I think there's a time and a place for criticizing our candidates. The time is during the candidate's term and in the Primaries. During the General, it's a bad time to do so. And you have to realise: You don't always get what you want. You say you want a candidate that Dem voters want to be President. The opportunity for that to happen is in the primaries. Unfortunately, the time for that has come and gone.
Biden won those primaries. The voters for the Democratic Party, who ALL get a say, put Biden up front. And people hammered Biden, including bad actors from the other party as well as from foreign countries, until Biden had no room for error. When he flubbed the first debate, we used the rules for succession, with him stepping down and his VP taking the top spot, like what would happen if he was rendered incapable of serving while he was in office.
I return to my key point. Trump or Harris are our choices today. No Third Party will win. As long as you are voting for Harris, criticise away. Just know that I will push back against any post that seems to suggest our candidate is horribad and shouldn't be voted for. Not voting for Harris means we get Trump.
Uh...not a great idea.
Suppose my parents made the decision to move to Alaska instead of Colorado for my birth, then moved to Colorado where I grew up. I'd be asked to vote in Alaska's elections, despite having no ties there, no stake in the outcome, and no reason to care about the issues. And if I'm to vote a Colorado ballot, why not let me vote that ballot from Colorado? If I want to go to a family reunion, I'll go to a family reunion. I don't need to be forced to go to one by being forced to vote in a state I no longer live in.
Same way for Colorado. It's all the benefit of electronic voting, but with the added safety of paper ballots. And it's a format we're all familiar with from school -- bubble in our answer (just with a pen instead of a number 2 pencil), and then turn it in. The counters feed the ballots into the counting machine, which tallies up the votes, then the ballots are stored in nice boxes, which can be retrieved and hand-counted on the off-chance the machines get hacked or otherwise...tampered with (Tina Peters, I'm looking at YOU...as you go to jail for 9 years! :3).
The best politicians money can buy...
Some will be violent. Some will be vocal. Some will grumble and move on. The violent ones will be the ones who make the evening news. They may also cause serious disruptions.
For the most part, I think you should prepare for disruption equivalent to a blizzard or hurricane. Stock up on canned foods. Get containers for water. Order Life Straws if you don't have them already. Stock up on batteries and charge any rechargeables you have. Make sure you know where your flashlights are. Load up on propane tanks for your grill and have a plan for how to use your grill safely. Add to that self-defence tools in case of civil disturbances in your area -- we're going to keep non-lethal but still painful self-defence tools for our self-protection. And then wait things out and try to stay safe. Check in on your neighbours, and stuff like that. I wrote an article on what I think you should do to survive Election 2024 with more details.
Can you link the comment he blocked you on? Maybe that'll give me an idea of how to get him to block me. :3
I'm going to be honest with you. My problem isn't this person's opinions. It's his behaviour. And you're slowly beginning to see it. This guy is a classic sea-lion, to use your own reasoning for his ban. He is hounding. Boastful and gloating. Disruptive and combative, while hiding behind a veneer of faux civility. Disrespectful of any dissent. And with a behaviour that sure seems like he might just be three raccoons in a trenchcoat, each with a phone, to put a humorous twist on an accusation you probably wouldn't let stand given past history. I'm saying there's plenty of TOS violations (multiple Rule 3 and Rule 4) right in front of your face, if you'd only see them.
But that's OK. This is not my community to admin. Your community, your rules, and your enforcement. I also get the stress of dealing with people who think you're not doing enough things or the right things on adminning a community; being a mod is a thankless job with scores of people who think you're doing it wrong. Note that I wasn't the one who drew your attention to this thread for an example of that. I'll live within the letter of your law, though I will definitely point out where I see discrepancy in enforcement. I can't call this poster a troll, Russian Asset, Paid Actor, or Bot, but I will point out that this user has been banned for 3 days for being a sealion by the admin team after over a month of constant anti-social behaviour. That should be within the letter of the law, right?
I still think you're treating Monk with kid gloves while coming down on us like a ton of bricks, requiring us to give this...person respect he's totally and completely unwilling to give us, but again, your community, your rules, and my only real option is deal with it or go somewhere else. I'm not letting this jerk run me off from an otherwise nice community, so here I am.
PS: This is what this poster sent to me.
Schoolyard bully approach with an extra dose of gloating asshole behaviour. Also, I never said this poster can't post what it wants. I've said that its posting history is highly suspect (back to my three raccoons in a trenchcoat analogy), sure, and that I disagree with much of what it posts, and that it is pulling for Trump/Putin with everything it posts, but it is allowed to post what it wants. It just has to deal with all the negative comments and downvotes when it posts its inane drivel.
I wanted to say this, but it's kinda forbidden around here to do that. :)
Bye, Mr. Convicted Sealion. For now, at least. ;)
Nah, I don't think I will listen to what this poser is saying...err, sorry, POSTER. Missed a T there. I swear it was accidental. :)
- This is the Internet, where the Men are Men, the Women are Men, the Children are FBI Agents, and nobody knows I'm a cat.
- If it is true what this poster is saying it does for a living, does that mean it's stealing company time, or just REALLY dedicated and posting one post every 12 minutes for 8 hours when it's not eating, sleeping, and working?
- It really loves to tell people what they can and can't do. No, I don't think I will respect its commandment that I not post its stats if it doesn't get to curate what I'm saying with them. I stand by my statement. This poster posts a ridiculous amount of time. So much that it can be questioned. Dear reader, it's up to you to decide if once every 18 minutes on average over every day of this poster's time on Lemmy is a mark of a real poster, or someone who is far more nefarious.