djw smackdown watch
OK, not really, but I want to alert interested readers to Russell Arben Fox’s excellent post replying to a rather unsubtle, bombastic post of mine from a couple of weeks ago. This short post serves two purposes: to direct interested readers to Russell’s post, and make public my intention to post a reply when I’m not quite as busy as I am at the moment, hopefully later this week or this weekend.
Bloke’s in Kansas. He can afford to be principled and all philosophical-like. I’m sure I missed something.
I wouldn’t feel so comfortable about that. The odds are still just the odds. Kansas isn’t a done deal.
What if this is the year things go against all reason and break for Obama in Kansas, while at the same time a combination of tax ballot measures and anti-pension sentiment tosses Oregon to Romney? Extremely unlikely, but why not just vote for Obama and not risk condemning thousands of people to death and suffering because you don’t want to dirty your conscience?
What if Jill Stein almost wins the election, but a close call in Kansas barely gives it to Obama?
Extremely unlikely, but why not just vote for Stein and not risk condemning thousands of people to death and suffering because you were so scared of Romney?
I mean, as long as we’re discussing things that won’t happen.
I’m not actually super-impressed by Fox’s argument, but he links to a post by Jacob Levy that I am really impressed by. To sum up, he says,
What if Jill Stein almost wins the election, but a close call in Kansas barely gives it to Obama?
Extremely unlikely,
In the same sense that it is extremely unlikely that I will almost win, despite not running, yes.
And I missed your sarcasm. Mea culpa…
If Kansas were an imaginable Obama state the election would already be over with. It would be the biggest landslide since 1972.
Consequentialists are usually coldbloodedly rational, but this is raving lunacy. If you are going to accuse Fox of killing thousands of people on the basis of pure fantasy, why don’t you accuse him of killing millions or hundreds of millions of people? The whole Road Warrior apocalypse thing, with Fox’s vote the cause of it.
Previosu italics were a mistake.
Ah, capice. Ignore my comment below.
Yes, it’s raving lunacy to think that the Democrats would only win Kansss if the election was a rout.
And also, it’s crazy to think that tipping an election to Mitt Romney will kill thousands of people.
OK. Proceed, Governor.
I did not know that
was now a socialist position. Are there any other groups I need to sell out to Catholic Bishops to remain a socialist in good stead, or just women?
Yeah, that particular bit jumped out at me too, and caused me, retroactively, to raise a quizzical eyebrow at the entire piece.
He does situate himself as a Christian socialist (although more than a few Christian socialists of my acquaintance are just fine with the mandate). At any rate, he’s not an orthodox anything.
He does situate himself as a Christian socialist
So do I. And I remember the context for the “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” lesson. And that lesson is that men don’t get to control women’s sexuality simply because they are men.
No, but they get to say “go, and sin no more”.
He’s an orthodox patriarchal communitarian. Those tend to be strikingly similar, regardless of what denomination they belong to.
didn’t you already sell out to the DNC, so you can’t retain any socialist cred anymore?
Fox also called himself a
so you’re out of quite a few groups. Unless of course Fox a) doesn’t really subscribe to your notion of how faithfully one must follow a group’s position to be in the group and b) isn’t really a socialist or in many areas particularly liberal/left/progressive
also, I think he actually sold out to the Mormon Bishops, not the Catholic bishops. and there is plenty in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon to back men controlling women’s sexuality. Which is why one probably shouldn’t use books written by men with or seeking power to define issues relating to women.
I can’t really see any resemblance between his positions and anything I could coherently call socialism (or much of anything else). Indeed, as with many of his type, incoherence seems his strong suit.
His five reasons don’t impress me much, including some overblown favorites. Duly noted imho shallow reasons to not be able to vote for Obama is surrounded by some eloquent verbiage. No thank you.
My take as well.
Points first, data later. Like chem lab reporst in 10th grade.
I’m happy about this, because I actually have a follow-up question about your opinion on this, but it felt like the moment was kind of past to ask it.
My question is, if we’re morally obligated to vote for the more leftwing candidate, are we also morally obligated to support them with donations, or by joining their campaigns?
Also, I was not convinced by your argument that if the US government started endorsing slavery that wouldn’t be a “dealbreaker” because that’s when armed revolt against the government would be necessary.
The way I see it, that leads to one of two conclusions:
1. Everybody who wasn’t in armed revolt against the American government between the founding of the country and the end of the civil war was morally compromised (And you say I’m the moral purist!).
2. The abolitionists would be morally obligated to vote for slave-owners who beat and branded their slaves, if those slave-owners had a better tax plan then their opponents.
Basically, I think both those conclusions are absurd, so I have to reject your premise.
if we’re morally obligated to vote for the more leftwing candidate, are we also morally obligated to support them with donations, or by joining their campaigns?
Good question, Christopher. For what it’s worth, I don’t know where your sense of moral obligation may originate, but in my case I feel a need to answer “yes” to the above. But again, as I argued in the post, how that moral imperative operates in the case of any given election or democratic opportunity is going to be contextual. So for example, here in Kansas, I registered as Republican so I could support (in vain, as it turned out) moderates in the primary, since the more moderate Republicans the better government we’d have locally, given that Republicans are going to win all the local contests. In 2008 I was happy to register as a Democrat to help give Obama as large a popular vote as possible, to break that important racial barrier. This year, I’m sending money to Jill Stein’s campaign. And through it all, I’m a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Sure, it’s a mess. But I think those who see their leftish moral obligations playing out in uniform, partisan ways throughout all sorts of electoral contests here in the USA must either 1) live in Berkeley, or 2) are deluding themselves.
That depends on what you mean by”abolitionists.” Except for the 3000 or so hardcore abolitionists like John Brown, what makes you think they didn’t make compromises? Abolitionists also supported temperance, westward expansion, public education, and a ton of other issues. They would (and did!) support candidates that were strong on other issues and weaker on abolition. Lincoln, for example, repudiated the strong abolitionists.
But leaving history aside, if you’re a single issue voter, you’re a single issue voter. Go ahead and vote that issue and let the world burn. Garrison felt free to burn the Constitution as a pact with the devil. You want to do that for single-payer health care? Or do you think trying to make a marginally more progressive Democratic party might be more effective in the long run for us?
Did I say abolitionists didn’t make compromises? Did I say they shouldn’t?
My question is not whether they could make compromises, but whether they were morally obligated to. Apparently, the answer is yes! John Brown and the strong abolitionists were bad people. Probably they are in Hell now, if cpinva’s theology is correct.
I’m just trying to get people to own their opinions.
I have a second question, which is serious: How does compulsive lesser evil voting lead, in the long run, to even a slightly more progressive Democratic party?
If you’re arguing that it leads to a slightly more progressive America, that makes perfect sense. But in the Democratic party, if they know that there is literally nothing they can do to lose my vote, what would cause them to do anything except be ever so slightly to the left of the Republicans?
If the Republicans somehow went to the right of where they are now, say by becoming explicit, literal fascists, the Democrats could adopt the Republican platform of 2012 and we would still be obligated to vote for them, because the current Republican platform is still better than Hitler and Mussolini.
John Brown and the strong abolitionists were bad people
Hacking unarmed men to death with broadswords will indeed get you called a bad person, regardless of the merits of your cause.
It doesn’t. Well, it might in the sense that if Democrats keep losing elections they will keep moving right because the Left doesn’t support them.
But in general, if you want the Democratic party to be more Progressive you need to work in the party. The general election is too late to make your candidate more Progressive.
I think the bloggers have commented on this a lot: You have to change the party via grass roots. If Jill Stein was popular in the Democratic party, then maybe you could get her to run for President (D)!
I think you’re looking at the wrong measure. The 2010 elections led to a much-more progressive House Democratic delegation. How do you like the results?
A general election is not about moving the party; it’s about a contest between the parties. Nothing you do in a general election – voting for the Democrats, voting for the Republicans, voting for the Greens, not voting – will ever move the Democratic Party to the left. Take a look at the times Democrats lost the presidential general election while facing a revolt on their left. Did the Democrats move left after Carter’s loss? How about after Gore’s loss? After Humphrey’s loss?
A general election is not about moving the party; it’s about a contest between the parties.
Well, super. L2P is the person who, at least as I read it, arguing that lesser-evil voting would lead to a more progressive Democratic party. Like you, I don’t see how it possibly does that.
Hacking unarmed men to death with broadswords will indeed get you called a bad person, regardless of the merits of your cause./I>
The question is, were they better than comparable groups who hacked unarmed men to death?
sorry mr. fox, your “arguments” leave me cold. you abdicate whatever moral standing you claim, by essentially giving your vote to the greater of two evils, romney/ryan/republican/tea party. we already know the additional harm they will perpetrate on the country/world, and it will result in far more deaths than all the unmanned drones in our inventory combined, over the next 4 years. i’m glad you can live with that on your conscience, write us from the special circle of hell dante has reserved for your kind.
The tough-minded pragmatic realists around here are both highly emotional and out of touch with reality. I’m surprised Fox wasn’t accused of perpetrating a new Holocaust.
That’ll be in the follow up comment!
Really though, I see no gain in voting for a third-party candidate. There is only something to lose.