this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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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?