Nothing gives Israel a special right to invade neighbors, bulldoze their homes, and create a DMZ.

[jakekb@mastodon.social]

@benroyce @roger @Netraven @mcnado That's not really an argument. You can fight against the 2 party system, you can even fight to dismantle the 2 party system and go for proportional representation. Other countries had 2 party systems and dismantled them. You choose not to and you end up with the same policies. I understand perfectly well that it is not easy, but telling me that this is the only way is what is actually defeatist.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@JakeKb @roger @Netraven @mcnado

jake:

duverger's law

it's not corruption, it's just math

you come from another voting system where 3rd party is easy

that is not the way it is in the usa

you don't understand that

but you continue to argue from ignorance, and you are helping MAGA

PLEASE educate yourself and stop spreading lies to help MAGA

[screwturn@mastodon.social]

@ATLeagle

Wait ... so you think that urging people to vote, and opposing arguments about it being futile because it isn't perfect .... is "pushing voters away"?

If I did the opposite and screamed at people to not vote for anything that wasn't perfect, would that help bring in more votes?

@benroyce @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @Netraven @mcnado

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@ATLeagle @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @screwturn @Netraven @mcnado

well we don't follow each other, so there's no association

and we will never have 3rd parties in the USA as long as we have FPTP voting. we need ranked choice to make 3rd parties possible

3rd party talk is a self-destructive "solution" that divides the left vote, in FPTP, and so in reality only helps MAGA win

so please, by all means continue not associating your ignorance about the US voting system with me

[atleagle@mastodon.online]

@screwturn @benroyce @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @Netraven @mcnado I think that demeaning and insulting people while assuming you know their motives isn't a way to make friends.

The election was already lost. Flinging poo at people who could help you win the next time is not the action I would advise

[whitecattamer@mastodon.online]

@msbellows @benroyce @Pine_Affinity @pascaline @Netraven @mcnado I want to smack peoples’ heads together and remind them that you can’t make up for a huge Overton window debt in one election any more than I can spend one grueling day at the gym to make up for months of inactivity, and no amount of not voting/exercising while dreaming of a better and increasingly distant future helps.

[jakekb@mastodon.social]

@benroyce @roger @Netraven @mcnado You didn't even read my comment. I make a simple argument from history that you can fight those systems with enough popular support, that is if you want to. We had an actual dictatorship in my country, supported by the US and we took it down. How? Through peoples movements, that how it works. You just don't want actual change that's the problem.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@ATLeagle @screwturn @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @Netraven @mcnado

and coddling people who will invent any excuse to not vote is codependent enabling

we make an example of their broken dysfunctional "reasoning" and everyone else reading along can see how stupid and self-defeating they are

[a_minion@mastodon.social]

@peachfront @Pine_Affinity @JakeKb @benroyce @nek
People are so used to living in this 30 second bubble that they can't see much beyond. I've watched it for over 70 years. GOP got us here, screwed us all the way. 4 of the last 5 GOP presidents has had to cheat to "win" the election. Nixon mated the GOP to fundy xtians, Reagan added the corporations, wealth & changed too many laws, while working with Iranians. I'm an independent & can see only too well what we have blown off.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@JakeKb @roger @Netraven @mcnado

jake i don't know how to say it to you: you're ignorant. you're pridefully ignorant. will you please read the link on duverger's law

we CAN have stable viable third parties in the usa if we get ranked choice voting which is creeping in

until then your entire rationale is only activley helping MAGA win

will you please fucking think, read, understand, and then comment on a topic you currently do NOT understand

math does not lie jake

[atleagle@mastodon.online]

@benroyce @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @screwturn @Netraven @mcnado blocked , asshole .

Keep flinging poo

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@ATLeagle @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @screwturn @Netraven @mcnado

mark, i'm not sure being blocked by an ignorant who thinks 3rd party will do anything other than divide the left and help MAGA win, and an ignorant who champions codependent enabling by coddling nonvoters which only means they continue their self-destructive behavior, is a problem

[roger@mastodon.seattlematrix.org]

@JakeKb @benroyce @Netraven @mcnado it's not the end, it's a step on the path to reforming a broken system. It's harm reduction that allows more space for more work to be done.

[screwturn@mastodon.social]

@ATLeagle

Again, how does this push anyone away from voting?

I didn't assume anything. They stated right out that not voting was better than voting for Biden, etc.

Should I admire their rectitude and their pristine and perfect morals, or should I rather point out that not voting brings us the worst of all options?

Should I agree that, wow, thank goodness Kamala didn't come in because would she have been terrible and have started wars and caused widespread destruction?

@benroyce

[screwturn@mastodon.social]

@ATLeagle

What's the alternative, Mark?
Praise them?
Ignore them?

What?

@benroyce @Pine_Affinity @curiousgawker @Netraven @mcnado

[hakona@im.alstadheim.no]

@Pine_Affinity This whole thread started with "US voters must" . @benroyce @screwturn @Netraven @mcnado

[gustodon@mas.to]

@benroyce This is Donald's secret army, the gang of slackers who want to criticize the Democrats as an academic exercise instead of simply working to elect the best candidates in each race.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@Pine_Affinity @pascaline @Netraven @mcnado

and then you argue for people not voting, and enough did not vote as you desired, and now trump is bombing iran

you're helping that

it's about harm reduction, then iterating to better. it's never about perfection

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@Pine_Affinity @Netraven @mcnado

yes

and so you argue for voting in the primaries, and showing the fuck up, to stop this

right?

you think i am defending centrist dems while i argue continually for showing the fuck up in the primaries to replace them?

are you arguing against what i am really saying?

or do you think you can play a shell game and lie to yourself about what i am saying and prove anything other than that you can't follow the simple fucking point

[c_merriweather@social.linux.pizza]

@benroyce @Pine_Affinity @pascaline @Netraven @mcnado

Here is a simple difference:

Democrats:
Advocate for the use of the scientific method, and the improvements in life from the Enlightenment, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights movement. Also, that people are basically good, and should choose what they want to believe or not believe, and have control over their own bodies.

Republicans:
Believe that the Bible (KJV, of course) is the literal word of their vindictive god, who was created by dudes who got lost in a desert, and failed to ask their wives for directions. Then they created a demi-god myth based on a Jewish dude who was executed for pissing off the Romans. They want to turn the US into the theocratic hellscape envisioned by the Calvinist colonizers (see Project 2025). Then they want a war in the ME, for all the Jews to convert to their brand of "Christianity," all so -only they- get raptured up into their heaven, to live in eternity with their brutal god.

That, friends, is the difference.