HeavenlyPossumSo if someone wanted to vote for “a society in which snipers are not deployed against student protests,” which candidate should they vote for?
Rui Malheiro@HeavenlyPossum in the next election, just make sure the openly fascist party is defeated. If it goes according to history, they will eat each other and break into two or three parties. Then, you *might* have their support to reform electoral law into proportional representation. With some luck and good grassroots movements, you can then tackle on the not openly fascist party and work your way into a democracy.
The democrats hold office now, while snipers are being deployed against students
@HeavenlyPossum I know and it's sad, but not different from when your youth was protesting for the end of white previleges, the end of Vietnam war or the end of sexual discrimination. The best hope you have is to end the two party dictatorship. The endgame is the goal and it's akin to sacrificing the queen to enable the checkmate.
So we should vote for the party that’s overseeing violent repression of protests, because that party will (sometime in the future) be better or be replaced by something better?
@HeavenlyPossum no. You should vote to *make sure* you will have a chance to vote again in four years.
This advice come from experience. I live in a country where we could not (freely) vote for 50 years.
But that’s not what I asked at all. It’s ok if the answer to the question “who should you vote for to end the violent suppression of protests” is “no one.”
@HeavenlyPossum voting in "no one" is voting for the _status quo_ in a proportional democracy. In a "winner takes all" *dictatorship* like you have, a vote for "no one" is a vote for whoever wins.
No, not voting is not voting.
@HeavenlyPossum you may *want* it to be like that, but in your actual political system, it's not how it works. If 60% don't vote and the winning party gets 51% of the votes, it means something like 21% of the population won the vote.
And that's even ignoring the fact that with your bonkers system you don't even need a majority of the *total votes* to win.
No, not voting is not voting. There is no moral universe in which declining to participate in a process makes you responsible for that process.
@HeavenlyPossum by that reasoning, if you chose *not to oppose* racism, segregation, sexual discrimination or fascism you are not *allowing* it to go on?
This begs the question that opposing a system requires participating in that system, which is untrue, and presumes that we’re limited in our opposition to participation, which is also untrue.
@HeavenlyPossum ah, yes, I totally agree with you there. And as you say, we are not *limited*. That means we can, and I argue we should, *also* fight the system from inside, steering it from killing us until we can replace it for something better.
WovenTales@HeavenlyPossum @chromatic I just mutually closed out a conversation with someone else who was utterly unable to see that continuing to feed one party on the basis of "at least they're not the other" gives them absolutely no reason to do anything different. It's amazing how strong the system's brainwashing can be when it makes otherwise reasonable radicals support genocidal dictators. The answer's to tear them both down to their foundations, people!
@HeavenlyPossum allow me to recomend this essay from Abigail Thorn, she's much more eloquent and entertaining than I could ever hope to be.