• Gabe Bell@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I can still protest against them.

    You seem to be missing my main problem – you are asking me to put a cross against the name of someone who will strip away the basic human rights of groups of people. Which is not something I am willing to do.

    Especially if I am doing it in the name of those who fought and died for their rights.

    I have some integrity.

    • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      If you want to protest against them, go ahead, I have no problem with that.

      you are asking me to put a cross against the name of someone who will strip away the basic human rights of groups of people. Which is not something I am willing to do

      Okay, but as I said, the reality of the situation is to put your cross on someone you don’t like or risk someone you really don’t like. I understand and empathize that it might feel like moral compromise, but I see it less like “I endorse this person and their principles” and more like harm reduction.

      I have some integrity.

      Is it integrity? If you are, by inaction, helping someone who will remove those human rights faster, aren’t you putting those high-minded morals above the physical reality of what will happen to those marginalized groups?

      • Gabe Bell@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        If you want to protest against them, go ahead, I have no problem with that.

        you are asking me to put a cross against the name of someone who will strip away the basic human rights of groups of people. Which is not something I am willing to do

        Okay, but as I said, the reality of the situation is to put your cross on someone you don’t like or risk someone you really don’t like. I understand and empathize that it might feel like moral compromise, but I see it less like “I endorse this person and their principles” and more like harm reduction.

        And if they are as bad as each other?

        I live in the UK and for the past five years the Labour party has been – from what I can see – turning into the Tory party. It has had no policies that aren’t Tory policies. Starmer is so scared of being seen as Jeremy Corbyn that he has become a Tory MP in waiting. He is so scared of not being elected that he is pandering to the far right. He doesn’t stand up for anyone who needs standing up for.

        Voting for him… I really don’t see a difference between him and the Tories.

        I have some integrity.

        Is it integrity? If you are, by inaction, helping someone who will remove those human rights faster, aren’t you putting those high-minded morals above the physical reality of what will happen to those marginalized groups?

        And if I put someone in power who enacts policies to the marginalised groups being erased, beaten, imprisoned or killed? Should I feel better about that?

        • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          And if they are as bad as each other?

          If they are both truly as bad as each other, then yeah there is no harm reduction.

          Should I feel better about that?

          Would the other person have done it faster? Again, I don’t see voting as a complete endorsement; if there is an area in which one candidate is less bad than the other, then it is in your best interest to vote for them