|
It is not only possible but ethical to serve both continua simultaneously. Be constantly dissatisfied with your political parties, get involved with your politics, agitate constantly for change and support independent options, especially in local elections that give them a much better chance for success. Hell, agitate for changing polling laws and systems to make them more favorable to a wider subset of options. Serve your conscience. When the flawed systems that currently exist narrow down to a subset of suboptimal choices that do not serve your conscience, support the candidate who is closest to your ideology, which is hopefully not sympathetic to monstrous bigotry, cruelty and inequality. That closeness may come down to "is marginally less likely to inflict suffering" and you may find this personally dissatisfying. You are right to be dissatisfied. You should vote for it anyway. It is the better choice for the world outside of your head.
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2018 00:41
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 03:32 |
|
|
Condiv posted:those are the only outcomes because lesser evilism is rewarded with votes. you can't expect things to change if the lesser evil can always count on your vote as long as they're a hair away from the greater evil. that's why macron and co feel free to implement lepen's fascist policies. What you're saying only works if, in response to losing their elections, the left (with an extremely generous use of "left" for most actual left parties in the first world right now, but pragmatically speaking) corrects to the left in the event of lost elections. They generally correct to the right, because the right won the election and that presents a path forward that's more likely to lead to victory next time, aided by their having far more financial incentive to appeal right rather than left. I feel like you're hitting a hard stop with the "in a better world" logic you were talking about in response to me. In a better world, we kick the bastards out and only good candidates make it to general elections where in the current world we are inevitably forced into bad choices. Punishing lovely left-wing parties for not being left enough by tacitly supporting right-wing parties in general elections does not effectively send the message that they need to move left or die, but it does give those right-wing parties the opportunity to entrench their own power and make it harder for left candidates to succeed--the same exact thing a Manchin does, but with even more negative impact for the rest of the community. Ytlaya posted:What kind of dumb thing is this? Yes, you can call harmful ideology evil. It is entirely possible for both prominent political options to be actively evil. That isn't "turning off your mind." There is no universal law dictating that, for any choice of two political ideologies, one must be "not evil." This is also completely true, and I think the reason people have so much trouble with it is accepting political compromise and a lesser-evil system feels loving terrible, and it's hard enough to reconcile doing it without having to accept that some of your choice's choices will be evil.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2018 01:25
|
|
|
Condiv posted:how do you explain lrem shifting right when the right hadn't won recently? I'm not going to even pretend to be knowledgeable enough about French politics to render an educated opinion on the history of its political spectrum, but I would say the worldwide wave of nationalism and extremism borne on the back of a number of global propaganda campaigns that have successfully moved the window of political dialogue farther to the right than it's been in decades is giving a bunch of opportunistic politicians chances to run to the new right-aligned center, particularly when LREM is rallying around a dude like Macron who, regardless of campaign rhetoric, was tied as hell to corporatism and banking. Victory and loss impact political movement, but they're not the only things that matter. Condiv posted:and not voting for the lesser evil isn't tacitly supporting evil. sorry If there's no feasible peripheral option and the only realistic choice for winning an election is one of the two big parties, and one is demonstrably less evil than another, if you are arguing for people to not support the less evil choice in favor of a morally good but pragmatically infeasible choice you are tacitly supporting the more evil one. You can also be trying to achieve the entirely noble goal of sending a message and trying to enact positive change. The two aren't mutually exclusive, as you yourself pointed out by agreeing with roomforthetuna: roomforthetuna posted:Voting for a third party stands some chance of shifting the Overton window towards that party's policies, even if that party's existence acts as a spoiler and lets the greater evil win. Perhaps especially if it acts as a spoiler. In the short term the risk of the greater evil winning is still increased. You are allowing the reality of a greater evil winning for the chance at a greater future good. To be entirely clear, I'm not saying that's an invalid or even an inherently incorrect choice, poo poo is complicated and I don't think the idea is without merit--I'm saying you can't disentangle that choice from the ramifications of the greater evil winning as a result. It is explicitly the price you are offering in exchange for reforming the left and trying to get better candidates.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2018 05:43
|
|