entire media eco system in America that outright lies to people(conservative media) and another that refuses to cover ideas and policy and instead covers elections and politics like horse racing "who won the debate? A disasterous day for Biden! Your kids arent safe! Tune in at 9pm!" People have jobs, bills, children, pets, hobbies. They dont have the freetime to go protest things and even if they did it sure as shit isnt changing anything fast enough for peoples liking these days. I wonder if the forced economic requirement of 2 income households is helping push back civil disobedience because everyone is too busy trying to stay afloat. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24946 Posts
On August 29 2023 19:32 Sadist wrote: The Democrats earning GHs vote totally ignores the reality of the situation across the country. The policies he wants enacted dont have enough votes to pass. Until you get people from West Virginia, Arizona, etc on the same page none of the progressive policies will pass. Saying the Democrats should just get these people on board is passing the buck. How would you convince voters of your ideas. Go tell them to read 10 books? Good luck. Its a hard fucking pill to swallow but its the truth. Theres an entire media eco system in America that outright lies to people(conservative media) and another that refuses to cover ideas and policy and instead covers elections and politics like horse racing "who won the debate? A disasterous day for Biden! Your kids arent safe! Tune in at 9pm!" People have jobs, bills, children, pets, hobbies. They dont have the freetime to go protest things and even if they did it sure as shit isnt changing anything fast enough for peoples liking these days. I wonder if the forced economic requirement of 2 income households is helping push back civil disobedience because everyone is too busy trying to stay afloat. Sure but this works in both directions. What GH, or indeed someone considerably less left-leaning wants isn’t palatable to various folks, it is what it is and it observably is the case. That’s their prerogative, although as you say it’s squeezed by outside influences rather a lot. On the flipside, if something isn’t palatable to GH, he’s shamed for not ‘voting Blue no matter who’ despite them not remotely matching up to his expectations. You don’t have to read a single book, never mind 10 to look across to Europe and think ‘Hm actual universal healthcare seems a good policy’, we can’t even get to that point. Far more generosity is extended to the unwashed masses and their voting patterns than is to someone like GH with a considered principled position, lacking pragmatism though it may. | ||
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Sadist
United States7215 Posts
On August 29 2023 20:23 WombaT wrote: Sure but this works in both directions. What GH, or indeed someone considerably less left-leaning wants isn’t palatable to various folks, it is what it is and it observably is the case. That’s their prerogative, although as you say it’s squeezed by outside influences rather a lot. On the flipside, if something isn’t palatable to GH, he’s shamed for not ‘voting Blue no matter who’ despite them not remotely matching up to his expectations. You don’t have to read a single book, never mind 10 to look across to Europe and think ‘Hm actual universal healthcare seems a good policy’, we can’t even get to that point. Far more generosity is extended to the unwashed masses and their voting patterns than is to someone like GH with a considered principled position, lacking pragmatism though it may. I absolutely agree with this. The problem we have is we have a conservative media ecosystem that lies to a large portion of the populace. In this example, they use hyperbole about "Freedom" and "Death Panels" and "Funding Abortion". Additionally, the center/left Media in the US does not cover issues and walk through possible solutions and how they would be implemented, instead they spout nonsense and are incendiary because "ratings". Its an unfortunate death spiral we are stuck in. GH knows better thats why its annoying. If you know better you gotta do better. I also think its horrible for morale for left leaning folks in safe states (read solid democrat) to throw grenades over the wall at the democrats in other states that are up for grabs and/or solidly Red and then act shocked when people aren't excited over the Democratic party and winnable elections are lost. Not saying GH is doing this but I have seen this in my personal life. I remember in 2016 I had family in California constantly posting about the DNC and Hilary on facebook and how awful all of it was and talking about voting 3rd party as a protests vote, not voting at all, etc. Then they are shocked when Hilary lost to Trump and their collective negativity had potential real consequences and depressed voter turnout. Its entirely possibly they were reposting Russian Troll Farm memes yet they had the audacity to act shocked/pissed when Trump Won. GH has made comments in the past about how the US isn't such a great place and we are very near having a dictator taking over (I am paraphrasing here) and there is a good possibility of Trump getting elected. Do you think threatening to not vote or vote 3rd party, being negative all the time, contributes to this number? Not on an individual level but a collective level? If a huge portion of the left wing acts like this we are fucked. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
On August 29 2023 07:45 Introvert wrote: As we all know wrong=/=illegal and I am uncomfortable with using statutes in new ways to get at someone already deemed bad. And esp because many of these prosecutors get elected promising to go after Trump. Bragg did. I think Willis did too. I was here during russiagate, I have watched people who ought to take their jobs very seriously beclown themselves and give up their integrity for plaudits from their own side. If trying to overthrow the government isn’t illegal then what the fuck is? I thought I got pretty jaded by the end of the Trump administration but somehow I still thought “if someone tries to use the levers to power to eliminate democratic capability to remove them from power, everyone’s first priority has to be making sure they don’t have that access again” was a bipartisan commitment. Or at *least* one the National Review-type “principled conservatives” would actually support. Pardon my naivete, won’t happen again. Threatening public officials to try to get them to commit crimes is absolutely already a crime, but if what you want is a criminal statute with extremely specifically listed elements that are completely unambiguously met by Trump’s conduct, the classified documents case has that for you, too. At this point it’s increasingly obvious that conservatives don’t actually think their nominal ideals like “rule of law” are even possible. In which case, what *are* their principles other than acquisition of power? | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4729 Posts
If you keep disrespecting your largest part of the pyramid for long enough, they will overthrow you. Is that still illegal, or is it simply time for a change in how things work because the old system was so sick it had to be euthanized? | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
On August 29 2023 21:50 Uldridge wrote: Well, it's illegal, untill enough forces exist to make it not so. If you keep disrespecting your largest part of the pyramid for long enough, they will overthrow you. Is that still illegal, or is it simply time for a change in how things work because the old system was so sick it had to be euthanized? I’m confused what we’re talking about. Is the above how you would characterize January 6th? Because that’s what I was talking about. If J6ers are saying “If sufficient forces had existed for us to win and make Trump dictator for life, what we did wouldn’t be illegal anymore,” what am I supposed to say? “Cry harder”? I suspect that’s not what you’re talking about. If we changed views to, say, the Maidan uprising, I’d bristle at someone trying to sling the word “illegal” at it. A corrupt government was murdering its people, they fought the government in the streets, and won. Not really sure how to cross-apply that to the US in this current moment, but if that’s what you’re advocating I’d love to know more about what you think that would look like. | ||
KwarK
United States42490 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21617 Posts
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Uldridge
Belgium4729 Posts
I hope wholeheartedly the US will self correct and not eat itself up from the inside out, because every day that passes it looks more and more polarized and in the end something will break. Nothing will actually break though if either not enough people or not powerful enough people actively take a side and try to make things happen. So it seems it's all grandstanding for now, with extremely vocal mintorities, occasional riots, or vigilante antics, while life goes on. But your government is corrupt. Or at the very least ideologically bankrupt and it's trying its hardest to self preserve. There is new blood, but it feels so weird to read that there's a 89 year old person in one of the highest bodies of government actively doing things like forming sentences (i.e. speaking intelligble words) and debating policy. In any case, if divisive topics like abortion and immigration and the war on drugs and gun laws and systemic racism and LGBTQ keep not finding common ground, who knows what that will spur in 10-20 years? Like I said, let's hope you self correct and these Rebublican buffoons can understand it's not all that bad and we can move along. But if I'm to give a complete answer I'd talk about how Democrats are basically just as bad, of not even worse and how these two parties are long overdue to implode and let a multiparty system take its place. But maybe that's impossible for a country hosting 330 million people. I don't know, difficult topic to untangle on a forum during office hours lol | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Sadist
United States7215 Posts
On August 29 2023 23:06 Uldridge wrote: Well, if these people could successfully install Trump as dictator for life, it would've been with the support of a big ass army. So they were woefully ubequipped and undersupported to make this task a success. So yeah, let them cry harder. They're morons for thinking they could make someone sit on their throne without a whole bunch of powerful (or millions upon millions of) people behind them acting it out. I hope wholeheartedly the US will self correct and not eat itself up from the inside out, because every day that passes it looks more and more polarized and in the end something will break. Nothing will actually break though if either not enough people or not powerful enough people actively take a side and try to make things happen. So it seems it's all grandstanding for now, with extremely vocal mintorities, occasional riots, or vigilante antics, while life goes on. But your government is corrupt. Or at the very least ideologically bankrupt and it's trying its hardest to self preserve. There is new blood, but it feels so weird to read that there's a 89 year old person in one of the highest bodies of government actively doing things like forming sentences (i.e. speaking intelligble words) and debating policy. In any case, if divisive topics like abortion and immigration and the war on drugs and gun laws and systemic racism and LGBTQ keep not finding common ground, who knows what that will spur in 10-20 years? Like I said, let's hope you self correct and these Rebublican buffoons can understand it's not all that bad and we can move along. But if I'm to give a complete answer I'd talk about how Democrats are basically just as bad, of not even worse and how these two parties are long overdue to implode and let a multiparty system take its place. But maybe that's impossible for a country hosting 330 million people. I don't know, difficult topic to untangle on a forum during office hours lol How can you possibly post this ? This is conservatism pretending to be some enlightened centrist. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4729 Posts
Republicans vehemently try to hold onto their whatever backward orthodoxy they actually want, while to Democrats don't really want to succumb to the social norm, but they'll do it to capture some votes. I can't think Bernie or AOC or would adhere to the Democratic party f there was even a slight possibility to be of some significance without it. | ||
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StasisField
United States1086 Posts
On August 29 2023 06:12 GreenHorizons wrote: On the contrary, I consider perpetually voting for whoever the Democrat party allows to be demonstrably ineffective and in effect "doing nothing". The incontrovertible example I typically refer to being 0 progress in 60+ years on racial wealth inequality and the unparalleled support of Democrats by Black people despite that. Never mind looking past Biden's personal responsibility for contributing to decades of destroying our families/communities with mass incarceration the whole time. That Democrats feel entitled to my or any other Black person's vote despite that is disgusting to me. That they so brazenly try to shame anyone that disagrees with them that they are, is indescribably disappointing. That they rationalize it by pointing to the system they built is just asinine. You can't get what you want from Democrats if you don't vote in your own Democrats. You want a socialist revolution? Taking over the most popular party in a 2-party system and implementing your policy platform through that party is a nonviolent path to a real socialist revolution. You vote for socialists in the primary and you hold the line against literal fascist rule in the general. The evidence this works is the GOP. We have seen a demonstrable change in policy and attitude from the GOP over the last couple decades from a conservative party to openly advocating for fascism. The change you claim to want is possible but you turn your nose up to it. You'd rather do things that have no chance of changing how things work in this country. A real revolutionary you are, GH. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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