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Does Voting Matter This poll is closed. |
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| Yes |
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91 | 28.44% |
| No |
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133 | 41.56% |
| Jeb |
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59 | 18.44% |
| Bernie |
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37 | 11.56% |
| Total: | 320 votes | ||
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Slow News Day posted:The post you quoted was written by me, and contrary to your conclusion, it's actually proof that voting does matter. The conservative judge who issued the preliminary injunction on the pause of lease sales was appointed by Donald Trump. So democrats control the entire machinery of government based on overwhelming popular vote, but we can't stop drilling for oil because one guy got appointed under Trump and nobody can do anything about it? Sounds more like voting doesn't matter, the ruling class can always find some excuse why a mandate can't actually change anything before shrugging their shoulders and saying to vote harder next time, when the one judge will still be able to stop everything
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Sep 20, 2021 08:51
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Nix Panicus posted:So democrats control the entire machinery of government based on overwhelming popular vote, but we can't stop drilling for oil because one guy got appointed under Trump and nobody can do anything about it? Sounds more like voting doesn't matter, the ruling class can always find some excuse why a mandate can't actually change anything before shrugging their shoulders and saying to vote harder next time, when the one judge will still be able to stop everything maybe we just have to wait until that one judge is gone and also never allow republicans to appoint another judge until then
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Sep 20, 2021 08:58
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fart simpson posted:maybe we just have to wait until that one judge is gone and also never allow republicans to appoint another judge until then And in the meantime keep drilling oil and cooking the planet because nobody can do anything? Sure. We've got back up planets, no big rush.
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Sep 20, 2021 09:06
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Esran posted:Trump committed America to pulling out of Afghanistan, and he was deeply incompetent at enforcing America's will on other countries. I'd say those were good things? I don't mean to say that Trump was a net good, but saying that Democrats losing never makes good things happen seems like an exaggeration. Do people who talk about Trump's "good," effects vis a vis being incompetent at directing our global neo-imperialist engine just, like, forget how he almost started three wars in four years? Or does "ReSuLtS nOt InTeNT," just always outmuscle everything including avoiding conflicts which would have probably dwarfed Afghanistan on the carnage scale by literally the skin of our teeth?
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Sep 20, 2021 09:23
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fart simpson posted:maybe we just have to wait until that one judge is gone and also never allow republicans to appoint another judge until then Oh. Then voting definitely doesn't matter because we'll not be even able to slightly mitigate climate change Sedisp fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Sep 20, 2021 |
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Sep 20, 2021 09:24
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Sedisp posted:Oh. Then voting definitely doesn't matter because we'll not be even able to slightly mitigate climate change Ah, the "I hate unions and won't participate in them and will actively complain about their existence constantly but if they actually managed to get me a raise I'll still take the raise," philosophy applied to politics.
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Sep 20, 2021 09:34
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Sanguinia posted:Ah, the "I hate unions and won't participate in them and will actively complain about their existence constantly but if they actually managed to get me a raise I'll still take the raise," philosophy applied to politics. you have a myopic focus on a specific complaint rather than the general argument that is ongoing
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Sep 20, 2021 09:44
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Sanguinia posted:Do people who talk about Trump's "good," effects vis a vis being incompetent at directing our global neo-imperialist engine just, like, forget how he almost started three wars in four years? Or does "ReSuLtS nOt InTeNT," just always outmuscle everything including avoiding conflicts which would have probably dwarfed Afghanistan on the carnage scale by literally the skin of our teeth? I guess you have to ask yourself what's worse; Almost starting several wars, or actually succeeding in starting one war that lasted for 20 years?
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Sep 20, 2021 10:24
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Sanguinia posted:Ah, the "I hate unions and won't participate in them and will actively complain about their existence constantly but if they actually managed to get me a raise I'll still take the raise," philosophy applied to politics. Except in this case you'd need to actively participate in a union in hopes that it manages to organize a sinking ship of nearly 8 billion people into no longer sinking all while the officers running the ship keep pumping water into the ship to ensure the showers still function. Look if you're agreeing with the argument we need to wait for a republican chudge to die and also wait till we have a demographic advantage to ensure that a republican (and democrats like manchin) is no longer able to win and appoint bad climate judges you're saying we should not meaningfully start to address climate change for what? A decade? Two decades? There is not one projection that gives us ten years of can kicking much less TWENTY. You could make the argument that Dems make it easier to pass meaningful climate legislation but you simply cannot argue that voting matters.... As soon as a random judge is no longer there.
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Sep 20, 2021 11:09
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the_steve posted:I guess you have to ask yourself what's worse; Almost starting several wars, or actually succeeding in starting one war that lasted for 20 years? My dude Trump zapped Soleimani and let Israel run a rampage over civilians without even an attempt to hide it, with the only thing actually keeping something bigger from keeping off being the reformists in power at the time and several stars aligning just right. This is barely counts as damning with faint praise and reeks of some harebrained attempt to integrate the happenstances of a a completely unchanged imperial machine into an insipid culture war. Famine is still wracking Yemen, sanctions are killing Iranians from medical neglect alone, Trump did nothing to hinder either this or our continued escalation of tensions with China because if there is one thing the right loves it is killing millions on the reg and going "I'm not touching you". America has more means of destroying countries than the old ways that can most obviously blow up in one's face and the point of contention being whether or not the fat fop from NYC failed at being the absolute worst he could be is doing an enormous disservice to a reality that has not meaningfully changed aside from some black eyes everyone saw coming years away. All this just looks like asinine point-scoring that makes no sense within a wider context and stinks of desperation, as if the left is still in some bargaining phase as to what the Trump years actually meant as opposed to what it tells itself. I don't even know if I'm really trying to harp on you over trying to figure it out, but it's like we -- radicals as well -- are all still playing the exact same left critique game from the Obama years and haven't fully processed that we're all in so much deeper poo poo than all that.
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Sep 20, 2021 11:52
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Nix Panicus posted:And in the meantime keep drilling oil and cooking the planet because nobody can do anything? Sure. We've got back up planets, no big rush. I believe that Fart Simpson was being sarcastic.
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Sep 20, 2021 12:56
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fart simpson posted:maybe we just have to wait until that one judge is gone and also never allow republicans to appoint another judge until then So if we want to stop oil drilling we gave to win every election for the next 50 years until every Trump judge finally dies of old age, but if the people who want to cook the planet win a single election in all that time the clock starts over and we need to wait another 50 years before voting will do anything Whew what a relief, for a minute there I was starting to think this was a rigged system! Josef bugman posted:I believe that Fart Simpson was being sarcastic. What's funny is it doesn't matter whether he was sarcastic or sincere, because it's an accurate summary of what we're told anyway. The powerful do what they want and find an election to blame it on. Women's right to choose is being destroyed under a unitary Democratic trifecta right now, and even though they have the power to pass Roe v Wade into federal law and make all this Supreme Court wrangling about constitutional penumbras irrelevant, what are they doing? Shaming people for not voting for Hillary Clinton and blaming their refusal to act now after they won on an election they lost 5 years ago Well I loving voted for Hillary and Biden so what good did that do for women I know who can't get an abortion now if they need one. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Sep 20, 2021 |
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Sep 20, 2021 13:12
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Nix Panicus posted:So democrats control the entire machinery of government based on overwhelming popular vote, but we can't stop drilling for oil because one guy got appointed under Trump and nobody can do anything about it? Sounds more like voting doesn't matter, the ruling class can always find some excuse why a mandate can't actually change anything before shrugging their shoulders and saying to vote harder next time, when the one judge will still be able to stop everything I remember democrats voting for a lot of Trump’s judges. I wonder if that one judge was approved by Democrats as well
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Sep 20, 2021 16:09
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https://twitter.com/AP/status/1439748416767238150?s=20 Time to primary the parliamentari-hey wait a minute This is, what, the third parliamentarian excuse they've used this administration? I can't think of a better way to illustrate what a farce this all is, it's honestly beyond satire. If this was all a TV show it'd be panned for being too outrageous. I mean even if you take as gospel that voting (in American elections for Democrats) matters and will actually change things, that this is all reality and not just late capital imperial core kayfabe, you've got to: - Only vote for Democrats (can't spoil via third party candidates) - Only vote for Democrats who are conservative enough to not spook the voting base but also not conservative enough to try and tank your agenda like your Manchins and Sinemas - Ensure you're voting in enough progressive Democrats that you can endure however many Manchins and Sinemas make their way in and preserve enough of a progressive majority to further your agenda - Never, ever lose the office of the presidency even once in the next fifty years or the clock resets to zero, especially if a SCOTUS justice might die in any four year stretch (so, always) - Pray to Moloch that they don't gin up some Calvinball rule like ~the parliamentarian~ who tells you that no, you can't actually do the thing you wanted because it's against The Rules and there's nothing whatsoever that you can do about this (please don't investigate what other people and parties have done in this situation in the past, it can't apply here and it'll make you just as bad as trump). Even if voting mattered in some sort of abstract sense it's just totally ridiculous to think that a voting base that is increasingly not having their material needs addressed will remain coherent and disciplined enough to play this game for decades.
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Sep 20, 2021 16:50
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I'm a parliamentarian!
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Sep 20, 2021 17:27
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Winning in the Georgia special elections has to be the worst thing to happen to the democrats, because now they have to come up with excuses like parliamentarians for why they can't get anything done instead of just pointing at mean old Mitch McConnell and making another turtle joke. I enjoy that data center consolidation enthusiast Ossoff managed to help gently caress everything up by winning
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Sep 20, 2021 22:01
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Kavros posted:I'm a parliamentarian! I have just as much authority as the Parliamentarian, I just don't have as many people who believe me.
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Sep 20, 2021 22:17
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the_steve posted:I have just as much authority as the Parliamentarian, I just don't have as many people who believe me. The parliamentarian can make congresspeople unable to post for 6h?
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Sep 20, 2021 22:18
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fool of sound posted:The parliamentarian can make congresspeople unable to post for 6h? Yeah, it's how they're able to keep winning all of their arguments about why you can't actually do The Thing.
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Sep 20, 2021 22:34
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the_steve posted:Yeah, it's how they're able to keep winning all of their arguments about why you can't actually do The Thing. Abuse of power to shape conversations and steer any uncomfortable discussion into silos is pretty useful. They should let the parliamentarian tell senators to take their discussion to another committee whenever it starts looking bad for the democrats
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Sep 20, 2021 22:40
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E:nm
CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Sep 21, 2021 |
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Sep 21, 2021 03:25
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Nix Panicus posted:Winning in the Georgia special elections has to be the worst thing to happen to the democrats, because now they have to come up with excuses like parliamentarians for why they can't get anything done instead of just pointing at mean old Mitch McConnell and making another turtle joke. Oh god please don't let the parliamentarian decree that it's against the rules to do anything about America's unconsolidated data centers
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Sep 21, 2021 04:29
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Honestly the US Constitution sucks and no government with it will ever be able to really rule effectively again.
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Sep 21, 2021 11:00
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Panzeh posted:Honestly the US Constitution sucks and no government with it will ever be able to really rule effectively again. Thankfully the founders wisely saw to it that it's almost impossible to get loving rid of.
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Sep 21, 2021 11:10
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Sanguinia posted:Do people who talk about Trump's "good," effects vis a vis being incompetent at directing our global neo-imperialist engine just, like, forget how he almost started three wars in four years? Or does "ReSuLtS nOt InTeNT," just always outmuscle everything including avoiding conflicts which would have probably dwarfed Afghanistan on the carnage scale by literally the skin of our teeth? I like how you say this as if "Results, not intent" is an unreasonable position to hold. I guess we have to weigh the hearts of politicians to figure out if they are good or bad instead? To be clear, I'm not praising Trump's foreign policy, as you say he only managed not to start wars through dumb luck. I'm saying I think Clinton would have been worse, and the claim I responded to was that "There has not been in several decades an instance where a Democrat losing an election made something good happen". In this case I think a Democrat losing an election reduced harm to non-Americans, and I know how much people around here appreciate a good harm reduction argument.
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Sep 21, 2021 18:36
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VitalSigns posted:So if we want to stop oil drilling we gave to win every election for the next 50 years until every Trump judge finally dies of old age, but if the people who want to cook the planet win a single election in all that time the clock starts over and we need to wait another 50 years before voting will do anything yes, it sounds like the argument being presented is almost that we need to turn into a literal one party state in order for our votes to matter
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Sep 22, 2021 06:30
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fart simpson posted:yes, it sounds like the argument being presented is almost that we need to turn into a literal one party state in order for our votes to matter I think it's more that there are still lingering consequences of the 2016 election that were not completely reset by 2020, and are slowing things down, like this ruling (which is being appealed, for whatever that's worth) Throwing your hands in the air and saying "well we might as well never vote ever because things haven't all been magically fixed" is a bit myopic.
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Sep 22, 2021 08:10
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Just responding to some answers I got in a different thread so that I am at least replying, but also not derailing.Nelson Mandingo posted:In a perfect world, absolutely. But we don't live in a perfect world. "We don't live in a perfect world ergo X" is a something I disagree with a lot. Not least because "we don't live in a perfect world ergo I am justified in doing bad things" seems to be a very common refrain for some of the worst people alive. Alongside that I would also say that "oh the third party will never win here" was true of things like the SNP over here before it suddenly wasn't. If we are to try and change the world then just going "your wasting your time voting third party" seems counterintuitive. I do sort of understand, but I also think we shouldn't have to compromise ourselves in order to justify ourselves, as it were. Jarmak posted:Ideally you should, but your vote should be based on that will make the country a better place, not what makes you feel good. I would hope that if your not voting to make a country a better place you probably shouldn't be voting at all. Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The whole reason they give you your own private booth, a velvet curtain, and an unlimited amount of time in the booth is because it is supposed to feel a little bit dirty. Nobody can see how you work that lever or where you put your finger on that screen except for you and god. I reject this on a conceptual level. There reason is so that you don't have someone with power come round and break your kneecaps. You should vote with your conscience towards something good not feel "dirty" after voting. That sounds so, and I do beg your pardon, odd to me.
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Sep 22, 2021 09:03
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I think it's more that there are still lingering consequences of the 2016 election that were not completely reset by 2020, and are slowing things down, like this ruling (which is being appealed, for whatever that's worth) Just to be clear people aren't saying "do nothing", they're saying that other forms of political action are needed. Also I don't have any objection to people voting really since it doesn't take that much effort in most cases. I just don't see it as being terribly valuable. What I do object to is spending a ton of time, money and effort getting generic Democrat #643 elected since that's time that could better be spent elsewhere. E: I also object to "lesser evil" voting but that's an entirely different discussion.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:47
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Josef bugman posted:I reject this on a conceptual level. There reason is so that you don't have someone with power come round and break your kneecaps. You should vote with your conscience towards something good not feel "dirty" after voting. That sounds so, and I do beg your pardon, odd to me. Like I said in the USNews thread, we've been pretty well gaslit into thinking that voting is a team sport that we're dutybound to help the Red or Blue team win, instead of what it's supposed to be - showing support for policies and platforms we want to see implemented. Anything that isn't giving the Blue team the vote to which they're entitled by merit of not being the Red team is seen as being "stolen" by third party votes, if not somehow magically delivered to the Red team.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:54
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the_steve posted:Like I said in the USNews thread, we've been pretty well gaslit into thinking that voting is a team sport that we're dutybound to help the Red or Blue team win, instead of what it's supposed to be - showing support for policies and platforms we want to see implemented. The thing that annoys me most about the team sports attitude towards politics is that it never, EVER accounts for the ability of a national party to change it’s platform/lineup of candidates/etc to reach left wing voters. For example it’s not the Democrat’s fault that they ran a candidate so uniquely hated that she lost to Donald loving Trump. It’s the left’s fault for not voting for somebody who told them at every turn that she didn’t support their worldview or policies. It’s not Hillary’s fault for obsessively triangulating her platform down to the bare minimum to appeal to Republican swing voters who never materialized, it’s a tiny fraction of the left for writing in Jill Stein in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, the Democrat’s would take notice and do better. It’s incredibly obnoxious and I have to imagine it loses them votes in the long run. Of course the point is to justify a conservative platform after the fact, not to win over voters so I don’t see it changing any time soon.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:03
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Esran posted:I like how you say this as if "Results, not intent" is an unreasonable position to hold. I guess we have to weigh the hearts of politicians to figure out if they are good or bad instead? There are more ways for the United States to do harm to non-Americans than just using military power. Four years of going backwards on climate change is going to ultimately be far more destructive to vastly more people than any imaginary wars you think Clinton would have engaged in.
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Sep 23, 2021 16:32
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:There are more ways for the United States to do harm to non-Americans than just using military power. Four years of going backwards on climate change is going to ultimately be far more destructive to vastly more people than any imaginary wars you think Clinton would have engaged in. https://mobile.twitter.com/slate/status/706699253217955840
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Sep 23, 2021 16:43
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:There are more ways for the United States to do harm to non-Americans than just using military power. Four years of going backwards on climate change is going to ultimately be far more destructive to vastly more people than any imaginary wars you think Clinton would have engaged in. backwards from what? we have never gone in the right direction on climate change, ever, under any president
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Sep 23, 2021 16:50
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fart simpson posted:backwards from what? we have never gone in the right direction on climate change, ever, under any president Yes, but surely you agree that 125 mph is much much better than 130 mph! Just imagine, if you make sure to Vote with all your heart, Blue Team will have a mandate to form a committee to issue a recommendation to create a task force to look into the viability of reducing to 120mph by 2075! Yes, that is long, long after we hit the wall, but 125 is still better than 130! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 23, 2021 16:59
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I didn't know accelerationism was meant so literally
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Sep 23, 2021 20:06
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https://twitter.com/jasonkoppel/status/1441103821413896204?s=21 It’s stuff like this which made me question the whole lesser evil and vote blue no matter who and harm reduction. What harm is this evil reducing? Why should I as a voter support a party that fully supports an apartheid government?
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Sep 23, 2021 20:17
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theCalamity posted:https://twitter.com/jasonkoppel/status/1441103821413896204?s=21 Teams blue and red both overwhelmingly support ethnic cleansing, genocide, and crimes against humanity, unfortunately. You don't really get a choice in the US.
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Sep 23, 2021 20:27
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With the way she almost single-handedly sold fracking throughout the country to make the US oil independent, Hillary Clinton is probably second only to Thomas Midgely Jr as the single organism most responsible for the destruction of the entire planet's biosphere. There's some kinda okay arguments for why a Hillary presidency would have been a meaningfully better world, but climate change is the worst possible way to make that case lol, Trump was too stupid to do as much damage to the planet as she did, he just went with the flow of capital's desire to wreck the planet for a quick buck: she enthusiastically fought to convince them to destroy the world as fast as possible.
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Sep 23, 2021 20:59
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Your claim is contradicted by the slate article you posted a tweet of without contextualizing or reading. Even the most strongly phrased of the articles cited in that article, the Mother Jones piece, does not actually attribute this sort of intention to Clinton unless you exclusively read the title and dropped into a fugue staring at the cover image.
Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Sep 23, 2021 |
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Sep 23, 2021 21:42
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