this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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I vote third party every time. I don't care if they're more likely to lose, the whole point of a democracy is that we vote honestly and that every voice actually serves as a voice which goes against the herd mentality. So I've never voted for the "lesser of two evils", I've been voting for actual good people every time because they friggin' earned it, not the people who have leveraged into victory based on the fact they have victory in the first place.
This would be perfectly fine with ranked choice voting.
Unfortunately, the US doesn't have that so that's the same as an empty vote. You get to take the "moral high ground" while still actively voting to let the country go to the dumps. Great job.
How is it voting to let the country go to the dumps when in the same logic it's supposedly throwing said vote away? It's neither; I didn't vote for the country to go to the dumps, I voted for the third party candidate, in contrast to people who voted for one of the two main candidates based on peer pressure and more literally voted for the country to go to the dumps. That, I argue, is wasting your vote, because at that point it's not even your own vote. The point of voting is that all votes are holons of the result, not drops in a nebulous mass.
… your vote has power… inaction allows, or using your vote in a way that will never change an outcome is complicity
I mean the quote is kind of the driving aspect of my point. The quote is a commonly quoted WWII quote, it mentions we should speak up and act when necessary. I consider voting third party to be this, or if it isn't, it's still better than voting for someone based on their victory chances because that makes us fall into another WWII cliché, the one where we're just "following orders" (and because it's more of an effort than not showing up to the polls, it's better than not trying).
i’m not talking about doing nothing, but point your effort where it can make change… voting 3rd party is a hopelessly ineffective way of making change… it’s a dream, and that’s it. it makes you feel good, and that’s it, but it’ll never EVER change anything… that is just the mathematics and sociology of how the voting system works
work towards changing from first past the post and removing the electoral college (there are effects to do both of these things that ARE making progress! some of them are even close!)
only THEN can you vote 3rd party and not have it a complete waste
but in the meantime, i beg you, vote for the party that isn’t actively campaigning to persecute minorities, who gave you at least a half way form of socialised healthcare, who’s at least trying with green energy, whose policies and positions are at least internally consistent for the most part
and most importantly, vote for the party that isn’t trying to make it harder to vote for anyone else, because you can be sure that gerrymandering, fucking with the supreme court, playing bullshit political games with voter ID all makes it harder to vote in a 3rd party candidate too
Change is what people make of it, is it not?
change has nothing to do with people until it does… change is just change. change when it comes to people and social systems is effective only when it effects the majority of people that are touched by an issue. voting 3rd party after not for some time is change of a kind, but i wouldn’t call it social change
social change comes when a large number of people decide something should be different, and the mathematics and sociology behind first past the post means that it’d take something so close to impossible that it’s not worth classing in the realms of possibility for a 3rd party to have any effect on the political system
the reality of the system is that the US is a 2 party system… the statistics of FPTP, and the game theory that leads to defensive voting, spoiler effect, and any number of other bad outcomes ensures that
within such a system, you just can’t hope to have an outcome other than 1 of the 2 parties having any real impact, thus you have to change 1 of the parties to be the way you want it to be, or you must change the system
you could argue that voting 3rd party forces the parties to change their positions, but historically that hasn’t really happened so i personally wouldn’t hold my breath
vote defensively, and work to change the system… because changing the system is incremental, achievable, and less subject to the whims of a few
You say that like there haven't been third parties coming into power before. For example, the Whig party used to be one of America's two parties before it was replaced. Or to use a more severe example, when Hitler became a Nazi, the party had six people in it, and we all know what happened next. Social change is also defined by the action, not the actors.
LOL, who told you that?
The dictionary. Democracy is, by definition, where every voice can be itself.
What kind of dictionary are you using??
An etymological one. It's a combination of "demos" meaning "of each citizen" and "kratos" meaning "rule". Demo-cracy.
That doesn't support your earlier claims. And the etymology of a word isn't its definition.
How so?
If you need the concept of a word having a definition explained to you, you need to be talking to sometime far more patient than me.
The whole point of etymology is to construct a word that fits a certain definition, so for the definition and the etymology to contradict would render the way the word is built pointless.
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement.
What's so confusing about the fact that word roots are pointless if they don't point to how a word is supposed to be used?
Suppose I was inventing a word, let's say "chronocide", and someone asked "if 'chrono' means 'time' and 'cide' means 'to kill', does 'chronocide' mean to kill some time" only for me to say "no, it's a name I gave a new state of matter", would that not be a waste of word construction?
The word wouldn't be applied to that for long though, as inevitably people going by the same train of thought as the other person might one day look for a fancy word that means "to kill some time", and the meaning of "chronocide" would slowly shift to its most fitting meaning.
Etymology has jurisdictional overwriting power over popularly-given word meanings for the very reason that it contains multiple words (in other languages no less) that already have an established meaning that would have to change first and simultaneously.
Language does not work that way. What you're saying is the linguistic equivalent of sovcit nonsense.
How so?
okay but that’s just screaming into the void… they gain nothing from your vote, you gain nothing from your vote… it doesn’t matter how worthy they are, it’s exactly the same in literally every way as not voting
They gain a vote from my vote (a vote like any other, and it's not like one of the leading parties doesn't someday naturally lose as well), and I gain the license to say I acted like a person in this democracy, not the kind of person who "just follows orders" just because the outcome of those who do is the most likely to succeed. I could always "not vote" but I might as well try. To try and fail is better to never try. And I will always vote based on my own genuine thoughts and nobody else's, naturally this means not voting for the two candidates who are the embodiment of taking things for granted. Plus it's not like nobody is tuning in.
okay but a vote doesn’t actually benefit anyone, and neither does being able to say you “acted like a person”
a vote is worthless on its own. a vote is only worthwhile when it has a chance of producing an outcome, and a vote for 3rd party has no chance of producing any outcome
you get to take some moral high ground, which is great that you can do that and risk very little… meanwhile, people’s lives are actually at risk
its a shit situation: nobody is denying that at all (well i’m sure some people are, but i sure ain’t!)… but realistically, the only way to make any difference is (as someone further up thread put it) to tug the tug of war rope on the direction you prefer, while working to change the game
That's the thing. How do you define a chance of producing an outcome? You define it by people deciding to vote to make that difference. To go about it based on how others vote is to be a follower, and to make a difference is leading. I vote regardless of apparent voter outcome because I am devoted to contributing to said outcome. I'm trying to be the change I want in the world. The leading two people have always made it clear that choosing people based on what they have going for them is their game, a game I fight by doing exactly as I do. To be "realistic", as you say, is to surrender.
okay, but now you’re fighting game theory and maths
that’s just not going to work out well
it’s irrelevant what you want at the end of the day… voting for some “best” option is only useful if it’s even remotely likely to happen… don’t get me wrong, if it’s a slim chance of a great outcome that’s one thing but the odds of everyone deciding to do the same thing at the same time are basically 0
sure, vote how you like, but you’re more likely to win the lottery than to have a 3rd party candidate elected and i think we can all agree you don’t buy lottery tickets because you think you might win
I just don't think voting for the least useful candidate who happens to be the one up on stage is by definition more useful. It's similar to upvoting/downvoting a Reddit comment when almost everyone else is going the opposite way. You could argue resistance is futile, but you'll probably do it anyways.
okay, well if the republicans had their way i’d be tortured forever in conversion therapy, there’d be no movement at all on green energy, the solution to homelessness would probably boil down to if you’re going through a rough patch it’s execution time, christianity would be mandatory
both sides are NOT the same… 1 side is mostly inept, and the other side is actively trying to persecute people, to which i’d say
In other words, you get to indulge your vanity.
The alternative is having no sense of self at all.
If your sense of self only comes from voting, you have SERIOUS problems.
I didn't say that, I meant in the context of voting.
In that case your problem is thinking that voting is about you and how it makes you feel. It's not.
It would be if it was, so good thing it isn't.
Wow, finally, a fucking sane comment. There is hope still then.