Ethicists - Voting Your Heart is Immoral

[PickelledEggs]

ok, so we're in agreement that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance and it would be a waste of a vote.

I'd suggest you be more clear with your points, if you aren't in disagreement.

BTW. You're off base with
"I see you as looking only short, term, at each individual election, instead of actually working toward long-term change.  You say that the way to get this change is to do it your way.  How is that working out for you?  Dodd-Frank was passed...and then gutted.  There was too much money in politics...so money became speech, and we can't get enough speech in politics.  A handful of banks pulled a job on US and got away with it.  After 40 years we are STILL fighting the abortion fight.  After 50 years we are STILL fighting the civil rights fight."

Re-read what I wrote. I said it's a long process, from the beginning and you can't just pretend the rest of the government away until the presidential election that happens every 4 years. How saying that is selfish, is beyond me.

[Nonsensei]

Uhh. Well she is the only other major party candidate. "convincing" isn't the term that I would use to say what you're trying to say. I would say "observe". As in we observed the reality that we are in. lol

The segment of my post you cut that line out of was referring to the primary.

And on that note, if you can't calm yourself, I'd advise you take a breather. I mean.... you're spelling out the letters in lol as "el oh el".... in all caps. It's pretty obvious you're giving us emotional responses and not thought out, rational ones.

Anyway. #trump2016 #buildawall #chinachinachinachina #yourefired #unemployment2016 #makeamericahateagain2016

I gotta start prepping myself to worship our inevitable pumpkinfaced overlord.

I spelled lol out in caps. Things are really starting to get out of hand.

Yes its true, I have emotions. Guilty as charged. I'll even go a step further and admit that its possible for someone to inflame them. For example, when some sanctimonious hypocrite tries to convince me that I'm being selfish for not doing what they want me to do with my vote. And of course after I repeatedly explain to him exactly why he is wrong he summons his rapier wit and decimates my argument by repeating his previous position virtually word for word. Over and over.

Its true. Its all true. My patience has a limit.

[Duncle]

Guys...Voting for your narrow self-interest is selfish. Voting for someone because you think its the right thing to do is not. Misguided maybe, even foolish- but not selfish.

Voting for a third-party candidate is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, its sometimes the only effective way of getting long-term change. In Britain, the Labour Party started out as a third party. It took years before they got in power, but we in the UK wouldn't have (for example) the NHS if voters hadn't seen that neither of the existing parties served the interests of working people, and that the only realistic way towards a more egalitarian society was supporting a new political party. I return to a point I made earlier in the thread: if you always accept the lesser evil then all that you will ever get is evils.

So voting third party isn't throwing your vote away and it isn't selfish. However, under present circumstances, it is imho decidedly ill-advised. Hillary is distasteful; Trump is dangerous. This isn't a normal election, and keeping Trump out should really be the priority- even if it means voting for a lying corporate shill.

[Hakurei Reimu]

I find it bizarre that anyone thinks that voting a third party is somehow "rejecting the system." You're not "rejecting" the system by voting third party, you're playing into it. You're playing into it because the voting system we use naturally penalizes third parties by splitting the vote: it effectively hands victory to the candidate who has policy that is most unlike what you want. Eventually people get tired of not getting any what they want and go back to voting a major party to get some of what they want.

Third parties in the US have become major parties, but that happens because the growing third party eats the weaker major parties for breakfast, as what happened to the Whigs â€" the new Republican party effectively ate them, just as the Whigs had done to the old Republicans before them. And even then it doesn't always work, like what happened to the Bull Moose party. It made a damn good showing in the 1912 presidential election but fell apart after that.

The primaries are really the places to be to start the change in the political landscape. The two major parties have to be weakened before change will happen.

Anyway, I wouldn't call someone who doesn't listen to reason and use their vote effectively "selfish" â€" I would call them "stupid." They have used their vote in a way that will most effectively see to it that they get almost nothing of what they want out of the election. Our election system is flawed right down to its basic assumptions, and anyone who votes as if that were not the case is only going to get disappointment.

[chill98]

Reading this thread has been interesting.

If Hillary Clinton wasn't such a weak candidate, this wouldn't be being discussed in such a manner.  Pity to think she can't win on her own merits as in straight up she's Good for American's, rather indy/Sanders voters have to be pushed to consider Trump as more evil/dangerous.

[widdershins]

ok, so we're in agreement that a third party candidate doesn't stand a chance and it would be a waste of a vote.

No, we are not.  I'm done.

[PickelledEggs]

Oh. Ok. At least we cleared that up... lol

[widdershins]

Oh. Ok. At least we cleared that up... lol

Well, you know what they say.  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him understand your political view if he really doesn't want to.

[PickelledEggs]

Well, you know what they say.  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him understand your political view if he really doesn't want to.

Yes. And that can go both ways, btw. But if you already realized that it goes both ways, at least I know you're semi-self aware ;)

[widdershins]

Yes. And that can go both ways, btw. But if you already realized that it goes both ways, at least I know you're semi-self aware ;)

I do understand your point.  I've been hearing it all my life.  I just disagree with the logic.

[PickelledEggs]

I do understand your point.  I've been hearing it all my life.  I just disagree with the logic.

Yes. I know. I understand with, but disagree with yours as well. Or did you not understand that?

P.S. there's probably a reason you've been hearing it all your life 

[widdershins]

Yes. I know. I understand with, but disagree with yours as well. Or did you not understand that?

P.S. there's probably a reason you've been hearing it all your life 

That statement isn't entirely honest.  It suggests that this "reason" is that there's something to it when, in fact, the whole "throwing your vote away" thing is entirely opinion, true only if you look at it from one point of view instead of another.  Likewise many might say I am "Throwing my money away" by giving to someone who claims to be in need, but may not be.  I disagree with that too.  I am 99% certain I have been scammed by people claiming to be in need just looking for a quick buck.  But for me anything less than 100% certainty, without doubt isn't good enough reason to turn a person away.  So was I taken?  Yeah, probably.  Did I "throw my money away"?  That depends how you look at it.  You could look at it like there's a 99% chance it was a scam, then assume the other 1% is irrelevant, therefor the money is wasted or "thrown away".  Or you could look at it like I gambled with it.  There was a 99% chance I would lose, but a 1% chance I would really be helping someone in need.  I don't like those odds, but I'll play them every time if I have the cash to spare.  So from my point of view, there is a really good chance I got scammed but STILL I did not "throw my money away" because I did the right thing, from my point of view, just in case.

And there's always the easy cheap shot, "There's probably a reason you've been hearing all your life that Jesus is coming back for his people any time now."  If I was religious that statement WOULD come back to bite you in the ass.  It's an argument style posing as evidence of something.  Nothing more.

[PickelledEggs]

If I was religious that statement WOULD come back to bite you in the ass.

Ummmm. No. because I know the reason is that people have a deep ingrained want to believe in the supernatural. It's a completely different topic. Although even if it is the same, there is a reason for both.

The fact that you are throwing your vote away is not an opinion, unless the point of you voting for a third party candidate is a way of saying "See! They got 10% of the votes! They weren't completely forgotten about!" or something like that. As for the easy cheap shots, I guess they are easy... The disconnection from reality is very obvious. I would call them blunt reality checks though.

The primaries are over. I was rooting for and voted for Bernie, but he lost. He was the ONLY one other than Hillary that had a chance at beating Trump, in fact, he had a better chance. It's time to acknowledge the reality we're living in right now and reality is that the two main party candidates are Hillary and Donald.

First reason that voting for an independent is stupid:
Who of the independents are you voting for? Jill Stein? Gary Johnson? No one of the people, even with in the people that are voting independent, can agree on who to vote for. So not only will there be a minuscule amount of people voting for independents, but the minuscule amount of people voting for independents are going to be split among themselves.  And while this small amount of people voting for their third party candidate will not be enough to elect them, it will be enough to split the vote and cause Trump to be elected. Trump, after all is ahead in the polls. He has this in the bag so far, if the people with their head in the sand, bernie-or-busting, don't get their stubborn act together.

If you want to make a change, this presidential election is not the time. Change is made during the rest of the elections...  voting out shitty senators and representatives. It's a long process that involves more than just the presidential election. Voting in protest of Hillary, who is not too much worse than any other president we've had in recent years is not going to fix anything. It will only hurt things.

I said this before in one way or another, but

We're going down a shit river. About half of the people are trying to steer this boat towards the constipation and corn chunks. It will destroy our propeller and it smells like ass. About 40% of us are trying to steer this boat towards the diarrhea. It will still smell like ass, but at least it won't break the boat past repair. The last approx 10% is trying to steer us in to the fork in the middle because they think there is some freshwater ravine that isn't actually there.

Just steer the boat in to the diarrhea and navigate to a nicer river once we get past this fork.

[PickelledEggs]

I guess the other bottom line is, if you think a third party candidate has a chance and voting for them in the general presidential election will actually doing something, you're in some sort of denial.

[Hydra009]

I guess the other bottom line is, if you think a third party candidate has a chance and voting for them in the general presidential election will actually doing something, you're in some sort of denial.

In some states, Jill Stein isn't even on the ballot.  And she polls in the single digits.  Same for Gary Johnson, though he's at least on the ballot in all states.  So, unless there's some sort of miracle, no third party candidate is going to come close to winning it.

And if they manage to sway more people than expected, they'd just act as spoilers - splitting the liberal vote among multiple liberal candidates and/or splitting the conservative vote among multiple conservative candidates.  In first-past-the-post-voting, splitting the vote is a great way to achieve electoral defeat and get your ideological opponent in office.

The DNC platform contains a plank for $15/hr minimum wage, an aggressive climate change plan, an end to capital punishment, it calls for a pathway for marijuana legalization, etc.  It actually contains some pretty good science policies.  The RNC platform contains some pretty far-right stuff plus some pretty shoddy science.  I dunno about you guys but I would much, much rather have a Dem in office trying to implement the DNC platform than a Republican in office trying to implement the RNC platform.

But hey, if any of you guys want a pro-life Supreme Court for the next couple decades, some more of that good ol' clean coal, "religious liberty" that sounds an awful lot like a government endorsement of religious bigotry, and a repeal of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision (which effectively legalized gay marriage), then vote for the Donald or third party or you know what, just stay home.  Any of those options all work towards the same outcome.