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There are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. We must instead make a decision that reduces the most harm.
A referendum will be held alongside the general election in Oregon, USA to switch to ranked-choice voting.
To any fellow Oregonians reading this, vote yes and tell all your friends to vote yes as well!
Register to vote:
There are important ballot measures in a ton of states this year as well. If you're in a blue area, there might even be a decent candidate or 2. Always check to see what's happening in your community, if only to prevent harmful stuff from slipping through unopposed.
Your landlord and bosses vote, so you should as well. Don't make things easy for them. Make them require voter suppression to stand a chance. Power will never be given, so it must be seized.
I'm jealous. Here in Canada, our current PM's entire election campaign was based on the promise of scrapping FPTP. Then he reversed course pretty much day 1 after getting elected.
It's frustrating for sure, I was even more annoyed when we had a referendum in BC and people opted to keep things the same.
For anyone wondering why the first-past-the-post voting system (used by most countries) is bad, what the alternatives are, and why those alternatives are better, Nicky Case has an excellent write-up that covers all of that: https://ncase.me/ballot/
The way to tell MAGA propagandists from real lefitst activists is that propaganda will ignore primaries and local elections. General elections in America are for forming coalitions, not rejecting them.
Anyone making memes telling you not to form a coalition against MAGA is working to further the goals of MAGA.
To be clear, I’m using this meme to address ethical concerns I see people have with voting. Namely that we should ignore those concerns. I think we should vote for Biden in 2024.
I saw your comment further down and I wanted to address any potential confusion where it can be seen. I think we fundamentally agree that people should vote.
But the sonic meme says voting is unethical
No, just that there are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. For example, abstaining from voting is a choice even if it's not voting. Voting for the candidates, not just the president, that will result in the least amount of harm to people is what is optimal. People use ethical concerns as a reason to not vote, but no matter what a person chooses, even the least bad choice is still unethical. Therefore these ethical concerns should not weigh into our decision making process.
This is comparable to no ethical consumption under capitalism. Steve Shives made a good example in his video on Don't Look Up, so I'm going to steal it here. We shouldn't dismiss Hollywood out of hand for making movies like Don't Look Up even though everyone who works in the film industry benefits from capitalism in unethical ways. Even though it is true that they benefit in unethical ways, this line of reasoning would silence everyone. We all benefit in unethical ways from capitalism. It's the nature of living in a capitalist system that we cannot escape as long as we live under capitalism. Even the least bad consumption is still unethical. So these ethical concerns shouldn't weigh into our criticism of a movie like Don't Look Up.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. There are no ethical choices under FPTP voting. So, these ethical concerns should not weigh into our criticism of capitalism or our decisions about who to vote for. We should vote even if the choice of who we vote for isn't ethical. The goal should be to reduce the most harm to people.
And saves millions of lives at home and abroad.
What population of people outside of your country is going to be "saved" by a round-2 Biden ticket exactly?..
You can't possibly believe in the man taking >$5.5M from Israel to run the Palestinian state into the dirt, right?
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
Your options are:
Keep the train going as it is while yelling at the conductor to stop the train.
Replace the conductor with a guy who is obviously going to speed up the train and kill even more people. In fact, they're going to implement multi-track drifting and start killing people that weren't in any danger from the first guy.
I dunno, seeing as how those really are my only two choices, one of them seems a lot better than the other.
I've never seen any sort of logical response to this argument.
Person A: Maybe we should reduce harm
Person B: But Biden is bad and evil!
Person A: I agree, but Trump is worse and more evil.
Person B: These are both the same!
Clearly, there are people that will be under attack under Trump that won't under Biden. I'm not voting Republican or Democrat in the primaries, but I'm voting against Trump in the general. Not for Biden, but against Trump, because he's far more dangerous in the same ways that Biden was, and spreads out his harm to others as well.
What population of people outside of your country is going to be “saved” by a round-2 Biden ticket exactly?..
People living in Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan to name a few. Also everyone in countries in Europe besides Ukraine. In fact most of the countries of the world, because authoritarian dictatorships will carve the world into spheres of influence. To be clear, dictators will be killing millions of people in their spheres of influence with genocides and ethnic cleansings.
You can’t possibly believe in the man taking >$5.5M from Israel to run the Palestinian state into the dirt, right?
Do you mean giving to? If we're still talking about Biden then I believe he will do the least harm.
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
This supports my argument as I am arguing we need to pick the side that will do the least harm. There is no way to be neutral with FPTP voting.
we need to pick the side that will do the least harm. There is no way to be neutral with FPTP voting.
I don't think you need to actually "pick a side," in the sense like they're the team you support and root for. Vote for the best candidate available to you, yes; but don't stop complaining about the paltriness of your choice. Don't stop agitating for an end to an ongoing genocide that is being supported by your best-of-two-bad-choices rep.
People living in Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan to name a few.
Ukraine's war will continue regardless.
The Palestinian genocide will continue regardless.
Taiwan isn't under any threat of being killed by the millions at the moment, so I'm not even sure how he would "save" them?..
Do you mean giving to?
No 😂. Look up a list of the most "donations" taken from Israel by any political candidate. Did you genuinely not look into things like this before defending him with a shitty Sonic meme?
This supports my argument
This is also wrong. You are allowing genocide to continue by agreeing with the current status-quo. Acting like voting in the same man taking in millions to kill over 100,000 brown people (most of which are women and children) will somehow SAVE Palestine (I noticed you used "Gaza" there by mistake, nbd I fixed that for you) is so painfully ignorant it just has to be on purpose.
Stop drinking the state-narrative kool-aid you dork.
Ukraine’s war will continue regardless.
No, Russia will conquer Ukraine if someone doesn't support them. Trump isn't going to support Ukraine. Biden will.
The Palestinian genocide will continue regardless.
No, Trump will encourage Israel to finish the genocide.
Taiwan isn’t under any threat of being killed by the millions at the moment, so I’m not even sure how he would “save” them?..
From China who famously wants to invade Taiwan.
No 😂. Look up a list of the most “donations” taken from Israel by any political candidate. Did you genuinely not look into things like this before defending him with a shitty Sonic meme?
Oh, you meant donations he received. Yeah, most US politicians have through AIPAC. I had no idea what you were talking about.
This is also wrong. You are allowing genocide to continue by agreeing with the current status-quo. Acting like voting in the same man taking in millions to kill over 100,000 brown people (most of which are women and children) will somehow SAVE Palestine (I noticed you used “Gaza” there by mistake, nbd I fixed that for you) is so painfully ignorant it just has to be on purpose.
No, Trump will encourage Israel to finish the genocide. All Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel will be killed. Gaza is just one part of Palestine, not the whole thing. edit: typo
"Ukraine's war" but Palestinian genocide. The situation in Ukraine is no less of a genocide, and it's Russia's war, Ukraine is just trying to survive.
This isn't harm reduction. Stop co-opting real leftist terms for this crap. The USA has always been fascist and will always be so until it is destroyed. You people won't learn till you get all of us killed for the little bit of privilege afforded to you thru this colonist imperial hellhole
It is harm reduction to vote for the less fascist of the two fascist candidates with a chance of winning.
So, do you start licking the boot from the toe or the heel?
Or are you the kind of person who just deep-throats the whole boot?
This isn’t harm reduction.
It is harm reduction. Fewer people will be harmed if we elect the candidate that will do the least harm.
Stop co-opting real leftist terms for this crap.
I am a social democrat which is a leftist political position. This is a real leftist term. Gatekeeping won't get rid of this idea. Internalize it.
edit: To be clear, I'm referring to: There are no ethical choices under FPTP voting. I hope that clears up any confusion.
The USA has always been fascist and will always be so until it is destroyed.
There has been a fascist movement in the United States since the 30's. Hitler and the Nazis copied off of the US's Jim Crow era laws. But the US as a nation state has never been fascist. If Republicans win this November then the US will become a christo-fascist authoritarian dictatorship for the first time and probably for a long time.
You people won’t learn till you get all of us killed for the little bit of privilege afforded to you thru this colonist imperial hellhole
The people who are going to get us all killed are the privileged accelerationists who think they stand to benefit from sacrificing us all to fascism. They think they going to accelerate social change, but there won't be anyone left to benefit from it.
We have a system, and we do not have the political will to get rid of that system. Go ahead and build a coalition towards a better system, but until that coalition is tangible, harm reduction is not complicity.
Obvious troll or clinically idiotic patsy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction
I finally figured out what some people were concerned about. Apparently there is already a phrase called harm reduction or harm minimization that I wasn't aware of. This phrase specifically refers to reducing harm around drug and sex related activities. This is a naming collision on my part for the title of the meme.
However I stand by my usage of the words for the title. I was using the words harm and reduction together because that is what makes sense to me for the topic based on the definitions of those individual words. I wasn't referring to harm reduction the phrase and I think that was clear to most people. Also, it's just for the title of an internet meme. No one is co-opting the phrase harm reduction or using that phrase incorrectly. I hope that clears up that confusion.
Is this /s?
Arguing against voting for Biden is a pro-genocide tactic because it increases the probability of more genocide. Anti-voting activism is an inviable strategy.
No, I am serious. If people have an ethical concern about voting in the US, this is my response. It's comparable to no ethical consumption under capitalism. Vaush explained the idea in one of his streams.
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
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.
I'm thinking about the people who could lose their lives and families because there is something that can be done about that.
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.
