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I have something I am morally undecided about, and I hope it is an appropriate subject for this thread. I, and everyone else in the conversation, were understandably probated for talking about it in the USCE thread, and the conversation was pretty heated (I made a really dumb post and deserved my own probation, to be sure). I hope bringing up the background of that conversation isn't in some way improper, but I think it's helpful to explain where I'm coming from. I believe that Joe Biden's actions are bad. Really morally, horrifyingly bad, with regards to Gaza. I think there is a truly horrifying genocide happening right now, and one of the few people in the world who could materially affect it is not doing everything he can to do so. I am explaining this to emphasize that I am not giving Biden a pass on this one. "Actually he's not that bad" would be a solution to my dilemma, but it is not one that I personally can take. I'm not particularly interested in debating this point here- it is my opinion, and I'm outlining it just to explain my dilemma. I believe that Trump would be worse, both on Gaza, and for a myriad other reasons. The opinion was presented in USCE that Trump could not be worse on Gaza, as if Biden was maximally bad. I do not agree with that. I believe Trump can and will make the situation worse. This can and has been debated, but I would like to again present this as my opinion for the following scenario. If we accept the two above points, how am I not obliged to vote for someone who is, politically, to me, truly reprehensible? Logically I cannot see a way around it. I would like to see a way around it. I would feel better about myself if I did not vote for Biden. But I do not understand how There are other things I can and do do to affect the world. I acknowledge that my vote is probably not even the most important among those things. But in November I am going to have to either stay home, or go vote. There are no other options. This is context for the following exchange I would like to revisit: Eiba posted:The most comfortable position is actually that things are the worst they can be so you don't need to worry about your vote/lack of vote making things worse. That's way more comforting than the idea that you might be morally obligated to support a genocider to prevent a worse genocider from gaining power. Gripweed posted:I'm sorry, but this is nuts. You get that this is nuts, right? You are not morally obligated to vote for a genocidaire. You are in fact morally obligated to not do that. You do not pick between the lesser of two genocides, you refuse the question. The inaction of not endorsing genocide is always morally superior to the action of endorsing a genocide. If genocide is inevitable then at the very least do not stain your own soul by giving it your stamp of approval. I do not see how this is "nuts". I would really like it to be explained more clearly what is absurd about my logic. I don't know what "refusing the question" looks like. Not voting increases the likelihood that the thing I'm horrified by is going to be worse, because I would vote for Biden, and therefore staying home makes a Trump victory more likely. I want to emphasize again that I'm not interested in debating the premise. Maybe Biden isn't that bad, maybe Trump wouldn't be worse. Those are just factual questions. If we assume that Biden is totally repugnant, and Trump is worse, what do I do? I understand a lot of people think the answer is obviously to vote for Biden, but I do not want to, and some people were very stridently arguing that I do not have to vote for Biden, and I would like to hear more from that perspective, which is very appealing to me, even if I cannot currently logically accept it. I would also add that, while I am carefully making this about my own opinion to focus the issue, I believe this issue is at the core of a lot of the heated electoral politics discussions I have read on these forums, and I hope clearly laying out the logic of this dilemma is helpful for focusing other people's opinions as well.
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Feb 14, 2024 01:21
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edit: Misclick
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Feb 14, 2024 03:55
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Kalit posted:
Except while I was pleasantly surprised by Biden, and gave him a lot of credit for pulling out of Afghanistan even though he hosed it up, I think what's going on in Gaza is a horrific crime against humanity the likes of which I have never seen in my conscious life and merely 'disapproving' of excess violence when stronger tools are available is tantamount to complicity. Whether he's making a (quite possibly rational) political calculation, or acting on his sincere beliefs, his actions are repugnant to me. But that's just my opinion, and not the point I wanted to debate. Accepting that I am not okay with Biden at all anymore- that he has crossed a moral line with me personally- I still can't justify not voting for him based on the belief that Trump would clearly be worse. Probably Magic posted:I bring these up to say, as badly as it may initially feel, it's unlikely your vote will mean anything. But! That means your vote will never give the election to Trump nor would it be needed by Biden to maintain power. That will be decided by people with the dumbest ideas ever, who want free weed but also think we need to re-invade Japan to get our jobs back, people who can't be reasoned with and very much will swing the election over false information. People who think Obama is a Muslim and that was a good thing, that kind of thing. So vote for who you want! If you really don't feel great voting for Biden, he probably doesn't need your vote! He didn't need mine to win. He's expressly said, multiple times, he doesn't want the votes of people who disagree with his border policy or think he's a rapist or etc. You're under no obligation to hand your vote to a guy who doesn't even want it. I don't know if that's helpful, but hopefully it's some food for thought. It may be that I'm thinking about it way more than the masses who will eventually decide the election, and even "people like me" are a vanishingly small irrelevant portion of the electorate. In fact that's objectively true. But if everyone acted on that knowledge then things would get even stupider. So I'm going to do my part and vote (or not vote) my conviction in a way that would be sustainable if a large number of people made the same choice. I'm open to strategically voting- that is, voting for a third party or not voting to "send a message" but I am aware that if I do so in a close election I am actively helping the candidate I like less. In this case I hate both candidates so much that the candidate I like less is really bad to me. This is the core of my dilemma. This is only tangentially related, but I feel I should add: In 2016 when the side I wanted to move closer to my position lost, they did not in fact seem to consider that catering to my preferences would get them more votes. If anything people talked about becoming more like their opponents and less like I would like them to be. I do not think causing a party to lose an election by staying home is an effective way to influence their positions. I did vote for Clinton in 2016 myself, but my conviction at that time was that Trump was historically terrible and dangerous. I feel history has vindicated that decision- contributing to Clinton's defeat would not have helped advance my beliefs, and Trump was historically terrible and damaging to my country. I feel like this is a similar situation, but Biden is (in my opinion) more actively responsible for things I am horrified by than Clinton was. I feel I have to vote for Biden for the same reasons, but I really do not want to.
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Feb 14, 2024 04:25
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So... "go ahead and vote for Biden"? Is that what you're saying? That is my current position. I was mainly curious to hear from people who thought it was not just reasonable but a moral imperative to not vote for him. And for the record, I think the issue (for me) is that I believe he is contributing to a uniquely horrific crime against humanity. The violence inherent in any position of power is not what's got me bothered in this case. I can rationalize that away. If most people in a similar situation to me are okay supporting Biden because he's "not that bad" then, well, that's fair. But it's not the situation I am in. This might ultimately be about how I see the morality/culpability of what's going on in Gaza, which would put it outside the scope of this thread. I would accept that if it were the case.
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Feb 14, 2024 04:50
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selec posted:Bar is this an unironic “but at least the trains run on time” argument about funding a genocide or am I reading it wrong? I think Josef bugman is correct in saying these kinds of things are "not enough," but I don't quite follow the electoral implications of that. I don't see how Biden losing will lead to a situation where "enough" is actually done (apologies if this was not the intended point- I haven't followed the entire conversation leading up to this). And the decent things that "aren't enough" are still really loving important to the affected people. Bar Ran Dun was apparently pointing this out, and I have no idea how you could read their post the way you did.
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Mar 4, 2024 01:38
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hooman posted:Every time the centrist party bows to the right they're enabling the slide into the totalitarian nightmare. The right wing becomes more extreme in response. That is why I think what the democrats are doing is not enough, passively sliding right is what is going to create fascism. It's not that the Democratic party isn't helping people, it's that they're not helping people enough to prevent them being radicalised against the system because the system loving sucks for people and they're not making it sufficiently better to keep people wanting the system to exist. If people are radicalized against the system because the Democrats are ineffective at providing a system that actually works for people, then that is inevitable at this point. The Democrats in power are "decorum poisoned," or more generously they have a belief in the importance of procedure and norms to maintain stability. So these politicians will never do "enough" without a big enough majority they are unlikely to get any time soon. If they need to lose to Republicans to be replaced, irrevocable damage will be done. The conclusion I would draw from your very valid insights are that primaries are really important and we should do a heck of a lot more to make sure our dissatisfaction is heard during them. What you're saying is largely reasonable, but I don't see how the situation would improve if Democrats (even conservative Democrats) lost more often to Republicans.
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Mar 4, 2024 02:05
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I completely agree with people saying that the idea of voting for Biden is repugnant because of the vile things he is responsible for. But so what? Is the purpose of voting to feel good? I deeply appreciate GlyphGryph's question being asked and their stubbornness in not accepting half answers to it. Because I desperately hope that there is a good answer to it. I hate genocide and hold Biden responsible. But Biden losing will not do a single thing to materially help mitigate the genocide. I have trans loved ones, and Biden losing very directly puts their health and wellbeing at risk. If the argument is my vote won't make a difference either way, then this whole discussion is pointless. We have to assume our vote matters, otherwise literally who cares? The genocide my country is supporting is stomach churning, and I have been as active as I am able with protests and financial support of groups I hope might do something to change the situation. The idea of voting for someone who is supporting that genocide is deeply morally offensive to me. But so what? The voting isn't what I'm horrified by, it's the genocide. And voting and not voting do exactly the same thing to actually stop the genocide: absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, I have other very deeply held values. Not ones that supersede my opposition to genocide, but pretty non-trivial ones in any case. If someone was somehow running on a transphobic and anti-genocide platform, I'd have a lot of hard thinking I'd have to do. That would be a hosed up dilemma. But with things as they are, I can't even get to that point. If I hate genocide, and care about trans people, and I imagine my vote makes a difference, I have to vote for pro-genocide Biden. At least that's how things look to me. If your only argument is that you can't support genocide (which is a pretty sympathetic argument to me!), I just can't make the moral connection between that and voting when voting and not voting have the exact same effect on the actual genocide.
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May 8, 2024 19:55
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Gnumonic posted:This is a bizarre objection. If someone thinks that certain actions are intrinsically morally wrong (and most people do - even if you disagree that this action isn't intrinsically morally wrong, I doubt you'd seriously argue that, e.g., raping a baby to death to save 10 lives could ever be morally obligatory), then not performing the morally wrong action is, directly, the only coherent way to "serve those values". Even if we were to accept that consequentialism isn't the end of the story all your examples of it feeling intuitively wrong involve deciding to actively participate in harming someone. Is that remotely analogous to voting? And further, even if those scenarios can be held up as examples of utilitarianism not being intuitive... are they wrong? If your Jewish friend in the concentration camp is pleading with you to do what little you can to make the situation less brutal, is it obviously right to tell them to gently caress off and suffer because you're not dirtying your hands with something so obviously immoral, even with the sole aim of helping them however you are able? Because in the simplified dilemma I feel I am facing with this election, the plight of my trans loved ones is incredibly pressing and immediate, and while I agree that voting for someone supporting a genocide is morally repugnant, how is that "intrinsically morally wrong action" relevant in the face of the material reality my trans partner is going to face? You don't just have to make the case that voting could be intrinsically morally wrong, you also have to explain how that purely theoretical state that in this case necessarily has absolutely no bearing on what actions will actually occur in the future, is more important than the very real material consequences. Or at least that's what I would personally like explained.
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May 9, 2024 03:24
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Halloween Jack posted:I suppose that a lot of people in the political center don't really have ethical principles. They see credible accusations as points scored in a debate; the actual impact doesn't mean anything to them. I guess I don't see a vote as an endorsement, rather it's a tool. You have a (very small) ability to steer the course of events. I don't want to overstate the importance of that- your individual influence is negligible, and voting is very definitely not enough on its own if you want the world to be less lovely, but it's also not more than that. You're not signing up as a member of Team Biden and standing by everything he is. You're just stating a preference. Basically I don't see how the (very real and terrible) ethical failings of Biden end up rubbing off on a voter who is in their heart only voting against Trump. This gets back to where I'm coming from- I understand why you wouldn't want to vote for Biden. I do not want to vote for Biden myself. I would feel a lot better if I didn't have to vote for him. But the only justifications that have been presented amount to, "this is my personal line in the sand, crossing it would make me uncomfortable," and honestly I don't really care about abstract comfort. I want to know what actual difference it would make. How would the world be a better place if I didn't vote for Biden?
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May 9, 2024 18:38
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World Famous W posted:you admit that the effect of your vote is miniscule to the point of not mattering yet you still feel like you must participate to make the world a better place That's been mentioned a few times and isn't a particularly interesting or pressing idea to explore for its own sake, at least to me. A vote doesn't matter, but voting matters, so we should treat our individual votes like they matter. Do you mean to engage with the point I'm making and you're saying that since we're treating our votes like they matter, they are somehow a more meaningful endorsement than I'm making them out to be?
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May 9, 2024 19:06
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That's a pity because I'm coming from a very similar place, and that last leap is something I want to understand. I feel like it's horrible to vote for Biden, but when I think about it I cannot come up with any coherent reason not to. But I guess if that last leap is basically, "I am effectively responsible for all the morally objectionable actions of someone I vote for but at the same time I am not responsible the actions of someone who is elected because I didn't vote," then you're right, I'm probably not going to be able to see that as a coherent way of looking at the world.
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May 9, 2024 19:28
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Fister Roboto posted:People keep bringing up the trolley problem, but it's really not that simple is it? Putting aside the fact that the trolley problem is a thought experiment with no objective correct answer. This isn't a simple matter of pulling a switch to save four people by sacrificing one. Instead, it's millions of people voting on whether to pull the switch or not, and some people's votes don't even count! Like I said in my previous post, I could vote to pull the switch and it wouldn't get pulled, or vice versa. And further down the line is another junction, with even more people tied to the track. This situation is absurd to me, and I think it's reasonable to want to say "this is completely hosed up, I'm not going to participate in it at all". Or at the very least "I'm going to vote for this third track that has no people tied to it, even if nobody else wants to vote for it for whatever reason." It's a hosed up trolley, we all agree about that. But what does taking the moral high ground actually do?
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May 9, 2024 21:27
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