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Civilized Fishbot posted:Yes, if you're choosing between different votes that make different outcomes more likely, you're responsible for the outcomes that you know you're making more likely and for the outcomes that you know you're making less likely. Europoster here: We just had our presidential election and there was a clown car of 9 candidates because most established parties ran their own guy or gal. It was pretty clear that the Left Alliance lady didn't have a chance of getting elected, but some people still voted for her because she was the most left-wing slash progressive candidate available. Also the youngest. I honestly don't see how that voting choice implicates people for the actions of the neo-lib poo poo-bird who wound up winning, the whole idea of the multi-party system is (in theory anyway) voting for your values. That is maybe more true historically since during the previous century most political parties were explicitly the political representation group for some interest group in the nation (workers, capitalists, agrarian people, etc.), but nowadays the parties are trying to be slightly more diverse, either honestly or dishonestly. Obviously the neo-lib poo poo bird party is the party of neo-lib shitbird values, but they marketed their dude as the "unifier of the nation", and so on. Anyway, the moral logic you've outlined seems to boil down to a moral argument necessitating a two-party system, since voting for the minor parties will most likely result in a sub-optimal outcome for the policy that follows. This seems bizarre to me, having grown up in a nation where there's always been ten-ish parties with 3 or 4 big ones. I did not vote for our neo-lib candidate for president, but due to not gaming my vote, I am morally culpable for his existence? This is even worse in the election for our parliament (mostly because our president doesn't actually do much), where typically the largest party will be given primacy as the former of the coalition government that follows, but at this stage the voters have no (direct) say in which parties wind up forming the coalition. If I cannot predict what my vote will even accomplish, as you say I cannot foresee what my vote will do, and the logic behind my vote seems like it doesn't need to be gamified 100%; just vote whomever you please. I understand the frustration of the US system where effectively there are only two groups to vote for, the other more preferable but still potentially revolting, like some people here have expressed feeling over Biden's foreign policy choices. Looking at it from my perspective, I have a hard time with the sometimes expressed moral logic that withholding a vote from the Dems is automatically supporting Republicans. Especially in states where one party dominates; abstaining from voting won't have a mathematically significant effect in that scenario, so how is the non-voter responsible, morally, for things they can't even meaningfully effect? This seems like a weird hostage situation where politicians are "owed" votes, morally, instead of receiving votes for their perceived policy goals (or how one would like to have a beer with them, etc.)
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Feb 14, 2024 17:22
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I'm not telling anyone how to vote, just explaining that the principle underlying our moral responsibility for the consequences of our actions is the same for voting/not voting for a candidate as donating/not donating to a fund or buckling/not buckling your seatbelt etc. if you know that what you're doing will change what might happen in the future, compared to other choices you could make, you are obviously responsible for those changes. Right, but my point was that if either due to lack of information (which of our parties will go into the coalition) or lack of political power (Dem voter in a burning red state), then the voting decision's moral implications are different. Maybe we're just agreeing with each other at this point though, but I've seen the politicians-are-owed-your-support reasoning expressed quite often out in the wild too, and it seems quizzical to me because that ultimately seems to defeat the point of a representative democracy. If I'm given a reasonably informed decision making chance, like with Biden and Trump, there seem to be valid reasons for not supporting Biden, but on the other hand it is true that with inaction it is possible society in the US will be more regressive and lovely for e.g. minorities. It seems to me that morally this choice can be impossible, people have different values (like let's say Biden's Israel policies) and morality isn't IMO absolute. I realize my different political system experience changes how I view this calculation, but representative democracy should be choosing one's values or the closest facsimile. But that's a technical argument, not a moral one.
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Feb 14, 2024 17:51
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Yeah, I apologize, I didn't mean to imply it was your position.
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Feb 14, 2024 18:13
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Kalit posted:What current country has done enough for you to be satisfied with the 10000 foot view? I cannot think of a single one. This seems like an unsatisfactory answer. If no one can provide a good example, if we grant your hypothesis, then one need never be presented? We can argue that it all went sideways around the time when Ike made the speech about the military-industrial complex and how he saw that as a Bad Thing, but the POTUSes since have also wielded immense power, and it isn't an unreasonable ask to say they should be held to high scrutiny. If someone doesn't vote for anyone for that office, it doesn't invalidate their choice by simply saying "every other nation is crap too, what do you want from me, I'm walking 'ere?" Does withholding that vote make a difference? Probably not, but it seems like a reasonable argument that if someone wishes to abstain from voting for all the bad poop, they should be free to do so, without anyone scolding them.
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Mar 30, 2024 14:40
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I didn't mean to suggest you were making a call for Team D no matter what, I apologize. I vote in (somewhat less important) elections every chance I get, and I understand voting third party in the US. Everyone posting in Dungeons and Debates that cares enough about voting probably does, I just meant that your specific argument, which I probably misread, that because no nation is perfect therefore abstaining from voting is a poor choice. Which does not seem to follow, not voting can be a valid choice for many reasons, moral ones among them.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:01
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