One is a good cop, the other is a bad cop. But the good cop enables the bad cop. So both are still pigs.
I mean if one guy murders 7 people and the other murders 70, sure there’s a difference, you’re right.
JFC the amount of people in this thread who want a more palatable tyrant to be the next president, is concerning.
Good thing most of these never leave their parents’ basements though.
Thank God the Democrats sacrificed their majority to keep the filibuster
One side aligns with my views 70% of the time. The other actively wants me and everyone like me to die. I refuse to acknowledge the differences between them. I’ll actually deploy this lack of understanding as a weapon to depress voter turnout and make sure the second group gets to wield power!
Do you not care about GENOCIDE???
/s
Genocide Joe!
Making sure the party that continually starts new wars in the Middle East gets elected will surely help my cause!
<Trump and Bibi plan a resort where Palestinians will be removed from their homes and likely largely killed>
“Yeah but you support GENOCIDE!”
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You say ‘Genocide Joe!’ like he didn’t actually support and enthusiastically aid a genocide.
Good thing he wasn’t on the ballot then
No his VP was
Took 6 comments to loop right back around to the meme
Good thing the candidate that was on the ballot wasn’t associated with him or his administration in any way and also vigorously denounced genocide at every opportunity! Right? … right??
Right, Harris sucked. So glad I didn’t vote and Trump won instead. That has worked out so much better for Iran and the rest of the world, too. Could you imagine even trying to justify voting in the last election?!?!
Oops, that damn goalpost keeps moving around! Better tie it down!
More like supported and slightly reluctantly aided.
I expect there were guardrails that Israel was careful not to cross. You know, like completely flattening Gaza and demolishing southern Lebanon.
It’s still AIPAC fueled genocide, but I definitely preferred the slower version to what we have now.
“If it hadn’t been for Genocide Joe, I’d been married long time 'go…”
Yes. We must bring genocide to the U.S. and maintain the genocides overseas!
Can you explain this to me like I’m dumb? Cause I am. Is this making fun of the people who choose someone who’s literally not connected to the track?
It must be so nice having worldviews that can be fully encapsulated by trolley memes
Well first you gotta gimme an example of one that wouldn’t fit.
I guess the view that I want to articulate could be represented as a trolley meme with the following changes:
- The lever has only some unknown probability of steering the trolley’s path
- Millions of other people also influence the lever to degrees which are unknown
- The track splits into at least 10 different paths instead of two
- There are more splits off of each subsequent path
- Each path also produces benefits to some actors (not sure how we’d represent that)
If I try to simplify these changes, though, then maybe I could depict my view a bit like this?
But hey, that’s just theory…
GAME THEORY
Ngl I seen trolly memes set up like this before :p
Perhaps I should have said “worldviews that can be encapsulated by single-junction trolley memes”, lol
Either way, you gotta have your hand on the lever!
Yes, despite my sassiness towards you in this thread this is a true and wise observation that goes ignored too often. My disagreements are not pertaining to the idea of inaction constituting action
i’m somewhat of a centrist so i think it’s gotta be somewhere between these two:
Those are both encapsulated at the bottom of the meme!
i mean not really, it’s not out of moralism that i choose not to vote for genocidal warmonger red/blue, in fact the moralism is thinking voting for genocidaires is ‘pragmatic’. not to mention continuing to votescold people over a year later lmao
organizing outside electoralism builds actual power. voting for slightly different managers of the same bloodthirsty war machine doesn’t
While organizing outside electoralism is great, electoralism is still the primary way power is apportioned in this country. Abandoning electoralism is ceding power to people who will use it for evil.
The stakes are the future of the world.
if the ‘future of the world’ hinges on genociding an expendible out-group and the system is powerless to change that, then i choose to walk away from omelas
Voting for neither is the same as voting for both.
Voting for neither is the same as voting for both.
if voting for neither is the same voting for both, then can we formally acknowledge that my vote makes zero difference and maybe people can stop votescolding?
Needs to be updated to add the Iranian flag to the GOP track. Man, do I wish there were a realistic way to choose that bottom track!
it’s simple, you just don’t vote for the genocidal warmonger party, then if enough people do that you win
blowing up/ derailing the trolly also works
And there’s no viable way to do that under the current system, which is why the track isn’t connected.
i love how you concede that the system is so dysfunctional you can’t even oppose a genocide under it and simultaneously expect me to to believe that individuals voting (or not) is somehow making a meaningful difference in the outcome
it’s simple, you just don’t vote for the genocidal warmonger party, then if enough people do that you win
THAT’S NOT HOW VOTING WORKS!
People have to vote FOR the OTHER party, or else the genocidal warmonger party wins anyway!
You are saying shit that is both moronic and factually untrue.
you know there’s a non-genocidal warmonger party which could also be voted for.
I voted for them last election and don’t regret it
you know there’s a non-genocidal warmonger party which could also be voted for.
No there fucking wasn’t! Not one that could win! You’re a goddamned liar and you are helping the fascists!
funnything in rick and morty, the very same episode supernova says"what is is-rayel" referring to israel, rick and morty and FAMILY guy are 1 of the 2 shows that poke fun of the ridiculous of hte gaza/palestine conflict.
So, actually that question though? Genocide used to be a really, really bad thing, and here you’re making light of it. I feel like people have lost the plot a bit if they talk about an actual genocide like this. “Yeah, sure they committed a bit of genocide, but have you seen the other guy?” I feel like I’m losing my mind
Yes, genocide is bad. You know what’s worse? MORE genocide. That’s what we got from people not voting because of it.
If you market yourself as being against fascism, maybe don’t vehemently support a different fascist regime and shout down anyone who questions it.
The fact that people like you are spending your energy getting pissy with the voters and not the fucking Democratic party who refused to change their stance is fucking insane.
surprise: I can hold two thoughts in my head at once
Thoughts, sure. You’ve chosen to spend your time attacking those who wanted change, not the ones who refused to not back the systemic murder of an entire people.
Priorities.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t realize I’m a different person.
The two thoughts I hold are “on election day, it’s self-gratifying not to vote for the outcome with the highest lows, raising the floor” and “before and after election day, do whatever you can to make the lives of politicians who fail miserable and support better candidates, up to and including civil unrest”
Not voting is categorically ineffective. There may be plenty of things more effective than voting, but not voting isn’t one of them.
People love to present this scenario like it’s a lever with three positions: candidate A, candidate B, or civil unrest. But it’s not. It’s one switch with two buttons (candidate a, candidate b) and another separate button for civil unrest. You can do both
We have had years of constant video footage of it happening. Being desensitized is bound to happen.
I don’t know what kind of person could look at parents being handed the remains of their child in plastic baggies and at any point in their life go “oh wow are they still going on about the genocide?”
That isn’t what they were saying tho.
No, no one is saying those words exactly. But I see the sentiment be expressed in threads like this over and over, and it just doesn’t compute.
The only ones making light of genocide are the ones who helped make more of it happen through their refusal to vote for harm reduction.
No, it’s the people like you who are going: people should have voted for some genocide to prevent more genocide, instead of saying something sane like: maybe the fucking Democrats shouldn’t have been promoting a fascist in Israel while running on being anti fascist
instead of
LIAR! Of fucking course the Democrats shouldn’t have been doing that! Nobody’s disputing that! You are inventing a false dichotomy out of thin fucking air!
Who’s lying? You, right here in this thread, are ragging on the voters. Not the genocide supporting Democrats who refused to stop supporting fascist Netanyahu.
You have decided to spend your energy not attacking the corrupt shitbags, but the people who are stuck STILL asking them to change their stance. What the fuck are you fighting for?
You are cherry-picking only the things I said in this thread to try to crucify me for being on-topic. That’s disingenuous bullshit and you fucking know it.
And besides that…
Not the genocide supporting Democrats who refused to stop supporting fascist Netanyahu.
What part of “of fucking course the Democrats shouldn’t have been doing that” did you not understand? I did, in fact, criticize genocide-supporting Democrats right in the very comment you replied to!
And moreover, EVERY SINGLE OTHER COURSE OF ACTION SUPPORTED FASCIST NETANYAHU EVEN MORE.
You have decided to spend your energy not attacking the corrupt shitbags, but the people who are stuck STILL asking them to change their stance. What the fuck are you fighting for?
I’m fighting for you to quit being delusional accelerationist dipshits who cause more genocide, among countless other catastrophes, through your sheer stupidity!
I ALSO fight for replacing the genocide-supporting Democrats with something better, IN OTHER TIMES AND CONTEXTS WHERE IT’S ACTUALLY APPROPRIATE! And fuck you for telling lies, falsely claiming I don’t!
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One side aligns with my views 70% of the time
False.
One side SAYS they align with their views, and then do the same shit as Republicans, and kind of just expect you to swallow excuses. Meanwhile we’ve watched Donald act unilaterally with near absolute power for two years, so we know objectively that the lack of power was (and is) never the problem. It was that they didn’t actually support what they said they did.
It was never about lack of power, but upending the democratic process.
Any president could plow through using executive orders, but no sane person would want that, and the fact that Trump is using that kind of power virtually unopposed because the GOP controls both senate and congress, should terrify everyone. Instead, here we are, asking why his predecessors wouldn’t resort to despotic measures.
should terrify everyone.
LOL
People can’t pay their grocery bills, rent, get an abortion, and are being criminalized for being homeless and I’m still hearing people talking about norms as if that is the important issue.
It is a massive negative that Democrats, having had the power to change the (air quotes) “democratic process” at least twice in the last 20 years, across multiple economic calamities for workers, chose not to do so. (Conveniently while increasing their own wealth exponentially in the process.)
I want to understand what your playbook looks like here, because any executive order can be erased just as easy as it was signed.
But even more importantly, I want to know what the appeal is of a “Trump of the left”. Do people really think that a guy who believes that he has authority to hold both executive and legislative powers, is going to do better this time?
Someone that actually wants to disrupt the ills of the system could have tried effectively using the DOJ to imprison every pedophile, traitor, and corrupt politician currently in office, that would leave a nice heap of missing seats in the senate, getting a majority would be much easier. Remove the filibuster and pack the courts with a fresh set of folks like KBJ.
While you’re at it, use the DOE to enforce radical a climate agenda that disrupts the power of oil. You could even use the climate emergency to justify massive reductions in military presence around the world, letting the military budget go towards jobs programs for local green development. They could actually follow leahy laws and cut all military aid to Israel.
I would have hoped from the Trump presidency, more folks would realize the rules are largely built on biased interpretations and that you can bias those in other directions to make the country better. Now maybe you think I am absurd in my views, but maybe we can compromise a bit further than spending months with websites and means testing to slowly roll out partial student debt relief while giving all the time in the world for the right to send court cases against it. Put simply a Trump of the left would have done the effective thing of simply abolishing the debt unilaterally and giving the courts the much more difficult task of reinstating debt, rather than moving slow enough that it’s stopped before it starts.
See you say the same shit as repulicans but thats literally what the post is about. Democrats were never going to repeal abortion rights or the voting rights acts.they were never going to start an oil crisis or a trade war and tank the economy the same way. They were never going to support ice the same way (they actually just held out on a partial government shutdown and exceeded my expectations in doing so). Saying that they do the same is a straight up lie. And I’m not saying dems are perfect. The bar is in hell. But they aren’t doing the same.
Democrats were never going to repeal abortion rights
Roe v Wade was repealed under Biden
By republicans. Clearly you’ve never had a civics course or you wouldn’t say stupid shit that shows you don’t understand how the US federal government functions.
I’m well aware of how the US government functions, dipshit. You’re saying that because the results of your failed strategy are apparent.
Clearly you don’t.
You don’t ‘reinforce’ a law when there is established legal precedent because, there is legal precedent.
That’s like making more laws saying murder is illegal.
You accellerationists have such a chronic lack of understanding how this government functions.
You’re the only one bringing up an idea of “reinforcement”.
On the other hand, you do absolutely legislate law when abortion protections only had a SCOTUS case protecting them, especially since it was one that they’d been nibbling at for decades. Which is part of the reason that it’d been a topic for decades, and a campaign promise of Obama. One he decided later to just forget about.
a chronic lack of understanding how this government functions
It’s always funny to see the shitlibs show off the fantasy they construct to protect their sad worldview.
Look around at the US. This is your doing. You guys won. You drove the politics since the 90’s - and this is the result. None of this was a surprise to anyone but you.
You’re really showing off that “understanding” too. Keep it up comrade.
The point is that Biden could’ve made it unrepealable, but didn’t
How? By what mechanism could he prevent the supreme court from overturning established legal understanding? Because that’s not a thing the president gets to do, like what the fuck are you even talking about?
Court packing, among others. Something the Democrats, who controlled both houses and the Presidency, chose not to do.
I’ll argue democract are ineffective to a fault, even ineffective in a weaponizable way to punish their consitutients for straying from the center. Again, the bar is in hell. But they did not repeal abortion rights directly and never would have.
No, they simply refused to do anything to stop the repeal, of course.
Why are you saying this like it conflicts with anything I’ve said?
I’m not. I’m saying the difference is meaningless in results though.
You don’t know his views, he could be really into fracking, small business owners, and war.
That last one for sure.
What do you think I include in that 30%?
Still, this is very obviously the worse outcome. Democracy isn’t make a wish. You grow up and vote for the least shitty option to prevent the even more shitty options like an adult. Or you can keep crying about not getting your will like a child in the toy isle.
Donald acting unilaterally is not just a matter of a color map on the senate chart. It’s also a matter of a well-funded cult of worship that can never allow any dissonance.
Imagine a Democrat, in a majority, introduced a bill to make streets safer and add bike lanes. Imagine two Democratic senators rebutted “Hey, I don’t like that. I enjoy my F-150.” They probably wouldn’t be instantly kicked from the party and have their homes threatened to be burnt down. They’d have people gently try to negotiate with them.
On the other hand, let’s say a Democrat wanted a bigger change like jail time for use of a Nazi swastika, or the death penalty for ICE agents, or deploying troops to assist Ukraine. They wouldn’t really have a guarantee that every single senator in the Democratic aisle would stand against an impeachment action, because they don’t have that religious following; just general shared motives.
Democrats are allowed to disagree. It’s often a good premise that prevents all-out corruption or oligarchy, but it’s a notable weakness to account for when pushing landmark legislation off what people call a solid majority. Other comments have pointed out the original VRA passed with the help of Republicans because some Democrats stood against it.
it is propaganda method by the right, like your vote doesnt matter. thats how we end up getting schumers and hakeems of the congress, when less people vote, more conservative candidates are elected, this includes the DINOs. maine is currently fighting with susan collins, mills and platner 2 of them are conservatives.
no sane person agrees with democrats 70% of the time lmao, maybe like 25% at best
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Athens was a slave state that only allowed the men to vote.
Last time we had true democracy was probably before we did the whole agriculture thing
Congrats on not being brown, or from a third world country
I am both brown and from a third world (both in the original unaligned sense and in the newer impoverished sense) country. You fucked us over with Trump.
The slaves didn’t care that Lincoln said in his debates with Douglas that whites were superior to blacks and that he supported an Illinois law against miscegenation. They cared that he removed them from bondage. Smart people take whatever progress they can get.
Republicans destroying USAID is expected to kill how many millions of brown people in third world countries? How many children unvaccinated and uneducated?
But both sides apparently are the same
USAID caused more damage than help, I am glad trump destroyed it, altho for the wrong reasons.
“Yay for more starving children, yippee!”
Ghoul.
Less debt traps, coups, lobbying, etc as well.
Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APLJle95iZI
Personally, I’m not seeing the us do less coups. Just weaker excuses for the coups they perform.
USAID killed more brown kids in third world countries than most US programs. It was built by the CIA to destabilize countries and foment dissidence towards unfriendly governments (that usually aren’t able to provide for their citizens because of US sanctions anyway). Let’s not pretend it is bad for the world that this is gone; it is just amazing there are no longer any intelligent republicans that understand US foreign policy and allowed it to go away.
Both sides aren’t as similar anymore, as in Republicans literally stopped paying attention to the intelligence community and what they do to project US military imperialist power across the world and accidentally are helping the rest of the world break free from US imperialism; but ‘both sides’ want the exact same thing, ones just no longer intelligent enough to hide it behind doublespeak.
Seriously pretending USAID was a good thing is like pretending the NED promotes democracy or the US has ever been the victim in any conflict.
Missed your username, naturally you think feeding the hungry is an evil CIA plot.
Not that you actually care about the lives of brown people in 3rd world countries except as a way to generate outrage, but 92 million lives saved is the estimate.
‘Feeding the hungry’ is an evil CIA plot when the US State department made them hungry.
And yes, as a brown person now in a 3rd world country (technically second world, but anything not white is third world to you people), I do care about the crimes the US does to the country I’ve been adopted into; including what USAID has done.
Pretending any thing the US has ever done has been done out of benevolence is, at best, pure willful ignorance. Ask someone in a country that has been affected by USAID why USAID was necessary sometime. Go on.
The US messed up most of Latin America. USAID makes things better. Removing USAID makes things worse. It doesn’t matter whether it is out of benevolence (the real reason is that making Latin America better means the US doesn’t have to deal with a migrant crisis). What matters is that it’s better than the alternative.
They don’t do it for benevolence. They do it for the soft power that appearing benevolent gives them. Fucked up motives but still a net positive.
technically second world, but anything not white is third world to you people
Then maybe you shouldn’t keep using that language. You’re the one that introduced it during your first comment
Don’t need to trust them. You can trust the literal CIA when their staff says USAID helps them achieve in the open what they used to do covertly and thus freeing resources from the agency (to REALLY focus on the unspeakably evil shit)
One side aligns with my views 70% of the time.
That’s an optimistic percentage, and yet still not an excuse to avoid voting for them.
If I know somebody who agrees with the Dems 70% of the time they’re basically the white dudes from Get Out.
Never change ml, never change. Mostly because you’re too myopic to be capable of it in the first place.
Let’s grant your premise. I don’t think if I had a friend who liked 70% of the same shit as me but I found out the other 30 they’re assaulting kids, killing minorities, sending money I gave them to genocidaires, doing unspeakable atrocities to ALL of the people outside our shared neighborhood, and being buddy buddy with the other dudes who do that shit 100% of the time, I would just not want to hang out with that guy.
Maybe I’m built different tho.
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Wait, who does the left want to die?
Um, the right obviously! I want everyone on the opposite side to die so obviously the other side must feel the same!
Genuinely hard to not be black pilled by this constant bullshit like as if there are genuinely elected officials making comments about “MAGA hunting” or some shit. Literally only one side wants to eat the other. One wants death the other wants brunch. Fucking hell.
They want me dead… I want them to have single payer healthcare.
No I absolutely want fascists to die. A world where we allow fascists to live is a world that will fall to fascism, because fascists don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us.
Yeah. I get the SPIRIT of the idea, but MAGA has committed WAY more than enough heinous crimes where I’d ACCEPT them being thrown of out power, but in my heart of hearts on my extended wishlist I’d like to see them all drawn and quartered.
Hell yeah, like most authority, do as I say not as I do is huge with orange dingleberry and his bootlickers.
Nazis, slavers, and unrepentant pedophiles mostly.
So nobody important, got it.
Au contraire, for example any and every member of Congress fits the description.
So nobody important, got it.
That might be a bit hyperbolic.
Bernie Sanders has his faults, for sure, but I don’t think he’s a nazi, a slaver, or an unrepentant pedophile.
I mean I see conservatives say it all the time they believe liberals want them dead. Like nah just dont be fucking assholes and pedophiles lol
Mostly it’s, GTFO of my personal life that doesn’t affect you. Practice some of that liberty you like to pay lip service too. Admit there is a gun proliferation issue and address it.
It’s always projection. The right is happy to murder death kill (see slavery) so they assume everyone else is too.
Plenty of them do. People like tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have audiences. And for God’s sake /r/conservative, and practically all of reddit is a conservative hatefest now.
Edit: nevermind, I misunderstood this comment originally.
Fascists.
I’m fine with them not being fascists anymore. But yeah, if they refuse, fair point.
Adapting to the level of discourse here: the left wants successful and lucky people to die
Just when they don’t pay their fair share and/or use their wealth to buy legislation.
Definitely kicked the hornets nest with this one OP lol
There’s entirely too many people who let perfect be the enemy of better in this thread
I like how we all keep posting memes and jerking eachother off instead of burning down Babylon.
Don’t worry folks, fascism will just blow over soon, lol.
It’s just a little genocide. It’s not up to them to stop platforming it, stop asking. It’s up to you to learn to swallow it.
You’re right.
I should give Democrats credit for all the times they held power and still didn’t do jack shit about the VRA except wring their hands and pretend to be powerless to stop the judicial repeal of it. (2006, 2013, 2021, etc. etc. etc.)
After all. Actually doing stuff requires effort, and it’s unreasonable of me to expect the opposition party to actually oppose things.
My favorite thing about these threads is anytime someone like you makes an actual argument for your position, rather than the ridiculous strawman argument from the le epic meme, the Kamalaposters just downvote and never reply. Probably curled up in a corner telling themselves you’re just a bot and they don’t need to listen to your evil words.
F
Kamalaposters means what, exactly?
Anyone posting stuff that insinuates that people who didn’t vote for Kamala in the last election did the wrong thing, basically. Or sometimes just the idea that we must vote for lesser evil candidates in general, depending on how blanket the view is.
For example the OP here is a Kamalapost because the obvious implication is that people who didn’t vote for Kamala due to her stance on the Palestine issue made a mistake because the other option did all the same bad things as her plus much more. This is a really solid argument against that reasoning for not voting Kamala. The problem is that, out of the people who didn’t vote for Kamala, most of them have different reasoning than the kind this post criticizes - which is why I called it a strawman. There are non-strawman Kamalaposts too (albeit a lot rarer) and I can respect those, those are just good healthy discourse.
Im still trying to find the “more problems” with Kamala than Trump, thats all it really amounts to.
So is the implication that they are or were percieved as equivalent evils?
I think anyone rational would see that a man who would invade the capital of the country to overturn the results of an election isn’t very trustworthy. Voting against him is a simple way to denounce and oppose a rapist who supports strongmen and other genocides.
Supporting Israel, or not publicly denouncing them, was certainly supportive of an evil country. AIPAC absolutely has too much power in this country. How does that relate to Trump also supporting the country? And, you know, idolizing Netanyahu amongst other fascist leaders and strongmen? (I believe we can easily say Netanyahu is as much a fascist as a gymnast is flexible)
Idolizing strongmen currently committing genocides in multiple countries, attempting to overthrow the government, spreading false information leading to millions of deaths because… horse dewormer was touted as a remedy is equivalent to a moderate pretend-democrat conservative with bad opinions that could be changed, and opposed, how exactly? Project 2025 was already public information prior to the election. Equating a solid plan for introducing and attempting to cement fascism in the USA to that is a little weird.
I cant quite recall the Carlin quote, forgive the extension, but its along these lines:
“Asking about the differences between the options we have right now is like being given 2 options of airline food: Shards of glass, or (airline, yuck) chicken, and asking how the chicken is cooked.”
Like I said, poor paraphrasing. The obvious point is that a man who tripled the debt in one term and supports other genocides isnt going to attempt to stop a different genocide.
No, I don’t want to angrily tell you how to vote. I just want affirmation from potentially reasonable people that they won’t attempt to equate such obviously different candidates, and such obviously different parties. Schumer and a select few dinosaurs are not the democratic or republican party, but if you consider them a negative influence on our government and democracy, I would agree with you.
Stubbing your toe intentionally sucks. Intentionally sawing off your legs sucks a little more.
I would like to see how this post inverts its intended meaning, and how there are few reasons to vote against fascism which has repeatedly publicly announced itself as opposed to voting for it. Im truly curious how there are less pro-Trump or pro-fascist ideas and complaints with substance and more Kamala and liberal based complaints. If the message is inverted, you must be quite knowledgeable. I do want to learn, despite snarkiness, as I clearly do not understand their equivalence
I dont like her like I dont like airline chicken parm. Which is definitely equivalent to broken glass. 100%
And leftist voted against Trump by voting for Claudia De La Cruz. If you voted for Kamala, you have to spend the rest of your life knowing you supported genocide
Also, liberals ≠ leftists.
And you have to spend the rest of your life knowing you supported multiple genocides. Damn.
I think that, after decades of inaction at the incremental destruction of the VRA, one has to kinda admit that Democrats really just agree with Republicans. They own the policy too now, just as with every fascist policy they spoke out against and then either did nothing to stop or actively encouraged.
I tried to understand this but I couldn’t figure out how to draw it as a trolley so I’m just gonna have to conclude you’re a bot. Or if not that a shill. Or if not that just stupid. Sorry
And it’s always the fucking trolley problem lmao. Libs can only hold like two surface level factoids about any given topic every four years or so.
Not to mention, the point about the trolley problem is how it has a million complicating factors but libs are like “no, I solved it, crank on that fuckin lever or you’re a monster tankie Chinese ruzzian bot”
Yes I have enjoyed thinking about trolley problems since like 2010 so I feel like a bit of a hipster with them. Your point is hilarious and true. The entire thing the trolley problem is supposed to illustrate is how difficult-to-impossible it is to make a decision even in the literal trolley problem situation. Its supposed to be a fun intuition pump that shows how moral decisions are not straightforward. Yet seemingly for large groups of people the takeaway is that moral decisions are extremely straightforward because you just do what you already want to do, and also you have full authorship over the situation and its outcome for some reason. Man… I never realized how ironic that is that people are getting exactly the opposite lesson out of it. Hilarious.
I’ve had people on here tell me I have blood on my hands and AM a baby murderer due to not voting Kamala. I pointed out that, just like them, I am trying to pick a lesser evil in the short term for a long term greater good, but just over a longer frame of time and a larger group of people than they took under consideration, which really means that they’re the bigger bloody handed child murderer according to their method of assigning guilt, and they’re just selfishly limiting their scope of concern to people they know here and now.
I got no response from them, and someone else just called me a stupid asshole. 🤷
Exactly - the claims of “harm reduction” make people feel smart, but ignore opportunity cost and that there’s elections in the future as well.
Beep Bop Boop
R2D2 scream
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Honest take - if the Democrats are in agreement with Republicans about these kinds of rulings, then they are complicit with the slow-burn death of their own party, no? Some of them could be considered political double-agents in a sense, if that is true.
Like usual with liberals, they’d prefer losing to fascists than seeing the left defeat fascists
Yeah but why though
because they agree more with the fascists
Well, Fascism is a suicidal ideology, after all…
The 600+ upvotes really makes me wonder how many are out there.
WorldNews doesn’t even get that many on average in such a short time.
Always happens to the pro empire posts, very curious.
It is a ridiculous strawman as it ignores that in the last twenty five years the Democrats have only held real power for three months and they passed Obamacare with it. It’s a bullshit argument based on deliberate misunderstanding of the federal government.
Maybe not deliberate in my case?
My first line of inquiry would be whether Republicans have only made substantial achievements of their goals while possessing the real power you described, or whether in your opinion they also make “progress” on their goals even when not possessing this real power?
And if you understand how much of the federal gov functions (or did previously) on tradition and good faith and expected norms instead of by law or regulation then you’ll know already how the republicans managed this. Unless of course you’re also participating in bad faith like republicans.
People frequently assume I’m participating in bad faith. From my perspective, I feel like it’s just because I disagree with them, but maybe I’m approaching it wrong. Would love it if you could tell me if there’s anything I can do to respectfully disagree and discuss while not coming off as bad faith. But I understand that’s not your job lol, just curious.
Anyways, for sure a lot of the gov functions on good faith, that’s been demonstrated very painfully the last few years! It still seems like that means the Democrats had opportunities and just didn’t take them. Republicans don’t need absolute power to get things done, but Democrats do? I mean, I respect that they want to uphold tradition and good practices, but at the very least they should probably have tried to codify some of that more when they could have. The whole argument for voting for dems anyways is that we’ve got to play the game the best we can with the cards we’re given - so if that’s the expectation for us voters I would hope it applies to our representatives as well.
People frequently assume I’m participating in bad faith.
This should tip you off. You keep uncritically repeating the same talking points used everywhere to blame democrats for things republicans do. They’re all based on deliberate misunderstandings of how the gov functions, which helps the next point.
Republicans don’t need absolute power to get things done, but Democrats do?
Democrats follow the letter and the spirit of the law insofar as how they conduct the affairs of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The republicans, heritage foundation, and federalist society have spent the last half century fostering party over country and placing these idealogues in key parts of the executive, legislative, and judicial branch so that when they just break the fucking law and destroy from within every government agency it gets caught up in courts filled with activist republican judges that use the opportunity to destroy precedent and fully reinterpret laws and the Constitution to suit their fascist power grab. And you’re asking why Democrats don’t just do that too? Do I need to explain the part again where republicans rigged the fucking system by cheating and playing dirty the last fifty years so it’s effectively rules for Dems but not for reps? How they literally have the supreme court to rule any which way they want in spite of decades and decades of various precedents they’ve fucked with recent decisions? The Dems don’t have a deep state and they wouldn’t have made one to take over, they’re not even a united coalition, they’re just everyone that isn’t a full on fucking nazi and understand the two party system means any vote that isn’t for a Dem is expressly for a republican. So why don’t the Dems break the law and overthrow the fucking government like the republicans do, hmm gee tough one. And everyone that wants them to break the law like the republicans do, then you want America to die because that’s what that will mean. If you want the holes that fascists exploit to take over the government you have to actually give legitimate power to the people who have tried to do this. Only Dems run on taxing rich, closing tax loopholes, codifying government function.
Democrats: Pass landmark legislation to give minorities political power, eventually lose power
Republicans: Gain power, strip minorities of political power
You: “Why aren’t the Democrats doing more?”
Every time the GOP burns the house down, they’re politelt excused and Democrats get blamed for not bringing enough water. Explain exactly why you think the Democratic Party wanted the VRA to die.
Democrats: Pass landmark legislation to give minorities political power
This is some wild erasure of impact of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s on pressuring Democratic politicians, including LBJ himself, who was more worried about pissing off southern Democrats than passing the VRA. It wasn’t until the threat of mass civil unrest was upon them that that it was passed with bipartisan support, with 20 of the 32 Republican Senators at the time (not a typo, Dems held a supermajority of the Senate) cosponsoring the bill to prevent southern Democrats from filibustering it. It also passed the House with bipartisan support and a 333–85 vote (Democrats 221–61, Republicans 112–24).
As always it is the people, not politicians, who get the goods.
And let’s not forget that Strom Thurmond, the man whose hatred for black people gave him the demonic fortitude to filibuster the Civil Rights Act for 24 hours and 18 minutes was a Democrat, until he and his ilk decided to all gather in the Republican Party.
I don’t think liberals will ever quite understand why it was so easy for him to switch parties like that. Or why Trump made the same switch after being a Hillary supporter in 2008.
Or why Trump made the same switch after being a Hillary supporter in 2008.
I’m mean that one is easy. He just picked the voters easiest to fool. Or maybe just the vocally evil ones. I don’t think he could have said half the shit he did and have won a dem primary.
Not only was he a dem, he was personal friends with the Clintons. All that racist shit libs know he’s been saying since the 90s? His buddies were pushing for the Crime Bill at the time
The masses have never convinced the wealthy to something they haven’t wanted to do. The publics desire for change has never been a motivating factor for policy.
If you have evidence that the Civil Rights Movement and civil unrest had no impact on the passage of the VRA please present it, because that is not current historical consensus.
The civil rights movement was a story I was taught but the reality of the government engaging in a slow burn genocide against minorities with the War on Drugs is my modern reality.
So was the appeasement of civil unrest and subsequent backlash again VRA and the Civil Rights Movement a net positive. Was it just appeasement or did the government actually bend to the will of the people. What do you think Martin Luther King or Malcom X would say about the state of things now considering the US has destroyed millions of minority families in the last 40 years.
I think this also gets at the perspective that things are getting progressively better. While some metrics such as poverty have shown some amazing progress with billion of people having access to fresh water and electricity, actual human rights have not faired so well.
I think you can take historical consensus and drop kick it off a cliff for what it is worth.
I see. So if our ideal candidate isn’t possible anymore for the next election, we should always vote for the worse candidate, to drive people further towards public outcry, until civil unrest can get the real goal accomplished.
Makes perfect sense
we should always vote for the worse candidate,
The point is that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, and pretending otherwise is a bit absurd. All we get are neoconservative politics no matter who we elect. The difference is one side pretends to be powerless and just lets the bad shit happen. (Except for genocide and poverty, which they enthusiastically aid and support.)
Your only power is local unless you’re willing to commit a dramatic act of vigilantism.
You may wish there were a third track, but taking your hand off the lever gives up power.
Saying it doesn’t matter is a naive position of privilege. Of course it matters. This is a “they’re no different” argument that is just so obviously a false equivalence.
but taking your hand off the lever gives up power.
You’re saying that voters should have no power and have to accept whatever the Democrats nominate. You don’t seem to understand what power is.
No, not being allowed to rewrite history doesn’t mean that at all. You don’t get to erase the incredible violence faced by average people that was ultimately behind the passage of the VRA, or the cowardice of the politicians who wouldn’t act until the mob was literally on their doorstep.
If you think anything I’ve said about the VRA is inaccurate you need to go read a history book. Anyone telling you to be grateful to the Democrats for passing it out of the goodness of their heart is at minimum too ignorant about the actual history of the US to listen to, or they’re trying to con you.
I never said any of that? I said you can do both. They are not mutually exclusive
Democrats have never made a single significant improvement that wasn’t under explicit threat of violence from the organized masses, and even then only after dragging their feet and heavily negotiating it down.
Off the top of my head ,Obamacare, green energy investments, gay marriage, ending non-competes, antitrust, not ending lifesaving aid to the global south are all pretty neat.
Do you remember the armed militias organizing so Adam and Steve could get married? I don’t. IG there were a lot of guns at the last Buck-and-Buck party I went to, but it was a hick town so…
Almost all of your examples are exactly what they mentioned
Obamacare - shitty mild reform forced after literal decades of working class begging for drastic reform. The essential “meat” of it in terms of progress was ending the ability of insurers to deny for pre-existing conditions. The cost of this was the individual mandate, forcing everyone to buy (still privatized and ridiculously expensive) insurance, which was ultimately a huge win for insurers. They sold a significantly higher amount of shit coverage high deductible plans, especially to young people, who generally never meet the deductible. So now they had the monthly premiums for those people while essentially paying $0 in coverage. In turn many of those people became extremely resentful and saw the gop as saviors when they eventually removed the individual mandate to pander to them. Romneycare, the original bill, did nothing to address the huge administrative overheads that plague our system (5-10x the rate of other countries), no regulatory controls for price gouging, etc because it was designed to look like something was being done while ultimately serving the corporate monopolies involved in health insurance, which the democrats were happy to adopt because they are corporatist in nature
Green energy investments were paltry and pathetically low considering the scale of the issue. Americas grid is not even 25% green energy. Meanwhile China has 3x the capacity of Americas entire grid in green energy alone
When has significant antitrust action occurred? Honestly? The last real movement was breaking up the telecoms in the late 80s/early 90s. Even that was pointless as the telecoms eventually re-convened through mergers and acquisitions over the next 10-15yrs and have reemerged as Internet monopolies with price fixing and everything. Monopolies exist everywhere in the USA - obviously in tech to an almost unprecedented level, health insurance through companies like Aetna and Cigna, mass media is overwhelmingly owned by 6 indicates/companies, even shit like the major music record labels have dwindled from like 14 to like 4 from 2000-now because no controversial merger is ever blocked. Even fucking grocery chains and food brands that have been demonstrably shown to price fix are either given a slap on the wrist fine or nothing at all
Gay marriage was not codified in a way that prevents repeal at any point, similar to abortion rights. As a result it is in a precarious situation where the republican evangelicals are actively funding court battles to challenge it
Aid abroad was to generate “soft power”, eg “I did you a favor so you now owe me the world”. While aid is good it was extremely often exploited for imperialist motives like perpetuating the military industrial complex
Every single one of these is an example where the democrats presented idealized progressivism, watered it down to something tolerable for the donor class (and sometimes even beneficial), and still went into it kicking and screaming (the complaints people have about fetterman, that they had about manchin and sinema, were about Lieberman in the ACA days). Neoliberals eat it up because it feels like progress with marketing and the democrats then leave the issue behind forever as “solved”, eg “we did the absolute bare minimum to appease enough of the masses to continue to secure power”
Green energy investments were paltry and pathetically low considering the scale of the issue. Americas grid is not even 25% green energy. Meanwhile China has 3x the capacity of Americas entire grid in green energy alone
So we should instead empower those that would end all green energy investment?
I’ll never understand “give me everything I want or I refuse to participate voters”. It’s like ensuring nothing gets better only worse.
Gay marriage was not codified in a way that prevents repeal at any point, similar to abortion rights.
There’s basically no way for that to be done in the current system. Firstly democrats have not held a 2/3rds majority to make that an amendment, and even amendments can be reversed see prohibition.
As an outsider, I feel like while democrats have done many things that you might be vocal about, the biggest factor of deteriorating quality of life wasn’t sufficiently addressed.
That isn’t anything close to what I said.
But okay. If it makes you feel better. 🤟😎
Cool beans bud, great talk. 🤡
This is the highest of liberal thought. No retorts, just acting smug.
I know, right? Ya ask the kid to defend a stupid assertion and ya get an emoji dismissal. Pretty weak sauce!
Real talk, if anyone genuinely believes this meme, they’re a fool. The parties in the US, and anywhere else, for that matter, are substantially different from one another.
Namely, Democrats only support Genocides in the middle east MOST of the time, whereas Republicans support it ALL OF THE TIME.
Malcolm X said:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
MLK said similar things. The longer I live, the more I feel this sentiment. The genocide in Gaza cemented this. Never, ever, mistake a liberal for an ally.
Maybe Dems should try standing for something more than the status quo.
Average lemming when 6 conservative Catholics appointed by Republicans gut voting rights: I can’t believe the leftists did this!
As someone from outside the US, the problem is your side A is still more B than most countries side B by a pretty large margin (Though one that is concerningly shrinking). But we have seen proof that you can vote in a different side B at a local level and that’s probably the only non-violent way out of this assuming you (and by extension the rest of us) aren’t fucked already.
there’s literally no difference between them
Who is saying this?
