I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs It's so vacuous and self-important, isn't it? One of the main things that voting can change is that you can vote for people who will continue to enable the right to vote. Or, as happened in the US a year and a bit ago, lots of people can decide not to bother voting and then likely lose the right to do so in future.
And yes, Rees-Mogg explicitly admitted that voter ID was supposed to disqualify people who wouldn't vote Tory, and it didn't work - because the people who put the most effort into ensuring they could vote, wanted to get rid of the Tories.
Voting in favour of democracy is always a damn good reason to vote even if everything else feels disappointing.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs See also: "Politicians are all the same, only out for themselves." - do you know who wants you to believe that? The absolute worst people in politics.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs 👍 Voting is literally the least effortful thing most people can do that has a credible theory of change.
Sure, it's less likely to be impactful than local community organising etc, but it comes first on the list because it's trivially easy, not because it's best.
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@afewbugs 👍 Voting is literally the least effortful thing most people can do that has a credible theory of change.
Sure, it's less likely to be impactful than local community organising etc, but it comes first on the list because it's trivially easy, not because it's best.
@PoliceStateUK @afewbugs if voting didn't work, the hard right wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of setting up parties such as UKIP and Reform compared to being just street thugs/football hooligans..
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@suqdiq @RolloTreadway tempting as it is to just skip over the whole argument and get straight to the point where we block each other, just because an action doesn't fix everything it can still be more useful than doing nothing. Voting on it's own is not a magic bullet and can't be the limit of your activism, but not voting doesn't accomplish anything. Rebecca Solnit said it better.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs I don't know who are more annoying: smug libs who think voting is the entirety of political participation, or arrogant radicals who think that anything less than complete revolution is useless...
Just vote for the least bad thing already, God damn it, and get on with changing politics in your other preferred way.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs
I’m not sure it’s big in the UK yet, but a major theme in the US right wing propaganda is “both sides are corrupt and competence is a myth”, in part to reduce voting enthusiasm and in part because they want people to distrust the whole idea of government so they can shrink it. “Your vote doesn’t matter” is complementary to that. -
@afewbugs I don't know who are more annoying: smug libs who think voting is the entirety of political participation, or arrogant radicals who think that anything less than complete revolution is useless...
Just vote for the least bad thing already, God damn it, and get on with changing politics in your other preferred way.
@douginamug @afewbugs People who rage if you don't vote the way they want you to vote get me the most.
In fact. I'd be fine with voting being made mandatory. The numbers we see are embarrassingly low most of the time. But if we're going to do that, we also need to make it safer and more convenient. (And the Post Office probably shouldn't be allowed to just not deliver your mail-in ballot if they suspect that you're, say, liberal or black or a woman.)
Edit: I forgot to speak to one thing. "If you vote for the lesser evil, you've still voted for evil." This isn't reason not to vote, but it might be reason to vote third party or write in a candidate if you don't like the third-party options.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs some people just seem to think being cynical is cool. I think it is the outward version of telling yourself how much you suck just so when other people say it it supposedly doesn’t hurt so much. 🫠 hope and optimism actually achieve more in life
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs
"if voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" yeah buddy, that's why they're actively tryinglike seriously, this is such an incredibly privileged sentiment. voter disenfranchisement is how fascist in quite a few countries rose to power in the 21st century. they literally are making it illegal because it's another barrier for them to pass.
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@afewbugs
"if voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" yeah buddy, that's why they're actively tryinglike seriously, this is such an incredibly privileged sentiment. voter disenfranchisement is how fascist in quite a few countries rose to power in the 21st century. they literally are making it illegal because it's another barrier for them to pass.
@afewbugs if it didn't matter, they wouldn't make it so hard for non-white people to vote. if it didn't matter, they wouldn't raise such absurd barriers on the way to gaining the right to vote.
they've been trying to keep the voter pool as narrow as they can for literal centuries. while at the same time making it as easy as they can for themselves and their allies to vote.
just how privileged do you have to be to ignore all of that? -
undefined oblomov@sociale.network shared this topic on
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs for me the problem is that your vote is so statistically meaningless as to be pointless.
That is not an argument against electoral politics. It is an argument against the idea that we need to encourage each other to vote. If you think that electoral politics matters, you need to engage in a political party. It is through the limited levers of party decision making and campaigning for a programme that you make a difference via the ballot.
You should think that electoral politics matters. Starmer's Labour party is different from Corbyn's and different again from Badenoch's Tories. They are pretty close to Sunak's Tories, but definitely not the same.
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal. If caring for your community and building strength locally changed anything they'd make it illegal, too.
They have, for both. You can do and help others do, both. -
@afewbugs for me the problem is that your vote is so statistically meaningless as to be pointless.
That is not an argument against electoral politics. It is an argument against the idea that we need to encourage each other to vote. If you think that electoral politics matters, you need to engage in a political party. It is through the limited levers of party decision making and campaigning for a programme that you make a difference via the ballot.
You should think that electoral politics matters. Starmer's Labour party is different from Corbyn's and different again from Badenoch's Tories. They are pretty close to Sunak's Tories, but definitely not the same.
@RobertoArchimboldi so many things are statistically meaningless if only one person does them though, voting, giving blood, giving up flying, going vegan, picking up litter, going on a protest march... They only become useful if enough people do them, so sharing quotes and memes that discourage people from doing them is actively making them less effective.
I'm not arguing that voting is all we should be doing. And yes at the moment it does feel like all we have are bad options, but I still think if you can't get a good option like potentially the Greens a bad option like Labour will do less harm than the Tories, who in turn will do less harm than Reform so it's worth trying to stay as low down the hierarchy of harm as possible. And yes it is important to join a political party to influence their direction, campaign for electoral reform or organise progressive primaries while we're still stuck under FPTP say, but not everyone has time or energy for that whereas voting is easier
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
Also, saying "everyone should vote" isn't the same as saying "voting should be the extent of your civic participation", any more than saying "everyone should brush their teeth" is the same as "brushing your teeth should be the only personal hygiene action you take"
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I hate that "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" quote. Yes it's probably not going to change much, but the fact that governments have been actively working over the years to make it harder for trans people, people without fixed addresses or people who can't afford photo ID to vote suggests they're worried it'll change something, and by discouraging people from voting you're actively helping them with this.
@afewbugs I think important historical context about that quote is Emma Goldman said it in the USA at a time when women, black folks, and other huge groups of society couldn't vote. She was arguing that people should focus on building a revolutionary economy rather than expanding voting rights within capitalism.
It hits a little less hard after the suffragettes/civil rights movement, but people go on quoting it!
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@RobertoArchimboldi so many things are statistically meaningless if only one person does them though, voting, giving blood, giving up flying, going vegan, picking up litter, going on a protest march... They only become useful if enough people do them, so sharing quotes and memes that discourage people from doing them is actively making them less effective.
I'm not arguing that voting is all we should be doing. And yes at the moment it does feel like all we have are bad options, but I still think if you can't get a good option like potentially the Greens a bad option like Labour will do less harm than the Tories, who in turn will do less harm than Reform so it's worth trying to stay as low down the hierarchy of harm as possible. And yes it is important to join a political party to influence their direction, campaign for electoral reform or organise progressive primaries while we're still stuck under FPTP say, but not everyone has time or energy for that whereas voting is easier
@afewbugs right, voting is easy but it is pointless. Of course collectively it isn't. But that means you need to be taking collective action. The very low level, low effort collective action is saying, 'vote x' or putting up a poster or defending a party's programme online or things of that ilk. Whether you actually go down to the polling station is irrelevant.
We do have to get over the idea that collective action is the sum of individual actions. I go vegan, you go vegan, eventually we all go vegan. That is not how it works. Often a very small number of people build a campaign and sometimes they bring about systemic change. You might support that campaign by sharing your favourite dhal recipe, but you becoming or being vegan is irrelevant. That change will involve lots of individual changes. Of course the campaign is not effective unless some people actually become vegan. That person may as well be you, but it doesn't have to be.
I would point out that, unlike with voting, there is no obvious connection between the number of vegans in the population and the level of animal suffering. It may be that by reducing demand for meat, the price of it goes down and so the level of animal welfare decreases to reduce cost. That is not an argument against being vegan. I think that you don't go vegan because it will reduce suffering, but because you cannot countenance eating animal products. In that sense it is disanalogous to voting
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@afewbugs right, voting is easy but it is pointless. Of course collectively it isn't. But that means you need to be taking collective action. The very low level, low effort collective action is saying, 'vote x' or putting up a poster or defending a party's programme online or things of that ilk. Whether you actually go down to the polling station is irrelevant.
We do have to get over the idea that collective action is the sum of individual actions. I go vegan, you go vegan, eventually we all go vegan. That is not how it works. Often a very small number of people build a campaign and sometimes they bring about systemic change. You might support that campaign by sharing your favourite dhal recipe, but you becoming or being vegan is irrelevant. That change will involve lots of individual changes. Of course the campaign is not effective unless some people actually become vegan. That person may as well be you, but it doesn't have to be.
I would point out that, unlike with voting, there is no obvious connection between the number of vegans in the population and the level of animal suffering. It may be that by reducing demand for meat, the price of it goes down and so the level of animal welfare decreases to reduce cost. That is not an argument against being vegan. I think that you don't go vegan because it will reduce suffering, but because you cannot countenance eating animal products. In that sense it is disanalogous to voting
@RobertoArchimboldi Taking veganism as an example, I can't speak for anyone else (my wife was a vegan-for-the-animals vegan first) but I went vegan first for the climate as an attempt to reduce my impact on the planet. We have both sort of converged on each other's issues over the years, but I don't think individual choices are meaningless because they're often the starting point for collective action. It's not just about what you as an individual do or don't choose to eat (buy/consume/spend your time on), sharing information on what you are doing and meeting other people doing the same is sort of what campaign networks arise out of and how people learn about issues from each other. In my experience people tend not to just wake up one morning, think "ooh I care about this" and take on an organising role cold, they start developing concerns about something and start meeting up with and learning from people who have the same concerns. And out of that campaigns like, say, plant based
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