[ExI] To vote or not to vote

[John Clark]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 4:20 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:


> ​> ​
> Edmund Burke
> ​ ​
> quote:
> "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
> ​ ​
> do nothing."
>

​I agree, so do something, vote for the only person who has a chance of
stopping insanity.​


>
​> ​
> Ms Clinton, who shares many attitudes with Mr Hoxha
> ​ [...] ​
>

​Clinton is like Hoxha??​

​> ​
> It is a perverse triumph of leftoid indoctrination that
> ​ [...] ​
> I pride myself on being resistant to propaganda.


​Apparently your resistance doesn't extend to propaganda coming from places
like Fox News, R
ush
​ ​
​Limbaugh​
​ ​or
Breitbart
​.​


> ​> ​
> Why should I lend legitimacy to a system that gave us a
> ​ ​
> choice between Clinton and Trump?
>

​Neither needs you help to become legitimate but both need your vote to
become president. You can quote Burk as much as you like but the fact
remains that like it or not in 3681 hours either Clinton or Trump will
receive the nuclear launch codes and become Commander In Chief, and no
critical thinker could claim it makes no difference which one of the two
does.    ​


> ​> ​
> My interlocutor implied that I am responsible (i.e. could be blamed)
> ​ ​
> for the Bad Things that would happen if I do not vote. To not-vote is
> ​ ​
> still to vote, negatively.


​
Yes, deciding
​
 not to vote (or
​ doing something functionally equivalent like voting for ​
Johnson
​ or Stein) is an action and the second most morally reprehensible action
you could take, beaten only by voting for Trump. ​If you refuse to vote and
Trump wins then you will share in the blame for the catastrophe that will
result,


> ​> ​
> My answer is that bad things happen when
> ​ ​
> good people do not hang together, not when they fail to vote.
>

​You may be a good person and you may be too good to vote for a imperfect
candidate, but a nuclear fireball won't care how good you are, it will
treat your body exactly the same way it will treat a bad person's body, it
will treat both of them like matter.


> ​> ​
> if everybody was like me, a
> ​ ​
> conscientious objector to electoral participation
> ​ [...]​
>

​Then a strongman​ would become dictator.


> ​> ​
> Hitler or Clinton
> ​ ​
> would have no chance of rising to power.


​In the 1932 election you would have stayed home because you didn't like
Hitler or Hindenburg and figured there was no difference between the two. I
don't like either one either but I would have figured there was a
difference between the two and would have voted for Hindenburg without
hesitation. And Hitler lost that election, in later years I would have been
proud of myself for helping delay Hitler's rise to power by about a year
and given people a little more time to get out of Germany.


> ​> ​
> If a lof of people were like me,
> ​ ​
> anarcho-capitalism
> ​ ​
> would be a viable strategy.


​
It's weird
​. ​Y
ou claim to be in favor of
​ ​
anarcho-capitalism and yet it's Clinton you compare with Hitler the free
trade candidate not Trump the anti-free trade candidate
​. ​
Trump wants to put restriction on free speech
​,​
deport American citizens without trial to Guantanamo
​, and force Apple and everybody else to put backdoors into all electronic
products so Big Brother can get around encryption. And it's Trump not
Clinton who wants to kill the children of people the government doesn't
like and torture them in ways that are "one hell of alot worse than
waterboarding " even it we get no usable information from it because
"they deserve it".
Clinton wants none of those things but it's Clinton whose the great enemy
of freedom and ​
​
anarcho-capitalism
​ not Trump.​ It's weird.

Oh and by the way, in addition to the above Trump is also a thin skinned
conspiracy theory nutcase who's as crazy as a bedbug, and that might not be
desirable in a Commander in Chief who in 153 days could end the world as
easily as he now sends a tweet.

>
​> ​
> Be good, don't vote for bad.
>

​Be sane, don't vote for insane.

 John K Clark​
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