Question for Ex-GOP/Never Trump Moderate Types

[ryskey 447]

4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Went back the original tweet and found more poll responses. One particular question seemed to stand out which might give you a better idea of which "side" would prefer a data-driven approach to reopening the economy.

 

Oh for fuck's sake.  

By affiliation, % who do not trust (not very much or not at all) information about coronavirus from medical experts:

Dem: 8%

Independent: 34%

Rep: 63%

That result is a microcosm of this thread.  

Thanks for finding that.

[Planet Houston 4923]

33 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I’ve never voted on an election where my vote was the deciding vote. I don’t expect that to ever happen. Thus it doesn’t matter, any election I’ve ever participated in, whether I personally participated in it. That’s objective fact- I’m not a decider in any voting situation. 

I vote because I appreciate it as part of my right to participate in this grand American experiment, but end of the day my vote has never mattered. And neither has yours. Other than to you personally. 

[Foosters 17732]

5 minutes ago, Planet Houston said:

Wrong. Unless Trump wins by exactly one vote, Wulaw's vote, and voting in general, is a meaningless exercise.

I think I like this approach better than the "I voted for Gary Johnson" shtick that all the Trump fans posted throughout 2017.

 

[Biff Tannen 45494]

53 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I’ve never voted on an election where my vote was the deciding vote. I don’t expect that to ever happen. Thus it doesn’t matter, any election I’ve ever participated in, whether I personally participated in it. That’s objective fact- I’m not a decider in any voting situation. 

I vote because I appreciate it as part of my right to participate in this grand American experiment, but end of the day my vote has never mattered. And neither has yours. Other than to you personally. 

[Wulaw Horn 18980]

53 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Wrong. Unless Trump wins by exactly one vote, Wulaw's vote, and voting in general, is a meaningless exercise.

I think I like this approach better than the "I voted for Gary Johnson" shtick that all the Trump fans posted throughout 2017.

 

Correct. As a matter of ontological certainty. It was pointed out to me by a friend of mine in law school, and we argued about it for a semester. It made me really angry at first. And then, when I couldn’t logic my way out of it my perspective changed. He was right. What I do in the ballot box is meaningless (even if I don’t show up). I do show up, because I appreciate the fact that I get to vote, it’s really badass. But yeah, I’m not deciding anything. So it only really matters, how you cast your vote (or if you cast one at all) to you. 

If you actually want to influence an election donating money is probably the way to best do that. But even in school board elections I show up and vote for my vote isn’t consequential for deciding the issue. Perhaps an HOA election. My last neighborhood had 5 people vote. I might, theoretically, be a decider there. 

[Wulaw Horn 18980]

46 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Where’s yours?  I just told you something that’s objectively true

[StassneyHorn 6538]

If an election is won by one vote, every single vote mattered, not just yours.

[Biff Tannen 45494]

The point is, if everyone thought like you, even more people wouldn't vote and therefore those who did vote would matter a fuck ton.  By your rationale, voter turnout is meaningless.  We should just appoint 3 people to vote in each election.

[gmr548 16511]

I'm not sure I get the logic of some of the folks who say that if you don't vote for the Dems because the Republicans are terrible that you are just as bad. We are left with a choice between getting analy raped with a pineapple or getting analy raped with [mention=3609]NowThis[/mention]'s favorite strap on. How about not supporting rape? Saying someone should vote for the lesser of two evils is basically saying you support evil.

The Republicans don't stand for anything identifiable as conservative on the fiscal front, and they have outright embraced racism and hate. The Democrats don't have the same problem with racism as Republicans, but they seem to be full on board with the hate, just packaged differently. And they are in lock step with the current Republicans in pushing us towards our own destruction. But we have to pick which way we get raped, or we are part of the problem. 

Maybe instead we should decide that we don't want to be raped.

This is a bad post for several reasons, suffice it to say your analogy is way over the top and you should maybe chill.

When trump issues some ridiculous, racist, and unconstitutional executive order, all I see from the Democrats on here is glee about how the tables will turn where their person gets in office and issues their own unconstitutional executive orders now that unconstitutional executive orders have been normalized. So, yeah, voting Dem is not preserving the constitution. And this is just one example. Again, voting for the lessor of two evils is still voting for evil.

And this is straight false but okay.

 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4968]

2 hours ago, gmr548 said:

And this is straight false but okay.

 

I seem to remember there were several posters here saying stuff like they can't wait until a Democrat gets into office to issue executive orders on gun control and stuff like that. Of course, I could be remembering wrong, but I do vividly remember seeing that sentiment. It's possible it was on reddit, where the mob rules and often times the most outlandish stuff is upvoted. Anyhow, I will give Obama more credit than Trump when it comes to executive orders. It's not really a secret that he wanted to do something on gun control, but refrained from trying to do anything by executive order until all other options were exhausted because he wasn't sure he had the authority. But even then his executive orders on gun control were fairly reasonable. Compare that to Trump who issued an executive order for the ATF to find a way to reclassify bump stocks as machine guns, despite the language in the law being clear. Trump has been by far the worst president for abusing executive privilege. I'm not happy with how either party has expanded the authority of the presidency, but I'll gladly concede that the Democrats are not as bad as the Republicans as of late. I can't really speak to earlier, since it goes back to before I was old enough to really pay attention. However, endorsing the Democrats with my vote is still endorsing plenty of things I disagree with.

It is OK to have principles. I do, and vote based on those principles. I won't criticize someone else because their principles say vote for the lesser of two evils, but if nobody rebels against the system, we will still always be voting for evils. That said, if it looks like the presidential race is close enough for my vote to make a difference in Texas, I will be voting Dem. If not, I will vote third party to help increase the percentage of those votes and do my part in saying that none of this is acceptable.

[Mole 4320]

10 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Love when men blithely make tone deaf rape analogies.

Helps me know who to avoid like the Covid.

They said they're against it, so I don't see what the problem is.

[Bullneck 18987]

Never voted anything but Republican until 2008.  I came to understand they had no fix for the Great Recession, only lies to hold onto power.  It's only gotten worse since then; I now realize the country and world are better off with a functioning Federal government of sufficient size to address problems individuals, business, and state and local govt. can't.  

Don't get me started on the abortion and guns stuff.  I'm out, and not coming back.

[cactusflinthead 27594]

Remind  me to rec Wulaw for voter registration drives in Republican circles. 

"Here. Sign up to vote. People fought and died to get it, but it's really rather pointless."

 

[Celery Man 20886]

Reminder that George P Bush is on the list


https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/09/george-p-bush-vote-endorse-donald-trump/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

23 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Correct. As a matter of ontological certainty. It was pointed out to me by a friend of mine in law school, and we argued about it for a semester. It made me really angry at first. And then, when I couldn’t logic my way out of it my perspective changed. He was right. What I do in the ballot box is meaningless (even if I don’t show up). I do show up, because I appreciate the fact that I get to vote, it’s really badass. But yeah, I’m not deciding anything. So it only really matters, how you cast your vote (or if you cast one at all) to you. 

If you actually want to influence an election donating money is probably the way to best do that. But even in school board elections I show up and vote for my vote isn’t consequential for deciding the issue. Perhaps an HOA election. My last neighborhood had 5 people vote. I might, theoretically, be a decider there. 

you vote because that is the way you have your say in the national conversation. if you only voted because your vote was the dictating the ultimate decision, you are looking for dictatorship.

[Wulaw Horn 18980]

11 hours ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

you vote because that is the way you have your say in the national conversation. if you only voted because your vote was the dictating the ultimate decision, you are looking for dictatorship.

Sure. As I said I show up because it’s a cool thing I can do as an American. But I’ve always no voted races my entire voting life. 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

On 6/9/2020 at 1:38 PM, Wulaw Horn said:

I’ve never voted on an election where my vote was the deciding vote. I don’t expect that to ever happen. Thus it doesn’t matter, any election I’ve ever participated in, whether I personally participated in it. That’s objective fact- I’m not a decider in any voting situation. 

I vote because I appreciate it as part of my right to participate in this grand American experiment, but end of the day my vote has never mattered. And neither has yours. Other than to you personally. 

Actually, that's not a fact, it's a supposition.  Since you do not know in what order the ballots are counted, and you can't tell which ballot is yours during the count anyway, you have no way of knowing if it was your specific vote that took a candidate from the losing side to the winning side of the ledger.  So you can't know for certain whether your vote was the deciding vote or not.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

5 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Actually, that's not a fact, it's a supposition.  Since you do not know in what order the ballots are counted, and you can't tell which ballot is yours during the count anyway, you have no way of knowing if it was your specific vote that took a candidate from the losing side to the winning side of the ledger.  So you can't know for certain whether your vote was the deciding vote or not.

mdwm

[Wulaw Horn 18980]

4 hours ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Actually, that's not a fact, it's a supposition.  Since you do not know in what order the ballots are counted, and you can't tell which ballot is yours during the count anyway, you have no way of knowing if it was your specific vote that took a candidate from the losing side to the winning side of the ledger.  So you can't know for certain whether your vote was the deciding vote or not.

Ok. Let me rephrase that- the outcome of any election has never swung on whether or not I participated nor do I ever expect it to do so.