Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

[SleepingSilence]

@Penny An answer to my question would help. Unless you have none. :D

[Penny]

@SleepingSilence

You already stated that you hadn't been following the conversation. That being established, I'll just skip over the talking points and continue the productive part of the discussion with @mdk. I have no more interest in debating the existence of sexism than I do the curvature of the Earth.

[mdk]

We all make moral judgments about people. My point is that we frequently give them a pass on politics because for whatever reason we tend to segregate religious and political opinion from our everyday interactions. I do it all the time, but that persons still believes that thing that I find appalling. Why am I not considering it, and if it reaches whatever threshold I want to set, acting on it.

@Penny

I can totally answer that question.

Because of all the things I've been talking about -- holding Citizen A accountable for Politician B's shortcomings is unfair to Citizen A, etc. BUT ALSO, it's because political bias touches everything. Let's say Fox News reports that Hilary Clinton ate a baby, and CNN reports that Donald Trump sacrificed a kitten to the Mayan god of the apocalypse. Citizen A favors Fox, and Citizen B favors CNN, and they both know "this probably isn't 100% accurate, but there must be a kernel of truth behind it." Well now both our citizens judge one another for supporting such a terrible person, and then they go shoot up a baseball game and all their buddies alternate between cheering the effort and chastising them for not killing enough political opponents.

....when really, at the end of the day, they both want the same thing (let's have an awesome country). The more passionately they want that, the more likely they are to literally murder the baby-eater/kitten-sacrificer -- or if not to literally murder them, to just stop talking to one another altogether, and then the divisions deepen from that point forward and the enmity festers until we're right back to murder. Now if you're CNN and/or Fox, you're more or less okay with this -- you don't want people talking to the guys who favor the other side, or they might stop buying your shit. So you just keep stirring the pot.

If you're an adult, though, you say "Okay, I care about this and I know I care about this and I don't have to prove that to myself or to anyone else. Let's just drink our coffee."

[SleepingSilence]

@mdk I can't be the judge of this, but I will say it anyway. You're wasting your time.

[Penny]

Let's say Fox News reports that Hilary Clinton ate a baby, and CNN reports that Donald Trump sacrificed a kitten to the Mayan god of the apocalypse.

@mdk

It probably says something that I wouldn't have bet money that neither of those things didn't happen...

I get what you are saying in a larger sense. It is impossible to have complete information in almost any real world situation and you cant be certain of what information you have, it might be right wing bull, or left wing fear mongering or what have you.

Even so, that doesn't translate completely. Lets say that Politician A has on his platform: I Politician A, think that gay marriage is an abomination and should be opposed. That isn't nuanced information that you need to sift your information sources to obtain. If you vote for Politician A you are responsible for (even if only to a small extent) the action that Politician. You might have voted for him for another reason, but that just means you have done the moral calculus and come up with infrastructure projects are more important than gay rights. That is a moral decision you have made. I might still decide to have coffee with you of course, but I shouldn't be giving you a pass on it just because you expressed it via a ballot.

[mdk]

<Snipped quote by mdk>

It probably says something that I wouldn't have bet money that neither of those things didn't happen...

I get what you are saying in a larger sense. It is impossible to have complete information in almost any real world situation and you cant be certain of what information you have, it might be right wing bull, or left wing fear mongering or what have you.

Even so, that doesn't translate completely. Lets say that Politician A has on his platform: I Politician A, think that gay marriage is an abomination and should be opposed. That isn't nuanced information that you need to sift your information sources to obtain. If you vote for Politician A you are responsible for (even if only to a small extent) the action that Politician. You might have voted for him for another reason, but that just means you have done the moral calculus and come up with infrastructure projects are more important than gay rights. That is a moral decision you have made. I might still decide to have coffee with you of course, but I shouldn't be giving you a pass on it just because you expressed it via a ballot.

@Penny

Well it's even more nuanced than that. Let's say Candidate A thinks marriage equality is awesome, and openly supports it, but picked a VP who disagreed entirely (but whose position gave him no legislative power to enact anything); then candidate B openly opposed gay marriage until it became politically necessary to pander, gave it token support, then smelled blood and successfully branded A a homophobe. Then you, hearing that A is a homophobe and hearing that I voted A, call me a homophobe (or "part of the problem" if you're feeling kind). THEN, because that wasn't enough, you declare all the LGBT supporters of A "Not Gay," throw them out of your culture entirely, and physically attack (as in with guns, knives, bats, and firebombs) A's supporters whenever they threaten your homophobic narrative. You know, as a pure hypothetical, because that never happened.

IF ALL OF THOSE THINGS were, like, in a parallel universe or whatever, to happen -- then how would I, as your average run-of-the-mill A supporter, take one single word of B-supporters' diversity narrative seriously?

Right?

So that's just the one side. Then there's the other side, which I won't bother laying out because you've got plenty of ammo already (maybe something along the lines of Jesus Loves Everybody but Commands Me to Punch Gay Kids All Day).

Now take those two sides, right, and pick a random person from each camp. Which one is IMMORAL??? Then remember that really, what this all boils down to in the end is which side thinks the corporate earned income tax credit should be 7.1% and the other side thinks it should be 8.2% and that's the real actual reason why everyone is being mobilized in this way. It's fucking ridiculous to introduce some concept of morality into that.

And that's why you shouldn't judge one asshole based on the actions of another asshole. WHICH -- again -- is literally the cornerstone of diversity, tolerance, and community, just in case anyone forgot.

(this rant brought to you by: not as much bourbon as you might think)

[Penny]

@mdk

Just because getting accurate information might be hard, or confusing, it doesn't change the underlying moral issues. I certainly dont imply an equivalency between all positions and all possible reasons for voting a certain way. Its entirely possible that your candidate whips up a bunch of hysteria about asteroid collisions or whatever because he knows it will motivate you to vote for him, even though in his heart he dosen't care about asteroid collision. I fell like your moral culpability is lessened if you were tricked in such a way but it isn't eliminated.

Its also possible that your classic lesser of the two evils situations arises. That certainly complicates matters but it still wouldn't remove your moral responsibility.

[mdk]

@mdk

Just because getting accurate information might be hard, or confusing, it doesn't change the underlying moral issues. I certainly dont imply an equivalency between all positions and all possible reasons for voting a certain way. Its entirely possible that your candidate whips up a bunch of hysteria about asteroid collisions or whatever because he knows it will motivate you to vote for him, even though in his heart he dosen't care about asteroid collision. I fell like your moral culpability is lessened if you were tricked in such a way but it isn't eliminated.

Its also possible that your classic lesser of the two evils situations arises. That certainly complicates matters but it still wouldn't remove your moral responsibility.

@Penny

So let's cut to the chase. I'm morally obligated to vote for which candidate, Trump or Clinton?

[Penny]

@mdk You aren't morally obligated to vote for either of them.

If you vote for Clinton you have to accept her moral obligations. Perhaps the continuation of failing foreign policy in Syria, probably her failure to enforce tax reforms ect.

If you vote for Trump you have to accept his moral obligations. Splitting up families with illegal immigrants, worsening an already substandard healthcare situation or whatever else he does.

The point is whichever side you pick, you ARE complicit and you shouldn't be shielded from that (morally) by an attitude of 'thats just his politics'.

In a perfect world there would be better candidates, but in a perfect world I wouldn't need to worry overmuch about morality.

[Dinh AaronMk]

@mdk You aren't morally obligated to vote for either of them.

If you vote for Clinton you have to accept her moral obligations. Perhaps the continuation of failing foreign policy in Syria, probably her failure to enforce tax reforms ect.

If you vote for Trump you have to accept his moral obligations. Splitting up families with illegal immigrants, worsening an already substandard healthcare situation or whatever else he does.

The point is whichever side you pick, you ARE complicit and you shouldn't be shielded from that (morally) by an attitude of 'thats just his politics'.

In a perfect world there would be better candidates, but in a perfect world I wouldn't need to worry overmuch about morality.

@Penny

In a perfect world we would've googled Bookchin and made Democracy more than a decision making process.

[Arawak]

In regards to morals, the moral force most important is a pan-human identity in place of racial collectivism (which as a force isn't as strong as it used to be, but it is still prevalent enough to matter). We need aliens to shoot to have world peace.

A world state I hope never happens despite that, as a world state would be one stalin or mao away from turning everything to shit for everyone.

[Penny]

I hope that eventually we move beyond the notion of nation states. Like you say though it would probably require post scarcity societies or external threats.

On second thought even external threats might not be enough.

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Penny>

So let's cut to the chase. I'm morally obligated to vote for which candidate, Trump or Clinton?

@mdk

Jeb!

[Dinh AaronMk]

<Snipped quote by mdk>

Jeb!

@Vilageidiotx

[Andreyich]

It could have been great

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Humanity without competition among itself is a recipe for disaster. No amount of good intentions or noble desires will save it from doing itself in; it needs dissent and conflict within itself to function. States, nations, families, groups, all these different powers are essential and critical for the human animal. Imagining anything else is a fantastic expectation, not only one that cannot be credibly reached, but one that if somehow reached will do more harm than good in short order because people will always fail in some aspect.

The only thing nations need do better is realize who their real threats are to society and cease toeing the line of political correctness as well as vague universal humanism and globalism.

[mdk]

Humanity without competition among itself is a recipe for disaster.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Fortunately, there's no such thing as humanity without competition.

If you vote for Clinton you have to accept her moral obligations. Perhaps the continuation of failing foreign policy in Syria, probably her failure to enforce tax reforms ect.

If you vote for Trump you have to accept his moral obligations. Splitting up families with illegal immigrants, worsening an already substandard healthcare situation or whatever else he does.

@Penny

And this is where I'll play the maturity card again.... Holding that someone is morally inferior because they don't do things your way is childish. Disagreement among children produces conflict; disagreement among adults produces....... well, shit, bigger conflict I guess, but it's not supposed to.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

True that may be @mdk, but there are those we are well aware of who desire to "even the odds" for the sake of "equality" rather than actual equality and opportunity, no less allocating resources or time to it. I have heard my fair share that somehow it is an evil thing to want people to compete against one another, how someone is at proposed disadvantage, or how it should be my duty to support them by coercion rather than my personal desire.

[mdk]

True that may be @mdk, but there are those we are well aware of who desire to "even the odds" for the sake of "equality" rather than actual equality and opportunity, no less allocating resources or time to it. I have heard my fair share that somehow it is an evil thing to want people to compete against one another, how someone is at proposed disadvantage, or how it should be my duty to support them by coercion rather than my personal desire.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Well I disagree with those people regarding politics and therefore they are morally bankrupt.

[Andreyich]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity
Breitbart is hated because it has no support and audience out of it's very, very specific level of right wingness and authoritarianism. People further right see Milo and pals as a bunch of faggoty degenerates, people in the centre think he is a weird person with horrid and obnoxious manner/tastes whilst people on the left think he's an evil nazi. Nobody likes him except for a very narrow area of political thought.