Why Can't The Left Win?

[Cloud_Strife]

And pray tell El_Machinae how do you expect me to feel when i am told on the one hand that someone is an ally of the LGBTQ community but on the other is willing to vote and enable the same people who oppress them?

f I vote for an occasional one at the local level I don't feel that's betraying anyone. Especially when I have reasonable assurance that they aren't racist or anti gay.

Their entire platform, the party itself supports racism and homophobia or must i remind you of the GOPs relations with minorities? Or that the party continues to make attempts, some more serious than others, to rollback legislation that protects minorities?

How many times must i point out that supporting that party, for whatever reason, enables them? What about this is difficult?

I have stopped voting for Republicans at the federal level for just that reason so I don't know what you're talking about.

No, but you're still voting for them full stop and that conflicts with your claims of being against them. Your loophole isn't a good enough reason for me to overlook it.

 

[El_Machinae]

And pray tell El_Machinae how do you expect me to feel when i am told on the one hand that someone is an ally of the LGBTQ community but on the other is willing to vote and enable the same people who oppress them?

I don't tell you anything about how to feel. There are a couple of avenues to consider: a vote is a very rough distillation of many different issues AND a person can be an ally along a number of dimensions even if they are not behaving exactly according to your standard. The amount someone is an 'ally' is a summed total of their efforts. I consider you to be valuable on the queer front, because you are much more alert to the dangers. But, remember, we're allies. If I have insights, I am making them from a position of a good-faith effort. You're then straddling the line (and it's hard!) of alerting me to the dangers you perceive and not burning people out regarding your signal.

Don't think I'm defending an (R) vote, I'm not. But it's not the best signal that someone is irredeemable.

Should I consider you an ally when it comes to global warming? I would, but I will understand that (a) you have your own needs and (b) you have your own battles to fight and (c) you are subject to the same human weakness as everyone. But regardless of what you and I do, we need the 'moderates' to enact any level of social change.

 

[rah]

Please, regale us with your arguments for why some people are worth less than others. Since you are eager to mention moral relativism in the face of minority rights, surely you have something compelling to support their being lesser. (But also, don't. C'mon, dude. You can't pat yourself on the back for marching and then say things like this.)

Regarding the second, you plan on voting Republican in your state elections, no? And you plan on doing this in light of State Democrats who are dropping the ball financially? The Republicans are rather monolithic these days. Perhaps the individual you're voting for is fine, but recent history has shown this to be irrelevant. Local-level Republicans are controlled by federal/national interests to a hilariously transparent extent. Your "nice local Republican," the moment they're in power, will kowtow to the party line not because they believe in it but because they have no choice.

Please point out one post where I said some people were worth less than others.
And no, you are not the final judge on what is moral. If I vote for 50 democrats and one Republican, you judge me on the one vote, not the 50. You guys are just unbelievable.

I hear people basically saying that out of the 1000's and 1000's of elections that will occur next year that every Democrat by definition is morally superior to their opponent. I find that laughable.

 

[Synobun]

Please point out one post where I said some people were worth less than others.
And no, you are not the final judge on what is moral. If I vote for 50 democrats and one Republican, you judge me on the one vote, not the 50. You guys are just unbelievable.

Your prevailing counterargument to you walking back your support for gay people is that morality is determined by the majority (with the subtext that moderates determine who the majority is, so if moderates support the Republicans, the majority then believes gay people are lesser, and that's that). You made no attempt to establish your own views, only that your assumed change of heart is fine due to relativism.

More to the point, you've made no effort to counter the claim that you prefer the comfort of a balance sheet over the comfort of a minority. Instead you've gone all in on the relativism front, and now some mumbo jumbo about how you're being unfairly judged for voting for a Republican (conveniently ignoring the context behind... all of it).

Of course, we can't forget your other counterargument: that to believe all individuals are equal in worth is somehow giving in to "my" model of morality, and you, an intelligent moderate who chooses his own way, are just overly compelled to resist out of principle.

 

[rah]

Your prevailing counterargument to you walking back your support for gay people is that morality is determined by the majority (with the subtext that moderates determine who the majority is,

My claim that the majority judges what is morality does not walk back anything. The majority support gay rights and that's not going to change.
I support gay rights. And getting deeply tired of having to prove it. I know how I feel. If you guys want to keep attempting to prove I don't just because I claim to be a moderate and refuse to vote in lockstep every democrat regardless of their beliefs or actions, fine. I'm done restating my support for gays again and again. My vote does not diminish that.

 

[El_Machinae]

The majority doesn't really decide what's 'moral'. It just mostly decides what changes in new moral thinking will be adopted. Well, kinda. Kinda not. Many (R) states had courts rule in favor of LGBT rights because they had clear constitutions, for example. And sometimes it takes a super-majority for a commonly accepted moral stance to become codified.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

When you vote for a Republican, regardless of your reasons, you are effectively attacking minorities and no amount of marching changes that reality Rah.

 

[rah]

That hurts.
You're quite the hateful person. If all of the people I was marching for were like you, I probably wouldn't have bothered. I'm done here.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

And it hurts minorities when you vote for Republicans, it hurts alot more than just upset feelings.

 

[Synobun]

My claim that the majority judges what is morality does not walk back anything. The majority support gay rights and that's not going to change.
I support gay rights. And getting deeply tired of having to prove it. I know how I feel. If you guys want to keep attempting to prove I don't just because I claim to be a moderate and refuse to vote in lockstep every democrat regardless of their beliefs or actions, fine. I'm done restating my support for gays again and again. My vote does not diminish that.

"I believe in hats for all. I'm voting for someone who wants to ban hats. I don't see why my vote negates my belief."

That hurts.
You're quite the hateful person. If all of the people I was marching for were like you, I probably wouldn't have bothered. I'm done here.

Ooo! Ooo! Now LGBT people need to prove they're worth fighting for to the moderate! No, don't go! Your support is needed! The minorities are eager to perform to your expectations in order to buy your support for their lives.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Remember, I'm the hateful one for pointing out the dissonance.

You should own the consequences of your actions and change if it so bothers you.

 

[El_Machinae]

I know that there's some satisfaction in failing to convince and then being able to righteously blame. But 'being able to blame' is a poor satisfaction for the next victim of failing to convince quickly enough.

If someone is fighting for you, but wouldn't fight for you, that's valuable feedback. It's valuable feedback for them, for sure. But also valuable feedback if you're thinking about swaying your next conversation partner.

When you vote for a Republican, regardless of your reasons, you are effectively attacking minorities and no amount of marching changes that reality Rah.

It's maybe true. But you have to look at the balance of the contributions. There are an infinite number of individual sins, but if you declare one of them to be the Rubicon, you need to be correct. If you're not, then you're at risk of burning out your utility as a watchdog.

I mean, I could say "Buying beef, regardless of your reasons is effectively attacking the world's poorest, and no amount of marching changes that".

It's true. But the balance of your contributions matters more.

 

[rah]

Damn, you guys are bigger bullies then those you complain about.

As I said my conscious is clear. So I really don't care what you think. Enjoy your little hate circle.

 

[Synobun]

Your inability to justify bargaining with the lives of minorities does not a bully make.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Yeah I'm totally a bully for pointing out that voting in any race for a Republican is effectively an attack on minorities, how unfair of us, clearly we should have your detatched belief that a vote is merely a vote and nothing actually comes from it, a truly realistic view.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I know that there's some satisfaction in failing to convince and then being able to righteously blame. But 'being able to blame' is a poor satisfaction for the next victim of failing to convince quickly enough.

If someone is fighting for you, but wouldn't fight for you, that's valuable feedback. It's valuable feedback for them, for sure. But also valuable feedback if you're thinking about swaying your next conversation partner.



It's maybe true. But you have to look at the balance of the contributions. There are an infinite number of individual sins, but if you declare one of them to be the Rubicon, you need to be correct. If you're not, then you're at risk of burning out your utility as a watchdog.

I mean, I could say "Buying beef, regardless of your reasons is effectively attacking the world's poorest, and no amount of marching changes that".

It's true. But the balance of your contributions matters more.

He votes and continues to do so, for a party that thinks i am a mentally disordered mess that should be subjected to reparative therapy and he thinks it's beyond the pale to point out the fact that is insanely offensive to me, not just as a transperson but as a human being, what do i do that infringes on his happiness or freedom? I don't consciously vote for anyone that would **** him over, nor do the minorities as a whole, though there are certainly those willing to betray their own to conservatives for grifting reasons. I don't care what his intentions are, when you vote for a party that screws various sections of society YOU OWN THAT and you don't get to be upset when you are confronted with what you have done, this isn't beanbag, this is real life.

I wouldn't trust anyone who claimed to not be racist and to be aware of the issue of racism and yet still votes for the GOP or even considers them anything other than a party that clearly is a den racists, even if not every single conservative is one.

 

[El_Machinae]

Sure, and you get confronted for alienating an ally. Your only goal is to increase his activity, moral righteousness isn't your goal.

If he's less proactive because of you, there are future people who don't appreciate it. It's his fault for allowing you to dissuade him. But it's also your fault for doing it.

I know you're willing to proclaim yourself righteous. But your actions only matter if they make things better. Otherwise, you're not an ally. Does that make sense?

You've declared your Rubicon. That's fine. But what mostly matters is that your declaration is effective in enacting change.

I want to liken it back to my AGW and meat-eating concerns. Those victims are truly invisible to the majority of people in the developed world. If I were to regularly harp back as to how you're a giant hypocrite on this topic, then I can point self-righteously as you withdraw from the conversation. But what really matters is whether I encourage any proactive changes. If I suppress them, in a stated ally, I am doing something wrong.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

All he has to do is not vote for a party that actively does all it can to harm me, El_mac, that is all i ask, to not enable these people.

I'm not asking him to do something as potentially unreasonable as abstain from an entire group of food.

 

[El_Machinae]

All he has to do is not vote for a party that actively does all it can to harm me, El_mac, that is all i ask, to not enable these people.

Holy gosh, no. You need him to do much more than that. Vastly more. "Suppressing one (R) vote is not nearly enough. And you owe it to everyone else to wring all the best you can from him.
In fact, since the future depends on the sum of his actions, it's the sum that matters more than anything else.

I'm not endorsing an (R) vote, obviously. I am trying to explain that the entire battlefront matters.

 

[Synobun]

You can't really brand yourself as an independent free thinker, immune to the whims of left/right dogma, and then cite "someone was mean to me" as a justifiable cause for revoking support for a minority's rights. And it's doubly unreasonable to then point to the person who was mean (debatable, but let's go with it) as the cause for the person's lack of support for basic human rights. If your support for someone's rights can be compromised by whether or not they're nice to you, you weren't all that much in support to begin with.