Condoned and funded genocide should be the red line for everyone.
So you refuse to buy anything from China because of the Uighurs, right?
"How to derail a tankie" rofl
I'm a bit concerned by just how well that worked. It increasingly confirms to me that the alt right and tankies are birds of a feather. Ignore information you dislike as propaganda, condone human rights abuse if it's by a country you like and call the reporting bullshit.
The political spectrum is a circle. Go too far left or right and you end up in fascism, with a different paint job.
Purchasing an item manufactured in a country whose government is committing genocide is not the same as refusing to support a country’s leader who is directly supporting a genocide. I feel like this is obvious but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since your other comment indicates you believe in horseshoe theory.
You're right. One of those options results in your money directly funding the genocide. The other doesn't.
How does buying something that’s manufactured in China directly fund genocide, especially if the company you’re buying from isn’t even based in China?
Simple.
You pay the company.
The company pays the government in taxes or licenses or something of the like. China does not allow them to operate for free.
The government uses the money to fund the infrastructure and personnel for the genocide.
That dollar you spend may ultimately end up getting used to forcibly "culturally reeducate" Uighurs. If you didn't buy the product that was made in China, that wouldn't be the case.
Now granted, this is indirect. I was incorrect to say direct earlier. And I don't actually believe this makes a person culpable in genocide. I just also think that voting for Biden doesn't mean someone wants genocide. If I had to pick however, the purchase likely carries more individual weight.
whataboutism
So not for everyone then? I thought everyone there means everyone
What does this have to do with the genocide that biden supports? Or are you claiming that biden supports the genocide of Uighurs? Are you claiming that actually biden is fine to throw billions of dollars in support of the genocide of Palestinians because China?
If it's a red line for everyone, and it means you shouldn't vote for Biden as a result, then you should also be minimizing your contributions/purchases with the US economy and all other countries currently engaged in genocide. Either take an absolutist stance on all of them, or make your rationalizations for all of them. Don't pick and choose.
You mean like how the Biden administration picks and chooses with its stances on Russia and Israel? Per capita, Israel is actually committing the much worse atrocity, but the same people moralizing about Russia's actions are telling people to shut up about Israel. Saying you can't criticize one thing because other bad things are happening is textbook whataboutism, but it's obvious that whataboutism is a term used by Americans solely as a shield for all their bad actions (i.e. don't call us out on our hypocrisy because we flooded the news with our talking points first). I criticize China for its horrific treatment of Uighurs and I criticize Israel for its atrocities.
As for consumerism, you don't have to worry about that from me. I'm pretty sure you buy more shit from China than I do, since I barely buy anything at all.
I criticize China for its horrific treatment of Uighurs and I criticize Israel for its atrocities.
Then we have no disagreement. Especially since you don't take the position that buying/voting is a full throated endorsement of the genocides.
My issue with the person was their absolutist stance that suggested you shouldn't vote for Biden or do anything which could support a genocide supporting regime. You can and should criticize Biden and China while voting or buying their goods. But what you do to one, you should do to the other. It's hypocritical to refuse to vote for Biden for the Palestinian genocide while buying goods from China that support the Uighur genocide. And vice versa -- refusing to buy Chinese but being fine with voting for Biden.
Does that make sense? Basically, you shouldn't pick and choose. You criticize it all or you excuse it all. If you refuse to support one, you refuse to support them all. If you tell people it isn't real and is bullshit propaganda, you say that for all of them.
People have their own red lines and while they may seem conflicting or hypocritical, they are their own. Bringing up one separate thing in response to another is whataboutism, plain and simple. That was my point with my initial response. All that bringing up Uighurs did was divert the discussion towards other things, which is the point of whataboutism.
Sure, my point is just that they aren't following their stated red line. It isn't whataboutism to challenge someone on a seeming exception to their belief.
They made an absolutist statement about genocide. I asked about a specific case to see if their belief actually was absolutist. I did not divert the topic by asking if that goes for all genocides. They diverted it by saying it doesn't.
They're saying, if you still buy Uyghur slave labor produced goods from China, but tsk tsk Biden for being pro-Israel (literally every POTUS since the creation of Israel has been pro-Israel) you have no right to write Biden off and no right to tell others to not vote for him. It's most likely that GodlessCommie is some kind of right wing astroturfer.
So they're saying that you cannot criticize Biden because bad things are happening elsewhere. Yeah, literally whataboutism.
It's not. It's establishing a base line of credibility of GodlessCommie.
The Uighurs issue is US propaganda anti China bullshit. Just like 'Free Tibet' was.
You sound just like the people who say Israel is doing nothing wrong and all the criticism is just from antisemitism.
You like them, therefore any criticism of them is propaganda and bullshit. Horseshoe theory in action.
No sweetheart. Israel is 100% in the wrong, their Zionist apartheid terrorist colonialist state is a failed experiment that needs to come to an end.
Anytime a person or a country tells you who your enemy is odds are it's them
You didn't just miss my point, you've earned frequent flier miles for how badly it's gone over your head.
You'll also note that I never said Israel was in the right, like you assumed. And I don't entirely disagree with you on them either. I just consider genocide a serious act and don't play apologetics depending on the country involved.
Do you think Trump is more or less pro-Israel than Biden?
They are the same
So the UN, US, UK, Canada, Lithuania, France, New Zealand, Belgium and the Czech Republic are all our enemies?
Because they all describe the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs as genocide, severe human rights abuses or crimes against humanity.
You should find a country that condemns both China and Israel for genocide to fry their brain
So when China tells you that your enemy is the US...
They don't have to tell me, I know
Aw, tankies are so cute when they're confused
No confusion here, the confusion is Democrats thinking they are any different than Republicans.
Trump's deals with the Saudis to genocide Yemenis are your red line for him, the situation for Gaza is your red line for Biden, and now you've solved genocide by throwing your vote away on someone who can never win.
Your assumption that a critique of Biden means support for Trump is infantile. Oh, and the Yemeni genocide by the Saudis started with Obama. My concern and vote isn't about who can win, it's about doing what's right. Focusing only on who can win is for losers.
I'm not making that assumption at all. I'm saying your "red line" point is infantile because it rules out both major candidates, thus you will throw your vote away, which helps the candidate you hate most to win. If your metric is genocide, tasteless as it is, you have to vote for whoever you think will help minimize the deaths by genocide in the future. "Red Lines" don't work if they don't differentiate between the candidates.
I hate them both equally. And there is no lesser evil, that's a thing white liberals tell themselves to ease their conscience for supporting people they know are doing harm, but not to them directly.
If you hate them exactly equally then I guess feel free not to vote.
A lot of people, ethically, would feel compelled to use their vote to minimize the amounts of deaths by genocide. Avoiding the question by pretending everyone sucks equally instead of actually trying to improve things is not some moral high road.
minimize the amounts of deaths by genocide
Supporting the guy thats continuing to fund and arm genocide is not minimizing death
It is if that guy can get the genocide to stop earlier than the other guy could. Or if the other guy would stop it earlier then vote for him.
It is 100% within Biden's power to have stopped it October 8. The exact same way that Ronald Reagan did when Israel was bombing Lebanon in 1982. All he has to do is threaten to cut off funding and weapons exactly like Ronald Reagan did in 1982. Ronald Reagan got results, Joe Biden the self-proclaimed Zionist, has refused to do the same thing that he has the power to do.
You are allowed to believe that Israel would have not responded to Hamas after Oct 7th militarily if Biden had acted differently, or that they would stop if Biden acted differently now. Or that they would if Trump won and then he threatened to cut off funding and weapons (if you think he would actually do anything Israel didn't like).
If you think those things, then pick the person who is going to do the thing that will have the result you want. If neither will do the thing, it's a moot point.
then pick the person
Thats more of the lesser evil myth. Neither is getting a vote from me, they have not earned it.
If you think that's a myth, you have a terribly myopic taste in fiction. The Witcher series has a great short story aptly called "The Lesser Evil", where Geralt refuses to do anything bad on the principle that evil is evil. A wizard wants Geralt to kill a girl because a prophecy says she'll destroy kingdoms, and he wants to examine the entrails. The girl says she was ostracized and raped because of the prophecy the wizard follows, and wants Geralt to lure out the wizard for her to kill.
Geralt chooses neither, and is then met with a problematic situation. The girl and her gang will confront the wizard outside his tower, and kill the townspeople ceaselessly until he turns himself into them. The wizard however is a selfish bastard and has no intent to do so. The town of innocent people will be massacred, and neither side wins. And so, Geralt acts -- he chooses the lesser evil, and kills the gang, and tries to defeat the girl without killing her, but she chooses to fight to the death. Geralt refuses to give the wizard the body, threatening to kill him in turn if he touches her, and the townspeople throw stones at him and call him a butcher.
It really isn't hard to see this play out in real life. Replace the girl and her gang with a terrorist group from a country destabilized by the West, and the wizard with a corrupt politician who helped destabilize the country but is a cornerstone of the community. What would you choose to do?
You're just going in circles now. We covered this. There is one major party candidate whose election will result in less death via genocide. Pick the one you think it is and vote for them or you will be helping the one who will cause more death via genocide.
You are free to vote for whoever you want, but it's not much of a stand against genocide to be so indignant that you decide to help the person that will result in more death via genocide.
Instead of focusing on the hyperbolic fantasy of less death, try no death.
when i voted for howie and biden won, does that mean that i hated biden the most? what kind of quantum emotion theory are you cooking up?
You are not the only person voting, you not voting for a major party candidate doesn't declare the person you dislike most the victor, it just helps them win.
Assuming you would have voted for Biden if you only had the two major party options, then voting for anyone else or failing to vote is a vote less for Biden, which is equivalent to a vote for Trump.
if not voting is voting for trump, then voting for trump would be like voting twice.
this is clearly absurd election misinformation.
non-voters are the biggest voting block in the country. there is no way what you are saying is true.
A person who would otherwise support Biden, voting for Trump instead, is indeed a two vote swing. That is just the math of it.
>you not voting for a major party candidate doesn’t declare the person you dislike most the victor, it just helps them win.
only a vote for a candidate helps them win
Ok so if all Biden voters stayed home, that wouldn't help Trump win?
no. only trump voters help him win
You're really trying to make a razor thin distinction without a difference then. So not voting for Biden is "taking part in the creation of a situation wherein Trump is more likely to win" or whatever you need to the wording to be.
If all Biden supporters boycott the election, Trump wins. If you're not disputing that fact then you're twiddling around with wording and not actually disagreeing.
>Assuming you would have voted for Biden if you only had the two major party options
that is not a good assumption: I only vote for candidates if I want them to win.
The base assumption here is not that you would actually vote for either one, it's that when given only two choices, you prefer one or the other. The only way that doesn't hold is if you truly do not care between the two options and it's a coin flip. If that is true, then the 'person you hate most between the two' still benefits, but it's a coin flip which one it is so you don't care.
If you prefer Biden over Trump, you are helping Trump by not voting for Biden. And vice versa. Even if you would never vote for any major party candidate, that just means you are always helping the major party candidate you hate the most.
so I hated trump more than I hated hilary, and I hate biden more than I hate trump? is that the theory?
I mean...you tell me your political feelings. It's not about who won, it's just who you are helping.
If you hate Trump more than Hillary and you didn't vote for one of them in 2016, you helped Trump in 2016. If you hate Biden more than Trump and you didn't vote in 2020 then you helped Biden. But if you hate Trump more than Biden, then you helped Trump in 2020 even though he didn't win.
the only candidate helped by my vote is the candidate I vote for. you are spreading election misinformation.
You're the one talking about not voting or throwing your vote away.
voting for a candidate who I want to win is not throwing away a vote. such a claim is voter suppression.
Condoned and funded genocide should be the red line for everyone.
So you refuse to buy anything from China because of the Uighurs, right?
"How to derail a tankie" rofl
I'm a bit concerned by just how well that worked. It increasingly confirms to me that the alt right and tankies are birds of a feather. Ignore information you dislike as propaganda, condone human rights abuse if it's by a country you like and call the reporting bullshit.
The political spectrum is a circle. Go too far left or right and you end up in fascism, with a different paint job.
Purchasing an item manufactured in a country whose government is committing genocide is not the same as refusing to support a country’s leader who is directly supporting a genocide. I feel like this is obvious but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since your other comment indicates you believe in horseshoe theory.
You're right. One of those options results in your money directly funding the genocide. The other doesn't.
How does buying something that’s manufactured in China directly fund genocide, especially if the company you’re buying from isn’t even based in China?
Simple.
You pay the company.
The company pays the government in taxes or licenses or something of the like. China does not allow them to operate for free.
The government uses the money to fund the infrastructure and personnel for the genocide.
That dollar you spend may ultimately end up getting used to forcibly "culturally reeducate" Uighurs. If you didn't buy the product that was made in China, that wouldn't be the case.
Now granted, this is indirect. I was incorrect to say direct earlier. And I don't actually believe this makes a person culpable in genocide. I just also think that voting for Biden doesn't mean someone wants genocide. If I had to pick however, the purchase likely carries more individual weight.
whataboutism
So not for everyone then? I thought everyone there means everyone
What does this have to do with the genocide that biden supports? Or are you claiming that biden supports the genocide of Uighurs? Are you claiming that actually biden is fine to throw billions of dollars in support of the genocide of Palestinians because China?
If it's a red line for everyone, and it means you shouldn't vote for Biden as a result, then you should also be minimizing your contributions/purchases with the US economy and all other countries currently engaged in genocide. Either take an absolutist stance on all of them, or make your rationalizations for all of them. Don't pick and choose.
You mean like how the Biden administration picks and chooses with its stances on Russia and Israel? Per capita, Israel is actually committing the much worse atrocity, but the same people moralizing about Russia's actions are telling people to shut up about Israel. Saying you can't criticize one thing because other bad things are happening is textbook whataboutism, but it's obvious that whataboutism is a term used by Americans solely as a shield for all their bad actions (i.e. don't call us out on our hypocrisy because we flooded the news with our talking points first). I criticize China for its horrific treatment of Uighurs and I criticize Israel for its atrocities.
As for consumerism, you don't have to worry about that from me. I'm pretty sure you buy more shit from China than I do, since I barely buy anything at all.
Then we have no disagreement. Especially since you don't take the position that buying/voting is a full throated endorsement of the genocides.
My issue with the person was their absolutist stance that suggested you shouldn't vote for Biden or do anything which could support a genocide supporting regime. You can and should criticize Biden and China while voting or buying their goods. But what you do to one, you should do to the other. It's hypocritical to refuse to vote for Biden for the Palestinian genocide while buying goods from China that support the Uighur genocide. And vice versa -- refusing to buy Chinese but being fine with voting for Biden.
Does that make sense? Basically, you shouldn't pick and choose. You criticize it all or you excuse it all. If you refuse to support one, you refuse to support them all. If you tell people it isn't real and is bullshit propaganda, you say that for all of them.
People have their own red lines and while they may seem conflicting or hypocritical, they are their own. Bringing up one separate thing in response to another is whataboutism, plain and simple. That was my point with my initial response. All that bringing up Uighurs did was divert the discussion towards other things, which is the point of whataboutism.
Sure, my point is just that they aren't following their stated red line. It isn't whataboutism to challenge someone on a seeming exception to their belief.
They made an absolutist statement about genocide. I asked about a specific case to see if their belief actually was absolutist. I did not divert the topic by asking if that goes for all genocides. They diverted it by saying it doesn't.
They're saying, if you still buy Uyghur slave labor produced goods from China, but tsk tsk Biden for being pro-Israel (literally every POTUS since the creation of Israel has been pro-Israel) you have no right to write Biden off and no right to tell others to not vote for him. It's most likely that GodlessCommie is some kind of right wing astroturfer.
So they're saying that you cannot criticize Biden because bad things are happening elsewhere. Yeah, literally whataboutism.
It's not. It's establishing a base line of credibility of GodlessCommie.
The Uighurs issue is US propaganda anti China bullshit. Just like 'Free Tibet' was.
You sound just like the people who say Israel is doing nothing wrong and all the criticism is just from antisemitism.
You like them, therefore any criticism of them is propaganda and bullshit. Horseshoe theory in action.
No sweetheart. Israel is 100% in the wrong, their Zionist apartheid terrorist colonialist state is a failed experiment that needs to come to an end.
Anytime a person or a country tells you who your enemy is odds are it's them
You didn't just miss my point, you've earned frequent flier miles for how badly it's gone over your head.
You'll also note that I never said Israel was in the right, like you assumed. And I don't entirely disagree with you on them either. I just consider genocide a serious act and don't play apologetics depending on the country involved.
Do you think Trump is more or less pro-Israel than Biden?
They are the same
So the UN, US, UK, Canada, Lithuania, France, New Zealand, Belgium and the Czech Republic are all our enemies?
Because they all describe the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs as genocide, severe human rights abuses or crimes against humanity.
You should find a country that condemns both China and Israel for genocide to fry their brain
So when China tells you that your enemy is the US...
They don't have to tell me, I know
Aw, tankies are so cute when they're confused
No confusion here, the confusion is Democrats thinking they are any different than Republicans.
Trump's deals with the Saudis to genocide Yemenis are your red line for him, the situation for Gaza is your red line for Biden, and now you've solved genocide by throwing your vote away on someone who can never win.
Your assumption that a critique of Biden means support for Trump is infantile. Oh, and the Yemeni genocide by the Saudis started with Obama. My concern and vote isn't about who can win, it's about doing what's right. Focusing only on who can win is for losers.
I'm not making that assumption at all. I'm saying your "red line" point is infantile because it rules out both major candidates, thus you will throw your vote away, which helps the candidate you hate most to win. If your metric is genocide, tasteless as it is, you have to vote for whoever you think will help minimize the deaths by genocide in the future. "Red Lines" don't work if they don't differentiate between the candidates.
I hate them both equally. And there is no lesser evil, that's a thing white liberals tell themselves to ease their conscience for supporting people they know are doing harm, but not to them directly.
If you hate them exactly equally then I guess feel free not to vote.
A lot of people, ethically, would feel compelled to use their vote to minimize the amounts of deaths by genocide. Avoiding the question by pretending everyone sucks equally instead of actually trying to improve things is not some moral high road.
Supporting the guy thats continuing to fund and arm genocide is not minimizing death
It is if that guy can get the genocide to stop earlier than the other guy could. Or if the other guy would stop it earlier then vote for him.
It is 100% within Biden's power to have stopped it October 8. The exact same way that Ronald Reagan did when Israel was bombing Lebanon in 1982. All he has to do is threaten to cut off funding and weapons exactly like Ronald Reagan did in 1982. Ronald Reagan got results, Joe Biden the self-proclaimed Zionist, has refused to do the same thing that he has the power to do.
You are allowed to believe that Israel would have not responded to Hamas after Oct 7th militarily if Biden had acted differently, or that they would stop if Biden acted differently now. Or that they would if Trump won and then he threatened to cut off funding and weapons (if you think he would actually do anything Israel didn't like).
If you think those things, then pick the person who is going to do the thing that will have the result you want. If neither will do the thing, it's a moot point.
Thats more of the lesser evil myth. Neither is getting a vote from me, they have not earned it.
If you think that's a myth, you have a terribly myopic taste in fiction. The Witcher series has a great short story aptly called "The Lesser Evil", where Geralt refuses to do anything bad on the principle that evil is evil. A wizard wants Geralt to kill a girl because a prophecy says she'll destroy kingdoms, and he wants to examine the entrails. The girl says she was ostracized and raped because of the prophecy the wizard follows, and wants Geralt to lure out the wizard for her to kill.
Geralt chooses neither, and is then met with a problematic situation. The girl and her gang will confront the wizard outside his tower, and kill the townspeople ceaselessly until he turns himself into them. The wizard however is a selfish bastard and has no intent to do so. The town of innocent people will be massacred, and neither side wins. And so, Geralt acts -- he chooses the lesser evil, and kills the gang, and tries to defeat the girl without killing her, but she chooses to fight to the death. Geralt refuses to give the wizard the body, threatening to kill him in turn if he touches her, and the townspeople throw stones at him and call him a butcher.
It really isn't hard to see this play out in real life. Replace the girl and her gang with a terrorist group from a country destabilized by the West, and the wizard with a corrupt politician who helped destabilize the country but is a cornerstone of the community. What would you choose to do?
You're just going in circles now. We covered this. There is one major party candidate whose election will result in less death via genocide. Pick the one you think it is and vote for them or you will be helping the one who will cause more death via genocide.
You are free to vote for whoever you want, but it's not much of a stand against genocide to be so indignant that you decide to help the person that will result in more death via genocide.
Instead of focusing on the hyperbolic fantasy of less death, try no death.
>which helps the candidate you hate most to win
when i voted for howie and biden won, does that mean that i hated biden the most? what kind of quantum emotion theory are you cooking up?
You are not the only person voting, you not voting for a major party candidate doesn't declare the person you dislike most the victor, it just helps them win.
Assuming you would have voted for Biden if you only had the two major party options, then voting for anyone else or failing to vote is a vote less for Biden, which is equivalent to a vote for Trump.
if not voting is voting for trump, then voting for trump would be like voting twice.
this is clearly absurd election misinformation.
non-voters are the biggest voting block in the country. there is no way what you are saying is true.
A person who would otherwise support Biden, voting for Trump instead, is indeed a two vote swing. That is just the math of it.
>you not voting for a major party candidate doesn’t declare the person you dislike most the victor, it just helps them win.
only a vote for a candidate helps them win
Ok so if all Biden voters stayed home, that wouldn't help Trump win?
no. only trump voters help him win
You're really trying to make a razor thin distinction without a difference then. So not voting for Biden is "taking part in the creation of a situation wherein Trump is more likely to win" or whatever you need to the wording to be.
If all Biden supporters boycott the election, Trump wins. If you're not disputing that fact then you're twiddling around with wording and not actually disagreeing.
>Assuming you would have voted for Biden if you only had the two major party options
that is not a good assumption: I only vote for candidates if I want them to win.
The base assumption here is not that you would actually vote for either one, it's that when given only two choices, you prefer one or the other. The only way that doesn't hold is if you truly do not care between the two options and it's a coin flip. If that is true, then the 'person you hate most between the two' still benefits, but it's a coin flip which one it is so you don't care.
If you prefer Biden over Trump, you are helping Trump by not voting for Biden. And vice versa. Even if you would never vote for any major party candidate, that just means you are always helping the major party candidate you hate the most.
so I hated trump more than I hated hilary, and I hate biden more than I hate trump? is that the theory?
I mean...you tell me your political feelings. It's not about who won, it's just who you are helping.
If you hate Trump more than Hillary and you didn't vote for one of them in 2016, you helped Trump in 2016. If you hate Biden more than Trump and you didn't vote in 2020 then you helped Biden. But if you hate Trump more than Biden, then you helped Trump in 2020 even though he didn't win.
the only candidate helped by my vote is the candidate I vote for. you are spreading election misinformation.
You're the one talking about not voting or throwing your vote away.
voting for a candidate who I want to win is not throwing away a vote. such a claim is voter suppression.