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this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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I'm not participating in this farce. I do other more productive things with my time.
You also speak as though there aren't already crimes against humanity that the government is currently committing. The justice system, education, prisons, healthcare, border etc are all cruel implementations of capitalism that target the poor and minorities. Claiming that Trump would target more people here is such a dumb argument. Yeah, we get it, those guys are shit and because of that I spend my time trying to help people who are in danger. Voting for Biden won't help that. Biden being in office has made the US more dangerous for my trans friends.
I do not deny the fact that the US is a cesspool of discrimination, hate, unfairness and inequality. I have never said that and would never. And I also am aware that a secret police stealing people on the middle of the night is not different from forcing people to attend anti-gay camp programs and that denying gender affirming care to trans people is inherently evil.
About orange man: I mean it's not an argument that he would target more people. It's a statement of fact. He has said so publicly using Nazi terminology.
What would make it safe for your gay, bi, trans friends, mine, my cousins and daughter or even myself? Give me something actionable and productive. That's the real struggle here. I think a lot of people are looking for something that can actually be done. Like real ways to change the country we live in.
I feel like all we have are bad choices. I know nothing about you as a person but I can say for myself, that life got a whole lot more complicated when I personally became responsible for children. Not only having to worry about the world they would grow up in but also the risks I can take to my own life to secure that future.
And if you where Palestinian and your children where being bombed right now, would you really have a shred of fucking pity for some guy in the US saying that they have no choice but to support the guy murdering your kids right now? They don't get a difference, they don't get a fucking mitigation of suffering. They just suffer, and you have an allowance of that suffering you can accept, or at least find more acceptable than not voting.
Remember that people voted for MPs who they knew wouldn't take office all the while being brutalized and killed by British secret police and death squads in the occupied six counties. Those folks had the dignity and strength to refuse to vote for politicians who would lessen the death squads or at least said they would. They chose to very publicly throw their votes away so someone else could publicly throw their seat away in protest.
Withhold your consent, that is actionable. That does at the very least NOT contribute to making people unsafe. Otherwise you will continue to excuse and accept piles of corpses while telling yourself that the other guy would make a bigger pile. You can just not shovel more bodies on the pile for any of them. It won't change things, but it will be more meaningful than investing emotional energy in voting and thinking you have the ability to change things at the ballot.
Until you throw away this need to vote, you cannot move forward politically
Dude, this is a really strange thought process, and I think you might want to interrogate it a little more.
I'm also a thirty something father of multiple children, and sure it's a big responsibility. I also understand your points about risk mitigation. I often joke myself that I used to be a communist but since having kids I'm a liberal, because I find I have far less time for meaningful praxis, and I keep my head lower.
However, it comes off like you're presenting yourself with some binary of I must choose to tacitly support a genocide against brown people because I have kids and gay friends.
That's such a strange calculus. You're imaging a scenario where your life here in the empire are as bad as the life we're imposing on the third world, and you're justifying that world order through this imagined scenario.
Note that I don't care who you or anyone else votes for. I'm only speaking about this rationale.
If you're not doing this, and just looking for more meaningful actions to take, I apologize, and there are hopefully resources people here could point you to.
There are many things you can do. Recognize your risk tolerance and act accordingly.
Volunteer for the Trevor project. Find your local food not bombs. Those are low risk options that cost nothing but time. There are obviously higher risk options. I think the thing you can do is get involved with your community. That's just my opinion. My view of American politics is fairly grim and my view implies that making friends and helping others is a necessary action to survive the coming shit show. Voting isn't going to help any of that.