the_dunk_tank

you can't fix things by voting either it seems

Its science you tankies

I'm voting .

Within a neoliberal democracy, you can't fix things without holding your elected officials accountable, and the only mechanism for holding them accountable is to vote or not vote. So by their own rules in their own system literally the only way to fix things is to not vote sometimes.

In 2020 I knocked doors non-stop for months for a Democratic PAC because I believed it might make things better and prevent fascism even though I personally did not like the candidates. I probably did more for the Democratic party than 90% of blue maga online hacks trying to shame the left for not voting for Biden and guess what, I'm still going to have to pay my student loans under his shitty government.

If anyone ever tries to shame me into voting for a Dem irl I'm going to spit in their face.

Libs love to make analogies for electorialism, so I'm gonna try and speak their language. Imagine you're at a restaurant that only serves meat and you don't eat meat. You were dragged there by an acquaintance who insists this is the only place in town you can eat.
You have this chat with the waiter.

"I don't eat meat"
"Well we only serve meat at this restaurant and you have to order something."
"No I don't."
"You're not gonna change anything by not ordering anything."
"You could offer a non-meat option or even just serve me a side with the meat removed."
"Do you hate democracy?"

Wow this conversation is only a little bit less silly than the arguments for voting for a genocidal senile racist anti-abortionist union-busting SA-perpetrating pro-fracking warmongering politician who is too gullible to even be corrupt properly.

Well, they could try giving nonvoters actual compelling options

You also can't fix things by voting

Why aren't you voting PSL, Americans?

This years ?

Ah yes you "fix" things by deliberately removing choices of parties and candidates from the ballot or "Set the Menu".

This has strong "please clap" vibes

Liberals cannot fathom having leverage over their party. Instead they must strategize as how to best get people to support it regardless of the awful things it does. This is smart thinking, in their view.

I'm looking for her videos on the legal legal bribery of lobbying or on how the US constitution was written by slave holders intentionally trying to lock out the voice of the poor. As guess she'll make those next, after this punching flew session.

Fine you persuaded me, I'll vote for Biden.

Wait what do you mean he dropped out?

Guess I'll shred my ballot now

really wish she'd apply her skepticism chops to politics.

Nah these hand waving pieces of shit can take a leap off a cliff. Show me what the fuck they achieved or even try to. I'll believe it when I see it. All they achieve is genocide and war. If that's what it is then sure. Anything else I don't buy it. All they care is about empire and nothing else. I hope they sleep well at night.

If you vote blue you're not fixing anything either. If you vote red you're not fixing anything either.

Hmmmm revolution?

Comrade Heine, as is well known, has written a pamphlet for the party conference entitled To Vote or Not to Vote? In it he comes out in favour of our participating in Prussian Landtag elections. It is not the main subject of his pamphlet that leads us to make a few necessary remarks, but rather the two terms which he mentions in his line of argument, and to which we react with particular sensitivity in consequence of the well-known events that have taken place recently in the party. The terms are: the art of the possible and opportunism. Heine believes that the party’s aversion to these trends rests entirely upon a misunderstanding of the true linguistic meaning of these foreign words. Ah! Comrade Heine, like Faust, has studied jurisprudence with zealous endeavour, but alas, unlike Faust, not much else. And in the true spirit of juridical thought, he says to himself, In the beginning was the word. If we wish to know whether the art of the possible and opportunism are harmful or useful to Social Democracy, we need only consult the dictionary of foreign words and the question is answered in five minutes. For the dictionary of foreign words informs us that the art of the possible is ‘a policy which endeavours to achieve what is possible under given circumstances’. Heine then proclaims, ‘Indeed, I ask all rational men, should a policy attempt to achieve what is impossible under given circumstances?’ Yes, we as rational men reply, if questions of politics and tactics could be solved so easily, then lexicographers would be the wisest statesman and, instead of delivering Social-Democratic speeches, we should have to begin holding popular lectures in linguistics.

Certainly our policy should and can only endeavour to achieve what is possible under given circumstances. But this not say how, in what manner, we should endeavour to achieve what is possible. This, however, is the crucial point.

The basic question of the socialist movement has always been how to bring its immediate practical activity into agreement with its ultimate goal. The various ‘schools’ and trends of socialism are differentiated according to their various solutions to this problem. And Social Democracy is the first socialist party that has understood how to harmonize its final revolutionary goal with its practical day-to-day activity, and in this way it has been able to draw broad masses into the struggle. Why then is this solution particularly harmonious? Stated briefly and in general terms, it is that the practical struggle has been shaped in accordance with the general principles of the party programme. This we all know by heart; should anyone challenge us, our answers are as clever as they always were. Now we believe that, despite its generality, this tenet constitutes a very palpable guide for our activity. Let us illustrate it briefly by two topical questions of party life – by militarism and custom policy.

In principle – as everyone is familiar with our programme knows – we are against all militarism and protective tariffs. Does it follow from this that our representative in the Reichstag must oppose all debate on bills concerning these matters with an abrupt and blunt no? Absolutely not, for this would be an attitude befitting a small sect and not a great mass party. Our representatives must investigate each individual bill; they must consider the arguments and they must judge and debate on the basis if the existing concrete relationship, of the existing economic and political situations, and not of a lifeless and abstract principle. The result, however, must and will be – if we have assessed correctly the existing relationship and the people’s interest – no. Our solution is: not a man and not a penny for this system! But, given the present social order, there can be no system which would not be this very system. Each time tariffs are increased we say that we see no reason for agreeing to the tariff in the present situation, but for us there can be no situation in which we could reach a different position. Only in this way can our practical struggle become what it must be: the realization of our basic principles in the process of social life and the embodiment of our general principles in practical, everyday action.

And only under these conditions do we fight in the sole permissible way for what is at any time ‘possible’. Now if one says that we should offer an exchange – our consent to militaristic and tariff legislation in return for political concessions or social reforms – then one is sacrificing the basic principles of the class struggle for momentary advantage, and one’s actions are based on opportunism. Opportunism, incidentally, is a political game which can be lost in two ways: not only basic principles but also practical success may be forfeited. The assumption that one can achieve the greatest number of successes by making concessions rests on a complete error. Here, as in all great matters, the most cunning persons are not the most intelligent. Bismarck once told a bourgeois opposition party: ‘You will deprive yourselves of any practical influences if you always and as a matter of course say no.’ The old boy was then, as so often, more intelligent than is Pappenheimer.[A] Indeed, a bourgeois party, that is, a party which says yes to the existing order as a whole, but which will say no to the day-to-day consequences of this order, is a hybrid, an artificial creation, which is neither fish nor flash nor fowl. We who oppose the entire present order see things quite differently. In our no, in our intransigent attitude, lies our whole strength. It is this attitude that earns us the fear and respect of the enemy and the trust and support of the people.

Precisely because we do not yield one inch from our position, we force the government and the bourgeois parties to concede to us the few immediate successes that can be gained. But if we begin to chase after what is ‘possible’ according to the principles of opportunism, unconcerned with our own principles, and by means of statesmanlike barter, then we will soon find ourselves in the same situation as the hunter who has not only failed to stay the deer but has also lost his gun in the process.

We do not shudder at the foreign terms, opportunism and the art of the possible, as Heine believes; we shudder only when they are ‘Germanized’ into our party practice. Let them remain foreign words for us. And, if occasion arises, let our comrades shun the role of interpreter.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1898/09/30.htm

You also cant fix things by voting

Who the fresh fuck is Rebecca Watson, and why has she started showing up in all of my feeds all of a sudden? I exclusively listen to podcasts about historical medical science, and watch YouTube videos about cooking and Factorio^1^. And both have started cramming her down my throat in my recommendations this past week.

What the fuck, The Algorithm? You trying to tell me something?

^1^ Not at the same time.

the only purpose of voting is legitimizing the system to you, personally, psychologically, by participating in the meaningless expression of preference you've been conditioned to believe is meaningful.

You might as well accept communion and pay your tithes because voting is just communion wafers for the legitimacy of the govt instead of the legitimacy of the church

ive voted in every presidential election since I could (that's eight of them) and things have only gotten worse; imma try the null hypothesis now

She's not wrong, you have to vote for something, ideally actually relevant elections. But an american presidential election with only 2 equally unpalatable candidates? Yeah you can sit that one out

Skeptics are such a waste of talent

can't fix things by not voting, can't fix things by voting either

i think this place might just be set up to do heinous shit and not give the people a meaningful say

What a wretched person. She is adjacent to the new atheism crowd so it makes sense

no more half measures walter

Unless you can organize a voting bloc in the hundreds of thousands, you really have better things to do than thinking your voting decision has any significance