So tired of the DON'T VOTE!!!! crowd

[QuestionsTheSoil]

very, I certainly don't condemn your choice, it's still a choice to support genocide.

Bullshit.  If I'm a vegetarian, and both candidates eat meat, voting for one of them isn't a choice to support meat-eating.

You select who to vote for based on the differences between the candidates, not what they have in common.  If you don't vote, then you're saying that the differences between them don't matter.

Let's say you have a choice between voting between two of the worst specimens of humanity, who have identical policies in almost every respect, but one will load the supreme court with judges who toss out Roe v. Wade, and the other wants to protect abortion rights.

If you don't vote, that would be a declaration that you don't support women's rights.  Nothing else. 

Nobody is going to pat you on the head and praise you for not voting for either of the two monsters when you sit back and let the worse monster win unimpeded. Not voting doesn't keep the monsters out, and it doesn't give you the moral high ground.  It makes you a moral coward.

You don't like the choices?  Do something about it after you've voted.  Or before.  But like the Würfel said, if you don't vote against the nazis, you voted for them.

Not the mention the fact that there is no way Trump wouldn't be worse for Palestine. He wouldn't even do the basic "please follow international law" shit, he'd let Palestine be leveled entirely.

[QuestionsTheSoil]

My last post in this ridiculous thread (yaaa):


Good Morning Spectators! Today we will be taking the following phrase -

"The original poster of this thread, and others like them, are literally in fear for their lives, some having difficulty with day-to-day survival,..." (thank you cno for supplying this)

- and having 2 widely different groups duke it out and see which group this phrase REALLY should apply to. Winner gets the Title and Belt.

"In this corner (wearing the latest fashions from Hot Topic/Old Navy/Walmart) we have THE LDD's !
And in this corner (wearing clothes worn for months at a time) we have Anne Frank and her family !
Let's have a nice clean fight here."

(a gong sounds)

Round 1 - Housing

...and the LDD's come out swinging! Those that have to share an apartment or live in a school dorm are bemoaning the lack of privacy and smaller spaces. The Franks take it hard on the chin, having their own business and comfortable home in Amsterdam. The other LDD's with nice apartments/houses stand on the sidelines...cheering their mates. I do see the LDD's that still live with their parents...rent-free...slowly shuffling back behind the others. I guess the strategy is to keep them fresh for later rounds. BUT WAIT...Ladies and Gentlemen! I have just received word that Margot Frank has been ordered to report to a labour camp, and faces arrest for non-compliance. The family takes a quick huddle and decides to go into hiding, in a secret room hidden in Otto's business. It appears they have heard about the nazi roundups/ghettos/deportations. They BREAK THE LAW and flee...becoming homeless. Piledriver to the LDD team! The LDD try to recover, citing right-winger blog posts and words of 'extermination' but the referees quickly agree that words are not the same as actions. And the first round ends with the gong.

Round 2 - Employment

...and the LDD's come out swinging! They cite discrimination in the work environment. The Franks seem to be holding their own...citing the same. It's toe-to-toe here right now. But then...OUT OF NOWHERE...the Franks mention that the only job they can get is at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp...while the LDDs can possibly work ANYWHERE. A Walmart. A Starbucks. A Waffle-house. A trucking company. Sunglass Hut. That's 5 quick jabs by the Franks. The referee breaks it up...blood is starting to flow. The ref wisely stops the pummelling. The gong ends round 2.

Round 3 - Ease of Access and Food

...and the LDD's come out swinging! They start with fear in the streets of war-torn USA (circa 2024). They mention bigotry, slander, hateful remarks, stares at the local "Whole Foods". The Franks take it all in stride...mentioning no access to food other than what sypathizers smuggle to them. Describing the booted military and soldiers, rifle and dog in hand every few blocks...demanding the correct paperwork or ID to simply walk down the street or enter an establishment in war-torn Europe (circa 1943-44) To be caught without such papers means a trip to the trainstation, onto a cattle-car...destination Auschwitz-Birkenau...for free showers or slow starvation, disease and death. The LDD cannot match this brutal onslaught. NO armed guards in the streets of the USA. NO mandatory roadblock checks for unsavory undesirables here. Apparently The LDD have a warped...if not psychotically unrealistic idea of what FEAR really means. The reverberating vibrations of the gong pierces the crowd...silencing the round

Final Round - Communication

Unfortunately the Frank family is murdered. No communication possible. Really. Reality.
All the LDD can do is post on Facebook, Twitter, and other forums...hoping for 'likes' and shows of support for their overbloated, imagined, horrific view of their world. Really. Unreality.

And the Winner is _____________________ !

I take it you've never had
1) your access to medicine legally challenge
2)your access to bathrooms legally challenged
3)your ability to exist in public spaces legally challenged
Unless you're saying nobody is allowed to be upset by politics ever unless its literally the holocaust.

[Pergamos]

very, I certainly don't condemn your choice, it's still a choice to support genocide.

Bullshit.  If I'm a vegetarian, and both candidates eat meat, voting for one of them isn't a choice to support meat-eating.

You select who to vote for based on the differences between the candidates, not what they have in common.  If you don't vote, then you're saying that the differences between them don't matter.

Let's say you have a choice between voting between two of the worst specimens of humanity, who have identical policies in almost every respect, but one will load the supreme court with judges who toss out Roe v. Wade, and the other wants to protect abortion rights.

If you don't vote, that would be a declaration that you don't support women's rights.  Nothing else. 

Nobody is going to pat you on the head and praise you for not voting for either of the two monsters when you sit back and let the worse monster win unimpeded. Not voting doesn't keep the monsters out, and it doesn't give you the moral high ground.  It makes you a moral coward.

You don't like the choices?  Do something about it after you've voted.  Or before.  But like the Würfel said, if you don't vote against the nazis, you voted for them.

Not the mention the fact that there is no way Trump wouldn't be worse for Palestine. He wouldn't even do the basic "please follow international law" shit, he'd let Palestine be leveled entirely.

Gaza is currently being leveled, entirely.  When international law asked for that to stop Biden withdrew funding from the UN relief agency trying to feed Palestinians.  I can't see Trump doing any worse, and based on his complete incompetence when it comes to things like his border wall, or his Muslim Ban I can see things getting a lot better for Palestinians with him in charge, not because he's a better person, but because he is a less competent bad person.

[altered]

I have had to beg up money for food for years on end now. I have had actual scurvy three times in the past three years. I have chronic malnutrition of so many forms that it's impossible to tell what is health problems (intrinsic) and what's just malnutrition.

I cannot find work for anything. My partner got a job at Walmart and is about to lose it because we caught COVID, and they want medical documentation that she has COVID while we have no healthcare nor money to get that proof, or they deny her FMLA claim and she gets fired.

We will guaranteed be homeless in March, as a result. We won't have rent because we pay the outrageous healthcare costs, or we won't have rent because we don't and she loses her job.

I have been homeless for most of my adult life. While homeless I have been assaulted, sometimes sexually and sometimes physically, by cops, by bigots, by random passersby. I have the legal protections of an acorn, or a piece of litter: no one cares what happens, so long as I'm out of sight.

Trans people are being genocided. We're being legislated out of existence in multiple states, where existing becomes a crime. Multiple high profile politicians have said that we should just be killed. They have the power and the support to get away with doing that, turning the existing-while-trans crimes into capital offenses.

I'm Jewish. I know of which I speak on genocide.

Finnius, I sincerely hope you suffer like I've suffered. I want you to wish for release. I want you to feel the churn between knowing that death is escape, but feeling that the human body is an animal devised over millions of years of skin-of-the-teeth survival, by any means necessary, against all odds. I want you to start to bleed out after being stabbed and watch everyone walk by giving your screaming, bloody body looks like could you keep it the fuck down? We're on our way to work, here. You're a disgrace. Die where we don't have to look at it.

[chaotic neutral observer]

My last post in this ridiculous thread (yaaa):


Good Morning Spectators! Today we will be taking the following phrase -

"The original poster of this thread, and others like them, are literally in fear for their lives, some having difficulty with day-to-day survival,..." (thank you cno for supplying this)

- and having 2 widely different groups duke it out and see which group this phrase REALLY should apply to. Winner gets the Title and Belt.

[snip]

You put a lot of text into that straw man.  I skimmed past most of it, I've had enough of Ayn Rand's form of didacticism to last a lifetime.

You're exactly the kind of person who, in the early 1930s in Germany, would have been saying "See, the Jews don't have it so bad!" while sitting in your comfortable armchair, enjoying the fruits of nascent fascism.

Funny thing?  You were wrong.  I don't browse twitter or facebook.  And my chair is actually pretty comfortable.  But when people say they're in trouble, I don't use my privilege to mock them and tell them it's not so bad.

I try listening first.

[Menger, Avatar of New Chaos]

My last post in this ridiculous thread (yaaa):

Should I even bother reading your sad fallacy of an argument if you flee with your tail tucked in-between your legs after being challenged? I can tell that you're subconsciously aware of being wrong but you either don't want to accept the feeling of being a dumbass or are so high off of your own ass fumes, you think your Reddit tier nihilist philosophy of "Who cares man... Politics is just an illusion" is the apex of critical thinking. Spoiler alert: It isn't.

And yeah, I did end up regrettably reading it. I hope you're at least still lurking in this thread months after so you can self-reflect and realize you're just as shallow as the strawmen you protrude in your response. Seriously, kudos to your immediate pivot to Godwin's Law. I'm sure Anne Frank's family would be grateful to see you defending their honor by continuing to uphold the Weimer-like conditions in this country as something completely normal and okay. Here's a question to ponder: Do you believe any suffering occurring as a direct response to this system is invalidated because people aren't outwardly being rounded into camps and killed? When does this arbitrary line of suffering become crossed? Would it ever even be hypothetically possible for the line to be crossed in your mind when you're already so deeply grounded in delusion, and you cover your ears whenever you hear the muffled whimpering of the damned beneath your ivory tower?

If you have political apathy due to not being affected by this rotting carcass of a dog of a system, then whatever. Just shut the fuck up and don't be a smug dipshit about it.

[altered]

1: Hi. You seem new here. Wasn't expecting someone new to show up this late in the decline of the Internet As A Whole, but it just keeps happening. Cool!

2: The energy is good from you, but you're late to the party, for which I sincerely apologize. We have been whittled down to the absolute last hardened core of backwards yokels. All the fires have gone out long ago, and any flares are short-lived, mere farts from the slowly bloating carcass in which we dwell. Which sucks. Like I said, good energy out of you, but I don't expect I'll get to see much of it. Unfortunate.

3: There was a pool on the roof but it was last maintained in the Obama administration, and since the pandemic started it's just been manifesting unidentifiable dead bodies. There was a welcome committee but they all were eaten by grues. There were projects and grand collaborations but they were always zero budget and now we just have three mad scientists doing work on breaking the fourth wall for realsies, and two visionary geniuses with an eye for graphic design but marketing budgets of "empty deli meat bag". There was signage somewhere, but it got moldy and we put it in storage with everything else that got moldy at about the same time. I feel compelled to explain all this by some distant memory of a forgotten past. It wasn't better than what we have now, it was just louder, but there's something to be said for volume.

[Menger, Avatar of New Chaos]

1. Greetings, denizen with whom I share half of my moniker with. Pleasured to meet your acquaintance.

2. No need to apologize. I'm always a fashionably late person. So fashionably late, that it actually ended up going out of style again. For as long as I lived, I have been a passive observer of a lot of things. My eyes and fingers have dipped themselves into many many metaphorical pies and while it is beneficial to have my thinkpan broaden in horizon, it unfortunately comes at the cost of never getting into the "scene" (as the hip kids call it) when it was booming, both in pre-internet era and post-internet era in this case. I've grown to embrace it really; it just means I have a lot more musings to have the pleasure of getting into. The joys of entering a school of thought past the end of its lifespan.

3. Has anyone tried cleaning the pool? I hear pools have an appetite for fresh meat, and not the spontaneously spawning rotten kind. They're alive in a way. Sentient. Looking to add to its collective and spread and evolve like any other organism. Even though there's pond scum on it, the bacteria can be layered on more and more until something bigger emerges from the fermentation and lays little eggs. Maybe that's just me being optimistic, but it'd be nice to have some protein for breakfast!

[Pergamos]

My last post in this ridiculous thread (yaaa):

Should I even bother reading your sad fallacy of an argument if you flee with your tail tucked in-between your legs after being challenged? I can tell that you're subconsciously aware of being wrong but you either don't want to accept the feeling of being a dumbass or are so high off of your own ass fumes, you think your Reddit tier nihilist philosophy of "Who cares man... Politics is just an illusion" is the apex of critical thinking. Spoiler alert: It isn't.

And yeah, I did end up regrettably reading it. I hope you're at least still lurking in this thread months after so you can self-reflect and realize you're just as shallow as the strawmen you protrude in your response. Seriously, kudos to your immediate pivot to Godwin's Law. I'm sure Anne Frank's family would be grateful to see you defending their honor by continuing to uphold the Weimer-like conditions in this country as something completely normal and okay. Here's a question to ponder: Do you believe any suffering occurring as a direct response to this system is invalidated because people aren't outwardly being rounded into camps and killed? When does this arbitrary line of suffering become crossed? Would it ever even be hypothetically possible for the line to be crossed in your mind when you're already so deeply grounded in delusion, and you cover your ears whenever you hear the muffled whimpering of the damned beneath your ivory tower?

If you have political apathy due to not being affected by this rotting carcass of a dog of a system, then whatever. Just shut the fuck up and don't be a smug dipshit about it.

People ARE being rounded up into camps, it got a lot of attention under Trump, but Obama started it and Biden has continued it (the infamous kids in cages)  we're just so dedicated to the illusion that it can't happen here that even when it does we pretend it isn't.

[Doktor Howl]

I can't personally vote for someone actively committing genocide, not even to keep the other person, who also wants to commit genocide, out.

How very noble of you.

You're okay with POC and queer folks being stomped on, so you can have your precious moral superiority.

Eat shit.

[Doktor Howl]

You might find a lot less stress in your life if you simply ignore all the external stimuli that is being forcibly pressed upon you.

Hey.

Shit-for-brains new person.

This thread is specifically about the kind of politics that kills people.  If you're one of their "undesirables", you can't opt out of being beaten, imprisoned, or killed.

1. Can I get my forum tag to say "Shit-for-brains new person."? I like it.
2. When was the last time you were beaten, imprisoned, or killed by your government? Maybe try it before shooting your mouth off. I will certainly be more impressed. You need some slack...jumping immediately and angrily on someone for posting an opinion just shows me how your progamming works. Fnord.
3. I repeat...it's a game designed to keep you in fear/anger/unstability. You just proved my point.

You're a fucking idiot.

[Menger, Avatar of New Chaos]

People ARE being rounded up into camps, it got a lot of attention under Trump, but Obama started it and Biden has continued it (the infamous kids in cages)  we're just so dedicated to the illusion that it can't happen here that even when it does we pretend it isn't.

I'm aware of the kids in cages fiasco, but I imagine if you were to present that fact to people like Finnius, they would respond with "Well they're not being killed or tortured!"

[Faust]

Unless you are participating in or leading a militia to overthrow the government, it is morally hollow not to vote.

[altered]

Howl, I'm just gonna say that Biden threw trans people under the bus too recently. Last day of Pride month, in fact. His administration releases a statement which repeats and agrees with the lies of Libs of TikTok and their ilk.

I'm not Black, so I'm not going to speak for Black people, but from the ones i know and have spoken to, I have come to the conclusion that the one remaining difference between Biden and Trump is that Biden will be polite about hatefucking your oppressed community and probably won't use the expanded god-king power his office gives him now to do it.

That's not nothing, no. I'd just consider that 1: Biden looks really fucking bad right now, and (more importantly) 2: a vote is no longer a choice, from here until the end of time. You absolutely must vote correctly every single time and WIN or it is THE END OF AMERICA AS YOU KNOW IT, without the slightest exaggeration. The first time a power-hungry dipshit gets in the Oval Office, military coups are on the table and even if they FAIL the President can't be held accountable (because commanding the military is one of the core functions of the Executive) while any military member who disobeys CAN be held accountable. And since bribes are legal, even if you pick the right guy now, he is not guaranteed to be the right guy tomorrow. Special interest group puts a few milli in the retirement fund and hey, it's law now: your neighborhood will become a Superfund site -- or it would, if the EPA had that authority anymore. Read it yourself. It's worse than you think, man.

At this point, it's not a matter of if, it's not even a matter of when, democracy has already fallen. Getting the vote out is no longer a viable option. It's time to get out and take as many people as you can with you.

I say that as someone who CANNOT LEAVE, even if you try to get me out. I'm fucked.

[Doktor Howl]

Howl, I'm just gonna say that Biden threw trans people under the bus too recently. Last day of Pride month, in fact. His administration releases a statement which repeats and agrees with the lies of Libs of TikTok and their ilk.

I'm not Black, so I'm not going to speak for Black people, but from the ones i know and have spoken to, I have come to the conclusion that the one remaining difference between Biden and Trump is that Biden will be polite about hatefucking your oppressed community and probably won't use the expanded god-king power his office gives him now to do it.

That's not nothing, no. I'd just consider that 1: Biden looks really fucking bad right now, and (more importantly) 2: a vote is no longer a choice, from here until the end of time. You absolutely must vote correctly every single time and WIN or it is THE END OF AMERICA AS YOU KNOW IT, without the slightest exaggeration. The first time a power-hungry dipshit gets in the Oval Office, military coups are on the table and even if they FAIL the President can't be held accountable (because commanding the military is one of the core functions of the Executive) while any military member who disobeys CAN be held accountable. And since bribes are legal, even if you pick the right guy now, he is not guaranteed to be the right guy tomorrow. Special interest group puts a few milli in the retirement fund and hey, it's law now: your neighborhood will become a Superfund site -- or it would, if the EPA had that authority anymore. Read it yourself. It's worse than you think, man.

At this point, it's not a matter of if, it's not even a matter of when, democracy has already fallen. Getting the vote out is no longer a viable option. It's time to get out and take as many people as you can with you.

I say that as someone who CANNOT LEAVE, even if you try to get me out. I'm fucked.

I can leave.  I have Canadian citizenship.  But I won't, because I refuse to be budged by knuckle-dragging po'buckers.