Little else fills me with such hope than knowing that Gen Z is wise beyond their years. The kids are all right!

@sj

as long as they do something about it

what you're describing, if it leads to cynicism and acceptance, is somewhat worse in many respects to being an outright fool

at least a fool has action in their repertoire

seeing the truth is not good enough

it has to be paired with a will to act

we live in a world with too many people who see the truth, and do nothing

and blind fools who know only lies, working hard to destroy our world

wisdom *must* be paired with action

@benroyce @sj

Good one from John Stuart Mill:

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

@bytebro @sj

voting is all the action that is needed

but voting rates among the young are abysmal

voting is a responsibility and to not #vote means being an accessory to the worst of whoever wins an election. nonvoters, in my eyes, forfeit the right to complain about anything in politics

there is no such thing as detaching from the vote and absolving yourself of the sins of govt

that's not how reality works

there is no escape from the effects, so there is no absolution from participation

@paninid @benroyce @bytebro @sj false.

Not voting means that the options are equivalent.
Or that people can't vote safely.

If you want people to vote, you're going to need to give them a motive other than scapegoating.
Democrats in Congress need to start doing their damn jobs. Stop helping foreign theocracy commit genocide. Step up to the plate on preventing infections
Because right now democrats are trying everything possible to lose

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

ah yes

"both sides the same"

the argument of the utter ignorant

and the argument of malicious agent provocateur trolls from the right acting on the left to keep them helpless, negative, ignorant, and cynical

and thus robbing them of their #vote and their voice

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj

You just want trump to win its easier than actually LISTENING TO WHAT VOTERS WANT.

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

🤣 🤣 🤣

how does one listen to voters who don't #vote, galaxy brain?

how does asking people to vote means #trump wins, cosmic level political strategist?

you're so twisted in smug cynical helplessness and self-serving lies about what arguing for not voting really means, that you're just spitting jokes

listen to me very carefully, this is golden truth:

no one listens to people who don't vote

voting is how you get change, not voting means things get worse

period

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj do you understand what getting out the vote is?
Because you sure aren't acting like it
The idea is to persuade people to vote. Not to persuade them to stay home.
Biden is radioactive. Trying to get people to vote down ballot is doable.

People like you are making that harder.

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

you're arguing from ignorance

every vote, that ever existed, and ever will, will be between shit and slightly less worse shit. because all one has to do is use perfection as their guide and no one measures up

#biden is obviously better on everything you care about

but because he isn't perfect, you argue for nonparticipation

this is your failure, not anyone else's. and the only effect of your failure to understand reality is the world gets worse. because of you

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

furthermore, you expect your inflexible idealism to be coddled. that if your ridiculous standards aren't met and you aren't soothed and wooed, that you don't have to #vote

lol!

it is *your* job to live in reality and understand *every vote that will ever exist* will be between shit and slightly worse shit. perfection is *never* an option

so you act pragmatically, you vote for *better*

inflexible idealism leading to nonparticipation is self-defeat. simple as

@benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj
There's a good chance that half or more of the people on social media telling people not to vote are foreign agents attempting to help end democracy.
@GreenFire @benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj
It is useless to vote and pretend to be moral in an election where both candidates support genocide. Vote for the locals but the general election is just a farce. #Israel #Palestine #genocide #gaza #rafah
@mcmenguc @GreenFire @benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj
If you aren't already persuaded to vote for the most progressive President since the 1960s, for protecting democracy and abortion rights and climate change response and against a literal racist, bigoted, rapist criminal grifter opposed to all these, you are too goddamn dumb to share our planet's oxygen.

@GreenFire @benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj
Being a buttinsky...

And a volunteer foreign agent, as well! 😜

Anyway...

All I can suggest, to you Americans, is vote as though your lives depend on it. 🙄 They very well may.

@BlippyTheWonderSlug @benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj
I'm so grateful that the civil rights activists that spent decades trying to make positive changes never gave up on voting.

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj scapegoating people isn't going to get out the vote.

I understand you want to feel smug and superior when democrats lose
I would rather NOT LOSE AT ALL

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

so you're voting right?

if you don't vote, you're not a democrat. you're not a republican. you're nothing of any political importance at all. you're a cynical fool preening with ignorance on social media arguing for your own irrelevancy

the sum total of your self-defeating argument for not voting is to make sure that everything you care about is ignored

that really is the truth

*you* owe a #vote

we do not owe you an argument to vote. it is your responsibility

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj im a registered Democrat who has voted in every single election since i turned 18.

And for the first time in my life democrats have a platform of zilch.

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

"for the first time in my life democrats have a platform of zilch"

🤣 🤣 🤣

i don't believe you're a registered democrat at all. i don't believe you vote. you might not even be american

no one argues for self-disenfranchisement as hard as you do except completely ignorant fools or agent provocateur right wing trolls or troll farm from geopolitical enemies

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj The only campaign platform i see is "almost trump, but a Democrat"

which is a nonststarter. You can wag your finger all you like, but the effect is to make democrats MORE unappealing.
Stop playing holier than though and start using your brain.

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

ok. i use my brain

...

hold on calculating

...

my brain says:

voting for better is something

not voting and therefore making things worse, simply because you expect perfection, is at best a lie from right wing/ geopolitical troll farm provocateurs convincing #democrats not to vote

how am i doing?

🤣 🤣 🤣

#vote

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj If there's one thing I've learned from my decades on social media, it's that arguing with "both sides are the same" people is pointless. Their shield of ignorance is impervious to facts. I block them on sight.

@jik @paninid @bytebro @sj

i knew i was going to block them five comments before i did yesterday

need to get my laughs in first

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj Biden is potentially worse because hes actually competent and nobody opposes him when he does the exact thing trump was planning to do.

The pandemic isn't over and Biden would rather commit genocide than be re-elected.

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

#trump openly said he wants #netanyahu to "finish the problem" in #gaza. #biden is milquetoast spinelessness, his admin makes maddeningly limited moves against netanyahu

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

your choices:

1. vote for biden. little change in gaza, maybe some improvement

2. vote for trump. genocide in gaza

3. don't vote/ vote third party. you help trump win: you are actively aiding genocide in gaza

you want better? i want better. but this is the reality

Trump breaks silence on Israel's military campaign in Gaza: 'Finish the problem'

Trump declared Tuesday that Israel must “finish the problem” in its war against Hamas.

NBC News

@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj

You're living in an alternative reality if y you believe that argument is going to work.

Stop acting like republicans. It just helps trump.
Discussion over.

@CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj

🤣 🤣 🤣

"hilarious lie. discussion over"

how are things in russian troll farm nowadays?

@benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj Inspiring post, Ben! 🤢🤪

@Stoneycase @benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj it doesn't make people more likely to vote against trump.

It makes them more like to stay home and not vote down ballot.
Stop helping republicans.

Attacking reluctant voters who have already been left to die, will not persuade them that democrats give a flying fuck about their lives.
It will alienate them completely.elected officials are supposed to represent constituents. With the exception of about 2 dozen or so, it isn't happening.

@Stoneycase @benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj
Also.
Stop trying to find a way to make genocide acceptable. It just makes people sick.
Bibi isnt the problem. Supporting a genocidal apartheid state is the problem.
Biden will keep helping Israel slaughter millions of people until the heat death of the universe
@benroyce @CatHat @paninid @bytebro @sj
I don't think Biden is as milquetoast as you do. I admit I'd love for him to be bold, brash, forceful - but I think he's much too experienced & finessed not to know exactly what he's doing. Bibi has a streak of TFG in him - narcissistic, arrogant, arbitrary. He needs to be toppled, but if anything precipitous is done, the whole area will become more unstable.

@lolonurse @[email protected] @paninid @bytebro @sj

my reaction to your comment is twofold:

yes, i completely understand the subdued approach of the seasoned politician

but on some issues, you really must come down hard, because nonaction/ weak action carries with it consequences

@benroyce @lolonurse @bytebro @sj
“Bibi” itself is a term of affection. The man’s formal name is Netanyahu. And he makes strange, nihilistic, and self-destructive decisions to stay out of prison at least until end of ‘26, which is the next scheduled elections.
@paninid @benroyce @bytebro @sj
Bibi is a nickname for his given name of Benjamin. And I don't use it affectionately at all, but derisively. The same way I would use "Donny" if it didn't make me physically ill just thinking about it.
@benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj
I hear you, but I think our world is SO unstable, and TFG changed so many leaders' sense of who & what we are, that there are countries & factions who might actually react militarily if we get too pushy. And Putin would likely jump right in with whoever takes us on.
@CatHat @benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj
Fucking lying Putin bots pretending the most progressive President in 50 years is somehow exactly the same as a racist, fascist, bigot rapist con artist who heaps praise on Hitler.
Make sense out of that, if possible.
"Oh! Can't tell the difference!" Squeeked the world's least bright oxygen thieves, before taking a deep gulp and wasting our precious potable water.
@CatHat @benroyce @paninid @bytebro @sj
If you aren't already persuaded to vote for the most progressive President since the 1960s, for protecting democracy and abortion rights and climate change response and against a literal racist, bigoted, rapist criminal grifter opposed to all these, you are too goddamn dumb to share our planet's oxygen.