this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 39 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

No.

Look at how the system actually works. There are two choices. Both candidates have to compete for all the people who vote. If you sit out the election that doesn't mean either candidate will try to get your vote; they'll ignore you and go after the people who do vote.

Someone else came up with this analogy. It's like the trolley problem except the there's a third option. The third choice is to throw the switch to "Neither," but "Neither" isn't connected and the trolley kills someone anyway.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

My friend, what you wrote totally ignores the passage of time. Everything you wrote is true if we only look at one election, and none of it is true if we consider the passage of time and how pressure operates. If the political party is not getting votes, if all of their candidates are losing, either they will disband or they will find different policies to push.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

George Carlin did a great job blowing this nonsense apart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X4Z1lLUMfw

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

If George was alive today he'd be begging people to vote against Trump.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

No he wouldn't, and the video I linked explains clearly why. Maybe watch it and try to comprehend what he's saying there.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Let me explain something you may not be aware of.

The man was an entertainer. His job was to make people laugh. I can cherry pick his work and come up with all kinds of absurd ideas he put into his act.

If the only argument you can make is based on a comedy routine, then we have nothing more to discuss.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago

Let me explain something you may not be aware of. Entertainers often say serious things that cannot be said in other mediums. If you don't understand that Carlin was doing political commentary, and appreciate his insights then you're a very dim individual indeed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah bro, the anti war hippie who was challenging the FCC in the 70s would have totally been team corporatocracy. Carlin had several interviews where he talked about how the two party system in America is an illusion of choice and ragged on Bill Clinton for being phony, and that's the farthest left liberal candidate in like 30 years, a fucking neoliberal.

Yall sound exactly like the conservatives claiming MLK.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Like I said, if you can't come up with anything except a comedy act, we have nothing to discuss.

Here's a clip from his early days, proof that he couldn't possibly have ever changed his thoughts about anything.

https://youtu.be/-sx-7NucjEk

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKO8qMJtbng this is from the 90s through the early 2000s, but I imagine you'll find another reason to dismiss his words to pretend you know what was in his heart was different tho.

For the record, I don't agree with his defeatist outlook, I think there's comedians with better takes on American politics, but to pretend Carlin would be blue MAGA just because you wish him to be is ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 12 hours ago

Or as Rush put it, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

If 5% of the general election popular vote for POTUS, knowing that the candidate cannot win, still voted for the Green Party platform then what effect would that have upon the Democratic Party platform?

On a five point difficulty scale this is a two. The test gets way harder than this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a tea trolley.

Right now the reality is the Donald Trump is going to take office because a lot of people didn't vote for the alternative.

All the 'what if...?' games in the world isn't going to change that.