There are no ethical choices under first-past-the-post voting. We must instead make a decision that reduces the most harm.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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There are things you can do outside of voting for one shit party. You could vote for a different party for example, push for voting reform, protest, bomb military installations and other guerrilla tactics, go and help people directly, make propaganda, etc. In my own country that just had a local election more seats were won by the lib dems (normally a minority party) than the conservatives who are the party currently in charge.
Revolutions don't happen because people like you don't want them to happen. That and because people fall for pro-government propaganda.
Not in the US you can't. It's basically the same as not voting. You can argue that it's in favour of republicans, even.
Okay what about the other things I just said?
The other things are not related to voting. Do all those things you want to do, but voting takes 30m and almost zero effort. If you can manage to do those other things, you can and should vote as well. The effort to outcome ratio is much higher, even though the outcome is fairly small. The effort is essentially zero.
Also it's not 30 minutes. It requires registering to vote whenever you move address, and for you to actually be in the country. Then there is setting reminders it's election day, which requires watching the news to know there is an election.
Being in the country doesn't take effort. It's only true or not. (Also, mail in voting is allowed for people outside the country I believe. I know military personnel stationed outside the US still vote.)
Sure, you need to register, but you can do that at the DMV when you get/renew your drivers license. Yeah, if you don't drive then it's extra effort, though still not much.
Updating your location when you move can be done online or through the mail I believe.
Also obviously you need to know an election is happening. How the hell would you not know that though? Either you're politically motivated and actually want change, in which case you almost certainly know when an election is happening even if you're not participating for whatever stupid reason, or you aren't politically motivated, in which case I'm not talking about them.
I am not an American. We don't have a DMV. Why the heck would vehicles and elections be organised in the same place? It takes actual time to register here (up to several months).
Unless it's a general election people don't take that much notice, and it's hard to find out about one when people only talk about American elections online and you also aren't always in the country.
For most people, your main form of government issue ID is your drivers license. Since they're a government agency, and they have all your information, they let you register at the same time. Its actually pretty convenient, though the DMV itself is very slow and inconvenient.
That's true. Most people only pay attention to the general. Even still, when there's a local election you'll almost always see political things around town, so if you care it's not hard to keep track of.
Voting for someone who supports genocide is understandably something people don't want to do. Or have you forgotten the point of this conversation?
I have not forgotten. Like I said, it's like a version of the trolley problem. The trolley is going to run over 100 people, but you can pull the lever and it'll only hit 1. Not pulling the lever is a choice and you're complicit in that choice. It doesn't matter if you took action or not, the choice is made. Not voting against the person who said he wants the genocide to be scaled up makes you complicit if they get elected.
Peoples feeling are being manipulated and they're being told not voting makes them not complicit. It does not though. It does not remove the fact they made a choice to not take an action they could have taken. They should be made to feel like not voting is the choice that it is and they should use their choice to ensure as good a possible outcomes happens as they can. The trolls from the right are ensuring they are made to feel bad about preventing them from gaining power, so they can take over. This will not be a good outcome, and people should be afraid and ashamed if they allow that.
It's pretty weird that you hold up the fucking lib Dems as your party of radical revolution.
The fact of the matter is that we are never going to get a radical left government, regardless of the voting system. Unless you're spending time in an ivory tower of academia, you will know that the majority of people in this country are centrists of some flavour. Corbyn got massacred at the polls, and he was Labour leader. Going back you've got Foot.
The best we've ever had it is when Atlee, an ex army major who practically ran the home war effort, couched left wing reforms (foundation of the welfare state, nationalisation of coal and rail) as nationalistic. That's how we get these things through. You're never going to change the minds of British people by bombing.
If you're of an anarchist mindset, then it's far more beneficial to vote for harm reduction one day per four years, and organise in parallel outside that
I am not holding them up as a revolutionary party. All I was saying is they are becoming more popular than a current majority party. I am trying to make the point that voting for a traditionally minority party isn't always fruitless.
My comment was aimed at Americans who don't want to vote for the democrats. Not at labour voters in the UK. I am not against voting for labour. If I am still here at the time of the general election I will probably be voting for them or for the Green party. I wasn't able to vote in the current election as I wasn't in the country and also wasn't on the electoral register for the area I would be living in if I was.
I don't think I qualify as an anarchist. Though I do like some anarchist ideas. I personally don't understand politics well enough to have an exact position with certainly like some people seem to. I am somewhat of a fan of socialist market economy, but I don't think you can truly know if something does or doesn't work until you actually try it.
I think you'd benefit from reading Leftist theory. Marxism and Anarchism are the two largest overall currents in leftist theory.
I have read some theory and I do know those are the main two currents. Doesn't mean I know enough about them or politics in general to choose either them or something else. Most of the books people actually recommend are ancient and hard to understand even if they are relevant. We have actually spoken about politics before somewhere if I remember correctly.
It's certainly possible! I comment quite a lot and try to encourage people to read more theory.
Is there anything keeping you from "picking" a current, or anything you wish you knew more about, specifically?
Fair enough; I got the wrong end of the stick. I apologise.
I think the best case for the argument is also around in the UK, which is that reform UK (which, for those abroad, is our resident right wing nutjob party) has put electoral pressure on the party and pulled them to the right, and the same thing has happened with the greens on the left.
That being said, I think the best time to cast that vote is during local elections (or MEPs back when we were still in Europe) where there's something closer to proportional representation, or when you don't live in a swing seat. For those in the US who are in safe republican seats, I'd agree that 3rd party is a pretty good way to get your voice heard. In knife edge places, I'd argue for tactical voting, but equally it's not my country.
WRT anarchism: it's a philosophy I think we should implement a lot of concepts from (mutual aid, parallel organisation). The reason I mentioned it was that some have the view that we shouldn't vote full stop; I am of the view that voting is not the be all and end all -- vote tactically, be that for harm reduction if your vote is likely to count significantly, or third party if it won't, and then go and advocate for your causes in the other days of the four year election cycle.
Yeah I've only actually been able to vote once. Missed one (forgot which day) and was out of the country for another. I wouldn't have left for as long if I actually knew there was an election, but that's hard to know when you don't watch the news. Plus moving around a bunch means I am rarely actually on an electoral register to vote.