this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Hold up. All I agreed with is that in this election, it wasn't realistic for a third party to win. You're trying to take that as meaning there's no reason to vote third party. As I explained, it's possible for third parties to wield influence, and giving them more votes gives them more ability to do that.
There are effectively two possible winners but that's not the same as there being effectively two choices. The question isn't "Do you think a third party can win this election," the question is, "Do you think voting third party cause any positive effects?" to which my answer is yes.
I did no such thing. You're twisting my words and jumping to conclusions.
I'm amazed that you managed to miss the point that hard. I don't give a shit which fire is more comfortable to burn to death in. If there's no way out, then I will still try to wail on the walls until I can't anymore.
Kamala is fundamentally unacceptable. Again, you're just acting like things are established when they very much are not.
Again -- no shot. Not in FPTP. You virtue signaling every 4 years has never and will never change that.
Yes you did. You agreed that that only Trump or Kamala will be president after this election. Don't backtrack, there's a reason I insisted on these answers.
Again, why would you not wail on the walls in the room with less fire? What an absurd stance...
Again, you already agreed she is the better option of the only 2 outcomes that will happen. Don't twist my words ;)
That is incorrect. Lets say the polls show, Green 15%, Democrat 40%, Republican 45%, and the Greens say, "We'll endorse the Democrats if and only if they do X." You have not addressed why this is not a viable strategy at all. Saying "no shot" doesn't make it true.
That's not the same thing. You're conflating "being able to win this election" with "being able to ever change things." It's possible to change things without winning, and it's possible for future elections to be different. You're taking a much more limited claim and expanding it to a much larger one that I never agreed with.
If anything, it'd be better to wail on the walls in the room with more fire, to die quicker. But the point is that that doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is escape.
And as I already stated, "better" does not mean "acceptable." In the same way if you push a vegan into saying beef is better than pork, that doesn't mean they consider beef an acceptable food.
Because you haven't demonstrated it to be a viable strategy...
Can you give examples of this tactic playing out favorably in the past? How does your 3rd party vote materialize into meaningful, actionable pressure on the Democrats? Why am I not surprised you didn't say "We'll endorse the Democrats / Republicans if and only if they do X."?
Not under FPTP.
If the only thing that matters is escape, then the only thing that makes sense is choosing the scenario that's most likely to allow for it. Which is to move to the area with less fire. This should be absurdly obvious.
You can't have both. If you choose the room with more fire then you're admitting that your whole position is a facade and you're actually just a deluded accelerationist. Which we both know you aren't.
If you think both of the only 2 possible outcomes are unacceptable, then acceptability is a moot point. Better and worse still exist, and you already agreed on which is which.
You’re destroying them at their own game. This is fucking beautiful!
Parties are always looking at how to attract or retain voters. It's very intuitive that if a significant number of people defect from a party, the party will be reconsidering the issue that caused the break. I don't think this needs to be proven.
Why would I? Are you suggesting that trying to influence the Republicans to become an acceptable party is a viable strategy?
...what? I thought your whole reason for caring about the "more comfortable fire to die in" is because escape was ruled out entirely.
No, it isn't. Unacceptable means unacceptable.
Dude… you are getting wrecked here. You should seriously start thinking about finding something else to do with your time. Because this Isn’t working out very well for you.
And under FPTP there can only and will only be 2 parties with any real opportunity to enact policy. Do you think the Democrats are worried that you're going to vote Republican? That the GOP is going to start appealing to Leftists?
Of course not. But the implication is that the Democrats could be influenced. Which is exactly why I can't agree with advocating for swing state voters to do anything but vote against Trump.
Nah, I think escape is possible, but we need to move away from the bigger flames. You're the one who thinks standing still and letting the fire choose is the way to go -- for some reason...
It sure does. It's still moot in this context though.
Yes? That's why they're all about Dick Cheney.
Then you agree that escape is what matters and choosing the more comfortable flames to die in is not what's important. There's a difference between claiming "I can survive longer in these flames which will help me to escape" vs the previous position you were arguing for, "Forget escaping, what matters is these flames are more comfortable than those flames."
No it isn't.
How many different analogies and what-if scenarios does it take for you to finally have a valid point?
Jesus man!
The moment someone calls out your bullshit you move on to another ridiculous version of reality to try and mold into something that resembles an actual point-
And you fail every time!
"The Democrats are all about this hardcore Republican as a means of capturing the Leftist vote"
...huh?
Yes I agree, your burning house analogy isn't actually applicable to the scenario at hand (like the vegan analogy you keep doubling down on). That's my bad for trying to take it in good faith.
They are trying to appeal to right-leaning democrats and centrists who might consider voting republican. What I mean is that they are concerned about the possibility of their voters changing sides, not Leftists specifically.
Whether it is directly applicable or not isn't important, and if you're trying to take it that way, I guess that explains your absurd takes on it. The purpose of the analogy is to demonstrate that one thing can be marginally less bad than another, but both options still fundamentally unacceptable and not worthy of consideration. "Would you rather burn to death in these flames or those flames," "Would you rather eat a bowl of rusty nails or a bowl of arsenic," whatever, I could give you an answer if you really push me, but if you can't take my answer and serve me one and expect me to accept it. Because the real answer is that both are fundamentally unacceptable, so which one is preferable doesn't really matter.
Correct. What they are not concerned about is far-Leftists somehow becoming Republicans. Which is why your game of pressuring them by voting 3rd party in a federal election is ridiculous.
It doesn't matter if your analogy is analogous? Gee, that explains a lot.
No shit. But it completely ignores the part where you are stuck with one of those "unacceptable" options no matter what.
Every single one of your analogies conveniently ignores that vital factor.
That doesn't follow at all. Just because they're not concerned about leftists becoming republicans, that in no way shows that they're not concerned about leftists voting third party.
I don't think you understand how analogies work. An analogy doesn't have to reflect every aspect of reality. It only has to be comparable as far as it's relevant to the specific point that it's attempting to establish or explain. The specific point of the analogy is that one option being better than another does not mean that either option is worth considering. That's not specifically about the election, it's a general point.
All analogies deviate from reality in some way, that's what an analogy is. The question is whether it deviates in a way that's relevant to the specific point being discussed. I only made the analogy to establish that specific point, and not as a more general reflection of the election, as you're trying to take it.
There's a difference between there being two possible winners and there being two possible choices. Just because Trump and Harris are the only ones likely to be elected doesn't mean I have to vote for either of them. We've been over this, I feel like.
Exactly -- I agree that the two are unrelated, so I'm not sure why you used it to support your claim. It makes perfect sense for them to try to steal voters directly from their only other actual opponent. That means they gain a vote and the other side loses a vote.
I see no reason why they would feel any more pressure to capture 3rd party voters than they would to capture apathetic voters or any other non-Republican-voting group.
Of course there are more than two possible choices. You could choose to saw your arm off and put it in the ballot box. Choosing to use your vote to prevent the worse of the only two possible outcomes from happening is a better choice than throwing it away.
You're the one who brought up the question of whether democrats are concerned about me voting Republican. The point is that they are concerned about the possibility of gaining or losing voters, which honestly isn't a point I should even have to argue for, because it's obvious.
I disagree, you haven't established this. Since neither option is acceptable, it is not correct to accept either.
Right, in response to your ridiculous assertion that voting 3rd party puts any meaningful pressure on them.
I agree, it's extremely obvious. I'm not arguing against it. I'm arguing against your claim that voting 3rd party puts any meaningful pressure on Democrats.
Because it's obvious. The outlandish claim is that throwing away your vote is better than using it to avoid the worse outcome.
It's not "outlandish" at all. You can't agree that it's "extremely obvious" that democrats care about gaining or losing votes in one case and that it's "outlandish" in another, it's completely arbitrary.
I don't consider that obvious at all. First off, I dispute the claim that voting third party is "throwing your vote away," because I've already established the effects it can have regardless of not winning. But I also assert that it's better to throw away your vote than to support someone who is fundamentally unacceptable.
I do not subscribe to the ideology of lesser evilism, or to act utilitarianism. It is not ethical to kill a healthy person to get the organs necessary to save five people. It is not ethical to murder someone because someone threatens to murder two people if you don't. Y'all act like your ethical framework is just "obvious," objectively true, and the only one that exists, but that's completely false, and it falls apart as indefensible under scrutiny.
In addition, it's just a bad negotiation tactic.
I didn't say it was "outlandish" to claim they care about gaining votes. I said it's outlandish to claim that voting 3rd party does anything to meaningfully pressure them into changing their policies to capture your vote. They are more concerned about changing their policies to capture the center-right, like you said.
No you have not.
That is a ridiculous assertion.
There it is. You don't care any of the work that has to happen over the next 4 years to push for positive change. You just care about virtue-signaling.
I agree that they are more concerned about the center-right (mostly because the center-right is more prone to defecting while the left just falls in line), but that does not mean that they are not at all concerned about losing the left, or that a change in strategy couldn't make them concerned about that.
How does not being an act utilitarian mean that I just care about virtue-signaling? Do you know what act utilitarianism is? Do you think it has something to do with taking actions vs not taking actions?
Act utilitarianism is an ethical framework that is based around judging specific acts to determine which action produces the most utility, in contrast to rule utilitarianism, which is about judging which general rules tend to produce the most utility.
I think I see where this is headed.
Am I right to say that you view casting a vote as an endorsement of a candidate/party (like MAGA does), rather than as a chess move (like Liberals do)?
Obvious, a vote is an endorsement, yes. Whether MAGA does or Liberals don't, I don't know anything about that and don't particularly care.
But even if you want to treat it as a chess move, it's a bad one. It's tactically wrong as well as ethically.
Nope, that's merely your opinion.
False.
False.
Then prove that voting is objectively and endorsement of a candidate/party. That's your claim.
For the second, you already agreed previously that it is tactically the best move.
That's just definitionally what those words mean. To say "This candidate is the best choice, I'm voting for them and others should to" is an endorsement, and to say "I endorse this candidate" means, "This candidate is the best choice, I'm voting for them and others should too." I suppose you could argue they're technically different if you lie about how you're voting or don't tell anyone about it.
Blatant lie. I have consistently disagreed with that at every single point of this conversation.
Under FPTP, one can absolutely use their vote to denounce a candidate and vote against them taking office. Especially if that vote has a chance of actually pushing the needle far enough to make that happen.
Blatant lie.
You agreed that:
Do you need me to link that for you?
Only by contradicting yourself. To denounce a candidate is to say that you shouldn't vote for them.
None of those things are the same as concluding that voting for Kamala is tactically correct, which I have repeatedly explained to you and been completely consistent on. That you think I should conclude that is not the same as me concluding it. To say that that's what I concluded and that I already conceded the point when I've plainly told you otherwise is a blatant lie. You will retract that claim or this conversation is over, I will not continue with someone who lies about what I said.
Prove it.
Define "tactically correct".
I'm getting an error of "max comment depth reached," so it seems we'll have to call it.
Good a place as any.
Cheers.
To denounce a candidate is to say that you shouldn’t vote for them. To vote for a candidate who you say doesn't deserve a vote is self-contradiction.
A tactically correct action is an action that best furthers your goals.
Or you can vote against them.
They deserve a vote solely for the reason that doing so is the only possible means of voting against the other candidate. It's not a self-contradiction.
What are the goals in this scenario?