You’re talking to people that want to continue rationalizing their tacit, frequently racist support for genocide, and their easiest out has always been to say, “but Trump is worse”. They have never done the introspection required to look at their own personal role as a political being beyond what they’re told to do by the Democratic Party and their donors: slacktivist vote shaming, always presuming the high ground for themselves (even while tolerating genocide!), and doing as little as possible on the ground outside of minor exercises in false catharsis like a cop-escorted, permitted march or an ignored letter writing campaign.
When challenged on this by people on the left that do read and do self-reflect, these are the folks that responded in bad faith, even when the context is genocide, because they have made politics into an extension of their egos rather than a project to which to subordinate yourself and devote real work to.
Whining about .ml is their way of pretending to be vindicated every time Trump does something bad, as they cannot actually argue against what the people in .ml say, they must rely on inventions and emotional implications.
In short, many on .ml vocally opposed supporting genociding Democrats. None that I’m aware of expected Trump to be better. At best, a roll of the dice.
Edit:
Sorry, folks. I failed to consider that this is the home instance of the people being target by this comment.
Just to be clear, I’m not a big .ml fan, I’m just an anarchist who’s never seen this particular gripe of mine worded so nicely.
“You’re talking to people that want to continue rationalizing their tacit, frequently racist support for genocide”
this is not happening, and like every single other person who cries about Democrats, I’m sure you don’t have a shred of evidence either.
“their easiest out has always been to say, “but Trump is worse”.”
Trump is worse.
Trump supports the Palestinian genocide explicitly.
and “always”?
how old are you, eight?
That’s how long Trump has been politically relevant.
“slacktivist vote shaming”
If you didn’t vote, you should be ashamed.
If you didn’t vote against Trump, you are the reason Ukraine is not receiving aid, you are the reason diversity is being ruled back, you are the reason women don’t have bodily autonomy.
If you didn’t vote against Trump, you should be ashamed of your selfish cowardice.
.ml supports the disrespectful and illegal authorian practices that have perpetuated the Palestinian genocide.
your post is trashy trash trash and you don’t have a sprig of evidence or logic behind it.
The justification here is that voting for a genocider is an endorsement of the genocide
Yeah duh. This goes without saying
I’m queer and disabled- like second on the chopping block for Trump- and I put my own safety aside in defense of Palestinians by refusing to vote for anyone who intended to have them murdered (Both Harris and Trump)
I’m not a .ml stan- I didn’t post this here for that part
Your comment is rudey rude rude and you’re pretty rude
“I would never hurt a patient. This guy who’s choking to death needs a tracheotomy, but what am I to do? Stab him in the throat? That’ll be bad for him.”
Walks away, humming proudly to himself about the purity of his ethics.
Edit: Typo
This is a terrible analogy. I get that it conveys your feelings about it, but that’s it.
For a better analogy:
A badguy tells you to kill someone else, or they’ll kill you and your family, and also probably someone else too. Your choice, I assume, would be the utilitarian one- to kill someone else. This is the so-called “logical” answer to the trolley problem folks love to bring up with this topic, because less deaths = good, and the ‘someone else’ was probably gonna die either way.
The field of philosophy that discusses these questions, however, is vast, and there is no one correct answer. You and I happen to have different opinions on ethics.
I would argue that refusing to kill someone doesn’t make you responsible for the badguy’s actions. I also wouldn’t argue that people who kill the stranger are bad people- they just made what they thought was the best decision. I just disagree that that’s the best decision, and can’t justify doing the same myself.
You folks, however, seem to beat around the bush about it to avoid admitting what you did. You decided that the continued genocide of Palestinians was worth it to keep Trump out of office. That’s valid- that was the only choice you felt you had. You don’t need to rationalize it away.
It’s disrespectful to both me and yourself to not be upfront with yourself about that.
Absolutely false. Try again. We started this conversation by me addressing this exact point. If I explain clearly what I mean, and you decide that I am “avoiding admitting” some different thing, then there’s not a lot of point to us talking to each other.
If a badguy is running around town killing children and families, and the only two possible sheriffs that might win the election include a guy who’s friends with the badguy and has been selling him guns and covering for his crimes, that’s sure as fuck not great. However, if the other sheriff is someone who is also a serial killer himself, personally, plans to use the office of sheriff to accelerate his own killing as well as the killing of the badguy, and has a tendency to egg the badguy on and imprison anyone who tries to say it’s a problem that he’s killing, I think it’s fair for me to say that the first sheriff is the better outcome. While also, obviously, pushing for some kind of change to this fucked-up situation that we’ve been placed in by the absurd farce that is American “democracy.”
If someone says that the whole situation is fucked and wants to accelerate the process that will get rid of it entirely, that’s absolutely great in my book. Pretty much the only aspect I have a problem with is when people who are terrified of the serial killer, both for themselves and also on behalf of their victims and the victims of the badguy, and so are trying to make sure at least the first guy is in charge while we’re dealing with the rest of the problem, get painted as “rationalizing” or “beating around the bush” about some kind of secret love for serial-killing that must be at heart of their reaction to the whole situation.
The whole thing where Trump was a “roll of the dice”, but Kamala Harris who wasn’t making any of the war-criminal decisions that Biden was, was somehow preordained to definitely be a continuing disaster for the Palestinians, is just icing on the cake.
I never implied some secret love. It is blatant support though. You can’t choose either of those options and pretend you didn’t make a calculated decision for evil. The “lesser of two evils” thing necessarily implies that you are supporting evil. You’re trying so hard to talk around it, but it is what it is.
Absolutely, yes. Paying taxes in the US is supporting evil. Buying an iPhone is supporting evil. Eating meat is supporting evil. Voting for Biden would have been supporting evil. Voting for Harris, I’m a little less sure about, but I feel like even saying that is going to get me accused of some kind of rationalizing.
But yes, someone can say that they want to buy an Android instead of an iPhone, because of whatever reasons, without someone else having an absolute meltdown and accusing them of supporting abusive mining in the Congo, making excuses for functional or actual slavery in China, and so on. But for some reason when it is geopolitical, saying that you’re going to vote for X candidate for reasons of creating less suffering in the world somehow gets transmuted into this “blatant support” for that candidate and everything they do, or denial of their numerous crimes, or implying that you’re okay with suffering in the world, that to me has nothing to do with why I would make that decision.
I might be one of the rare folks who are consistent about this actually lol, because I have the same reaction about all of the examples you gave. I just don’t say anything unless I feel attacked for my position/behavior (evading taxes, buying exclusively second hand electronics, being vegan, voting 3rd party, etc).
I think people should just be honest with themselves and others about what they’re doing. Paying taxes, buying a brand new iPhone, eating animal products, etc, is tacit support for evil. With taxes, it’s much more clear cut, because you can say “I’d rather indirectly, and under coercion, fund a little bit of atrocities than make my life harder and risk imprisonment.” and that’s okay- everybody does that. Trying to rationalize a way out of it just makes it sound worse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_You,_Mr._Rosewater
It’s a criminally underrated book by Kurt Vonngeut about what would happen if someone in American society actually started experiencing compassion, and caring about what the impacts of their decisions were on living humans in the world, and how “difficult” it would make things from the point of view of all the systems and people they have to interact with.
😢
“The justification here is that voting for a genocider is an endorsement of the genocide”
nobody who voted against trump voted for a “genocider”.
trump is worse.
“Yeah duh. This goes without saying”
you are looking down your nose at voting against Trump and have a wait and see mentality about the devastating effect his greed has already had, is having and will continue to have in the real world, so it needs to be said loudly and repeatedly that Trump is worse empty Harris was a better candidate, that Trump is killing people and ripping apart the US because of your inaction.
that Is a significant fact, since you and others who didn’t vote against him clearly don’t understand the consequences of your apathy.
“I put my own safety aside in defense of Palestinians by refusing to vote for anyone who intended to have them murdered”
Palestinians are now in a worse position because of your myopic, selfish posturing, and so are you and other vulnerable populations.
Oh, I see
oh no, someone I don’t like isn’t talking to me anymore…
I said get blocked. Please block yourself from me so I don’t have to see you anymore
I know you’re woefully inept at taking responsibility for your actions, and apparently at language, but “get blocked” means that I’m getting externally blocked.
it’s the imperative form.
If you want something to happen, you have to do it.
talk about a microcosm of your poor reasoning skills leading to Trump ‘getting’(see what I did there?) elected, you clueless cletus.
I declare blocked!
let’s see if you managed to do that correctly…survey says probs not.