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AceOfFlames posted:In that case why even have democracy in the first place? The million dollar question the "will of the people" crowd really don't want to answer. the answer is the "consensus of the majority" is a terrible mandate for governmental policy if most people are either-or-both idiots and vindictive bastards
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May 18, 2019 20:08
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Please explain how the alternative has worked out lately. I frankly don't think the Democrats will ever listen to their voters and would happily let the party die if they were promised lucrative jobs afterwards but at this point watching the Democrats hem and haw over why they are powerless to do literally anything after people DID come out and vote for them isn't making a good case that they are better than nothing since they can't hold onto power for more than two years anyway.
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May 18, 2019 20:10
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7c Nickel posted:In much the same way threatening to stab yourself is a good way to get your kids to clean their room. Protip! A better strategy to get your kids to clean their rooms is offer rewards for having a clean room. Now you explain the better voting strategy when it comes to anti-abortion Democrats.
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May 18, 2019 20:11
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AceOfFlames posted:In that case why even have democracy in the first place? So I guess my answer to you is that you don't have a democracy. None of us do. We have suffrage, and then we have a shitload of institutions and norms in place to ensure that our suffrage doesn't actually matter.
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May 18, 2019 20:12
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twodot posted:Oh! I can play this game! Try to primary them if possible, if not they are 99.9% likely to still be better than the alternative and the more dems in power the more it empowers non-poo poo dems elsewhere in the party.
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May 18, 2019 20:14
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twodot posted:Oh! I can play this game! This isn’t the right analogy either. The right analogy for protest voting is that you want a clean room, but you know if you tell your kids to do it they might clean up a little bit but probably will just pick up a few things and then sit around. So instead of telling your kids to clean their room, you destroy your house with a bulldozer. Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 20:19 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:15
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What happens when the Democrats decide to scrub primary voters, to blacklist people from working with challengers, or just straight up offer institutional support to incumbents?Ogmius815 posted:This isn’t the right analogy either. The right analogy for protest voting is that you want a clean room, but you know if you tell your kids to do it they might clean up a little bit but probably will just pick up a few things and then sit around. So instead of telling your kids to clean your room, you destroy your house with a bulldozer. The Democratic plan is to still destroy the house but do it slowly over the course of a few years.
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May 18, 2019 20:16
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7c Nickel posted:Try to primary them if possible, if not they are 99.9% likely to still be better than the alternative and the more dems in power the more it empowers non-poo poo dems elsewhere in the party.
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May 18, 2019 20:16
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:I guess it was supposed to act as a check against the ruling class. There was a time where I would have said that the fact that the policies of the government aren't correlated with the desires of the electorate doesn't mean you don't have a democracy - because that's not the point of a democracy which is just to act as a check against the ruling class. But, I don't think that anymore, for two reasons: our "democracy" is in fact a pretty terrible check against the ruling class after all, and also just coming around to the idea that a democratic government should govern according to not just the interests of its people, but also their desires and preferences. As a definitional thing: if you don't have that, then you don't have a democracy. (No "democracies" in the western world do both, many do neither.) America started as a democracy not because of high-minded ideals, but because the various religious and ethnic factions despised each other but none could gather enough strength to crush the others in the short-term, so democratic representation was the uneasy compromise. You'll note the various original factions and ethnic lines from that time have basically completely vanished in the two-and-a-half centuries since into the monolithic WASP bloc than is now running roughshod over all other miniorities, and suddenly democracy doesn't seem as important to them anymore. This is your major clue that government-by-democracy was never considered desirable in and of itself in the first place. Democracy has served it's purpose to the white protestants, continuing to give it lip service only gives the bastards cover.
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May 18, 2019 20:17
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nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:You are being very confusing. First you say protest votes are good, now you claim to be loyal democratic voter? These are somewhat at odds from what I know about how American voting system works but I am not from your country. From what that I see, Democrats and Republicans are the two major parties in a first past the post system, where refusing to vote for one implicitly benefits the other. here's the threat: the democratic party eats poo poo and disbands the democratic party has been the party of kicking the can down the road, and from what it looks like, it will continue to be the party of kicking the can down the road. being told to "vote blue no matter who" leads to arguments of harm reduction, softening the blow, and a host of other platitudes that seem like they boil down to a return to "normal". that return to normal includes being stymied at every avenue by republicans or just passing legislation written by conservative think tanks. the republicans are the party of ripping the copper wiring out of the walls, the democrats are the party that makes sure that the drywall gets patched up and goes to the home center 6 times to make sure that the paint matches. the two options for destroying the democratic party (note: this largely means the institutions and various apparatus orgs like the dnc and dccc) via playing the rules hinge on participating or not participating. by participating, you engage with the party and change from within and explicitly tell all of the ghouls who feed on earned income tax credits to get the gently caress out. by not participating, you stop voting for the lesser of two evils and remove the momentum of kicking the can down the road another 5 years. i don't see the benefit of keeping a deeply rotten political party around indefinitely because on a cosmic scale they're marginally better than the gop, something that people will act as if it's a huge bar to clear. if the dems just keep on barely winning every 4 or 8 years on a platform of returning to 4 years ago/normal, they can keep it up indefinitely against increasingly unhinged gop opponents until they start stringing consecutive losses in a row. i have no interest or desire to return to 4 years ago.
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May 18, 2019 20:20
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:That "if possible" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It is. I'm sorry, but places like West Virginia suck and shits like Manchin might be the best we can get in those scenarios. There are too many lovely chuds out there and they will crawl over broken glass to vote us all into a mass grave. It's the best we can do for now unless we decide to embrace 
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May 18, 2019 20:22
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7c Nickel posted:It is. I'm sorry, but places like West Virginia suck and shits like Manchin might be the best we can get in those scenarios. There are too many lovely chuds out there and they will crawl over broken glass to vote us all into a mass grave. It's the best we can do for now unless we decide to embrace
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May 18, 2019 20:26
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What about when the Democratic party is actively working to suppress primary candidates that are vastly superior to the incumbent? Are we still required to vote for them when they remove that choice?MSDOS KAPITAL posted:People keep bringing up WV like it wasn't home to a wildcat strike so loving successful that it improved the lot of totally unrelated people who weren't even striking, and IIRC was broadly supported by the people of WV. Manchin's opponent got more votes than any of the Republicans did in their primaries and that was WITH the Democrats putting their foot on the scale for Manchin and her getting very little media exposure. Maybe part of the reason we only have poo poo Democrats to choose from is the party has worked to make sure that is the case. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:26
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7c Nickel posted:Try to primary them if possible, if not they are 99.9% likely to still be better than the alternative and the more dems in power the more it empowers non-poo poo dems elsewhere in the party. twodot fucked around with this message at 20:29 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:26
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twodot posted:I'm not asking for respect, I'm asking you to explain how to fill out a ballot in a properly threatening way since you seem to think "not voting for a politician" is no real threat to that politician. If you can explain that to me I will do it, but I suspect your proposed strategy is "vote for that politician" which seems even less of a threat! Am I not clear enough, that voting is not a method of making threat, and not voting also is not? Prester Jane posted:I am a loyal Democratic voter who has held my nose and voted the party line many times; the allegation I was responding to was that I was a non-voter threatening not to vote, whereas I'm a loyal photo threatening to not vote. Surely you are smart enough to understand that you are not making a threat by this. Refusing vote is merely the allowing others to vote for you, making protest vote in system where such things aren't checked (i would say a system where such things can be checked would be a choice-ranking system as some country have) is also allowing the others to vote for you. How is having Republican win because you refused to vote meant to make the Democrat agree with you? There have certainly been many many Democrat losses in past decades that did not make the Democrats agree with you, no? MSDOS KAPITAL posted:Hey, the whole "you have no power but your posts and your vote" thing was a joke. It's not serious. You can actually do other things, like help build alternate centers of power that are ready and able to step in when the Democratic party, or even the US government, collapse under their own stupid, lumbering weight. I would ask you to explain how you are building "alternate centers of power" capable of replacing parties of tens of millions. Phone posted:here's the threat: the democratic party eats poo poo and disbands
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May 18, 2019 20:28
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"Primary them if they are so bad" flew out the window when the DCCC made the public policy of black listing people that worked with challengers. gently caress that fake argument.
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May 18, 2019 20:29
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Voting in America is a nightmare that both parties would like to make even more difficult so that the only people who vote are white suburbanites Hey guys, when you hate non-leftists enough, their words can mean whatever you want them to mean! Their actions can be toward whatever end you want them to be toward! https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1/text If Democrats aren't as bad as Republicans why do I keep insisting that they are???
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May 18, 2019 20:32
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Mellow Seas posted:Hey guys, when you hate non-leftists enough, their words can mean whatever you want them to mean! Their actions can be toward whatever end you want them to be toward! I guess Dems haven't been down with voter disenfranchisement in the past because of this one bill that may or may not pass Guess that whole "pick up two in the suburbs" thing didn't illustrate who the really want to vote either BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 20:37 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:34
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:I guess Dems haven't been down with voter disenfranchisement in the past because of this one bill that may or may not pass Denying the existence of the Southern Strategy is usually something right-wing racists do. I mean, your position is that Democrats want, SECRETLY, to cripple their own electoral chances. Because they just... love white supremacy so much?
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May 18, 2019 20:36
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Mellow Seas posted:Denying the existence of the Southern Strategy is usually something right-wing racists do. Lmao what the gently caress are you even on
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May 18, 2019 20:37
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Lmao what the gently caress are you even on What are the previous Democratic attempts at voter suppression you're referring to if not Jim Crow-era? And, follow up, why should I give a poo poo about them? Because I have time believing they're, uh, recent.
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May 18, 2019 20:38
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Mellow Seas posted:Denying the existence of the Southern Strategy is usually something right-wing racists do. https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run/articles/2019-04-23/pete-buttigieg-breaks-with-bernie-sanders-on-voting-rights-for-prisoners
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May 18, 2019 20:38
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If the voters are with you you win. If they aren't you don't. The leadership has vastly less power than you like to pretend because it let's you skate on the fact that you don't represent the voters as well as you wish. If the lovely dem wins the primary its because the voters are poo poo and want to wallow in it. Try and change the voters somehow but don't pretend that Americans aren't getting exactly what they vote for. When given a choice between DeLeon and Feinstein, voters decided that "Yes, I DO want more of this poo poo." Note this post is about primaries and not referring to poo poo like gerrymandering, stupid tiny state senators or the electoral college. 7c Nickel fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:38
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7c Nickel posted:If the voters are with you you win. If they aren't you don't. The leadership has vastly less power than you like to pretend because it let's you skate on the fact that you don't represent the voters as well as you wish. You keep ignoring this. http://inthesetimes.com/article/21889/young-democrats-dccc-blacklist-cheri-bustos-marie-newman-dan-lipinsky
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May 18, 2019 20:40
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Radish posted:https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run/articles/2019-04-23/pete-buttigieg-breaks-with-bernie-sanders-on-voting-rights-for-prisoners Oh no, the Mayor of loving South Bend who's going to get 5% in Iowa. My political party has been proven to be an arm of the KKK! Plenty of Democrats oppose prisoners voting, of course (and, every single Republican, literally every single one), unfortunately, but that's a pretty small subset of this conversation. Opposition on the not-right to prisoners voting is just some reflection of stupid just-world knee jerk impulses; it's bad, bad as hell, but it's not exactly coming from the same place as Voter ID laws and closing polling stages and purging voter rolls. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:40
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Mellow Seas posted:Oh no, the Mayor of loving South Bend who's going to get 5% in Iowa. My political party has been proven to be an arm of the KKK! https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/politics/harris-felons-voting-in-prison/index.html
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May 18, 2019 20:41
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Mellow Seas posted:Oh no, the Mayor of loving South Bend who's going to get 5% in Iowa. My political party has been proven to be an arm of the KKK! That would mean plenty of Dems are down with a group of people that is disproportionately PoC not being able to vote glad we could explain to you that the Dems are okay with disenfranchising voters
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May 18, 2019 20:43
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Keep linking to individual opinions about a very specific issue; I'm sure eventually you'll prove that B2 isn't totally full of poo poo about Democrats totally suppressing the vote all the time, seriously, for real dudes, it's like all they do. EDIT: You guys are just gish galloping this poo poo, and it's weird that we've gotten here when this whole thread is about how cool and good not voting is. Prisoner voting should totally happen, but it's: 1. Overturning a very long-established precedent 2. Massively, crazily unpopular with the electorate 3. Only a small part of voter access issues. 4. Not yet part of any official proposal or proposed legislation. 5. Not really relevant to the topic of this thread at all. B2 said that the Democratic party only wants white people in suburbs voting. That's objectively wrong and doesn't even match his conception of the party leaders as self-interested ghouls. He might as well have said the sky was red. Christ. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 20:51 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:44
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quote not edit (drat, you never think it'll happen to you until it does, huh?)
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May 18, 2019 20:46
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Mellow Seas posted:Keep linking to individual opinions about a very specific issue; I'm sure eventually you'll prove that B2 isn't totally full of poo poo about Democrats totally suppressing the vote all the time, seriously, for real dudes, it's like all they do. Hammering on one example is not a Gish gallop you dweeb
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May 18, 2019 20:51
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Hammering on one example is not a Gish gallop you dweeb OK, just regular ol' goalposts, then. Look at the post of yours I originally responded to. It's not really strange to me that you would want to nudge the subject away from your indefensible statements. I forgive you.
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May 18, 2019 20:53
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Prisoners must be allowed to vote, but then shamed relentlessly if they actually do vote for anything other than Full Communism Now*, imho. * May or may not be on the ballot. Probably won't be.
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May 18, 2019 20:54
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I think the real reason politicians don't want prisoners voting is that they don't want prisoners doing any form of political organizing. Because they might start having some complaints about how our whole prison system is just a giant, towering, privatized eight amendment violation. But I suppose that's getting off topic.
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May 18, 2019 20:56
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Mellow Seas posted:Keep linking to individual opinions about a very specific issue; I'm sure eventually you'll prove that B2 isn't totally full of poo poo about Democrats totally suppressing the vote all the time, seriously, for real dudes, it's like all they do. Mellow Seas, does it not strike you as strange that the Democratic leadership does not push voter enfranchisement with nearly the same amount of fervor that republicans push disenfranchisement? If power above all is their central motivating factor, why is it only now that prisoner suffrage has been raised as an issue, and a controversial one at that? Is it really that extraordinary that even party apparatchiks are slaves to an ideology that causes them to vote seemingly against their own interests? Mellow Seas posted:I think the real reason politicians don't want prisoners voting is that they don't want prisoners doing any form of political organizing. Because they might start having some complaints about how our whole prison system is just a giant, towering, privatized eight amendment violation. Precisely! Could it not be that the leadership of the Democratic party view true empowerment of the dispossessed as just as much of an existential threat to their privileged position in society as Republicans do? A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 21:05 on May 18, 2019 |
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May 18, 2019 20:59
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:That would mean plenty of Dems are down with a group of people that is disproportionately PoC not being able to vote glad we could explain to you that the Dems are okay with disenfranchising voters By Dems you mean democratic voters, who 60% do not want to extend the franchise to felons. This is less poo poo than republicans who are 85% opposed. There is no secret wellspring of leftists ready to jump forth if only we have the correct opinions. We go to war with the army we have, which is moderate and lovely but still better than the alternative and can hopefully be pushed in the right direction before we all die.
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May 18, 2019 21:00
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At some point Democratic leaders need to actually lead instead of just being reactionaries that come to movements after people on the ground have done literally all of the work. Supporting felon voting is the right thing to do and maybe, just maybe if people see their leaders pushing it as an idea that has merit they will come around to the idea. It would have been nice if Clinton or Obama had helped the gay marriage movement but instead they hid and let the courts and Log Cabin Republicans do their job.
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May 18, 2019 21:02
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7c Nickel posted:By Dems you mean democratic voters, who 60% do not want to extend the franchise to felons. This is less poo poo than republicans who are 85% opposed. There is no secret wellspring of leftists ready to jump forth if only we have the correct opinions. We go to war with the army we have, which is moderate and lovely but still better than the alternative and can hopefully be pushed in the right direction before we all die. mate you cannot possibly believe that this overwhelming bias against prisoners springs forth ex nihilo in the minds of the voting populace. Do I have to repost that Bors comic about gay marriage approval?
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May 18, 2019 21:04
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A big flaming stink posted:mate you cannot possibly believe that this overwhelming bias against prisoners springs forth ex nihilo in the minds of the voting populace. Do I have to repost that Bors comic about gay marriage approval? I believe it springs forth from the fact that a lot of voters are vindictive shits who want to brutalize people they judge as "deserving it". That "tough on crime" bullshit is a bottom up phenomenon where being horrible is rewarded by the voters. America is poo poo because it's people are poo poo, and our leaders are reflective of that.
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May 18, 2019 21:10
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https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ It turns out when things become the standard and gain institutional support they become more popular. "Sorry gay people it's 2004 you are on your own since only 60% of the population thinks you deserve a civil right"
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May 18, 2019 21:17
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7c Nickel posted:a lot of voters are vindictive shits who want to brutalize people they judge as "deserving it". And do you think people are just naturally "vindictive shits"? Like do you think that is just a genetic reality of white people???? how do you not realize this is the result of carefully cultivated ideology. How do you not see the trash can you are feasting from??????????
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May 18, 2019 21:18
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