The fundamental tenet of a working democracy is voting. Everyone should have a vote and everyone should exercise their right to vote. To that end we have been seeing posts attempting to shame/mock or otherwise influence people not to vote. While this is a meme community, the idea that people shouldn’t vote goes against the fundamentals of a democracy by the people and for the people. To that end, we are adding a new rule that disallows posts that discourage or shame people from voting. This doesn’t mean that you can’t address how people vote, but even those who don’t agree with you and your political views should still vote. We all should. Everyone. Part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now is because participation in democracy is abysmal. Posts discouraging people from voting are essentially propaganda and will be removed.
PoliticalMemes is a community for having fun at the expense of our political hellscape we find ourselves in. People not voting is a big part of why.
We are taking feedback on this change, please let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments and why.
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Agree wholeheartedly. There’s no good-faith reason you would ever try to convince someone to not vote. None.
Imagine being dissuaded from voting by some dumb meme a stranger posted lol
Hitler or Stalin?
I guess that if that happened, voting would be the least of your concerns. You’d probably need to prepare to take arms, cause if that happened, the situation would be pretty fucked, and I doubt it’d happen without an accompanying civil war 🤷♂️
Be careful about unrealistic dilemmas. Reasoning in a void leads to disastrous positions that don’t apply in the real world because they are divorced from reality. Context matters a lot, and can’t be erased. There’s almost always a third, fourth, fifth option in reality.
Answering false dilemmas is the modus operandi of fascism. First, you imagine issues that don’t exist (like a caste of jewish puppeteers), then you apply insane politics to solve the problem you invented †. To be clear, I’m not saying you’re a fascist. I’m just outlining where that line of reasoning could lead you.
† This precise point is why I despise Attack on Titans and its debased premises. You basically empathize with a full-on fascist answering shitty questions that have no basis in reality.
Centrist Democrats love to interpret any dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party as encouragement to not vote at best and overt support for Trump at worst.
I have every expectation that this will be the standard by which this rule is implemented.
You can criticize and make jokes about 46 without discouraging voter turnout. They are just alot harder than making em about 45 who jokes write themselves.
Of course I can. That doesn’t stop centrist Democrats from making accusations in bad faith because they want to silence criticism.
Funny, i see much more bitching about nonexistent centrist dems than actual centrist dems on here. What i do see a lot of is apologists expaining why discussing the merits of not voting is actually for the best and not playing directly into the kremlins plans.
Thank you for the demonstration.
It’s certainly easy to support this move when it applies to “discouraging voting”, but it gets murkier for posts about “discouraging voting for a certain candidate”.
The example given was one seemingly implying “X is bad - but you think Y is better??” If the net implication is “don’t vote”, then the concern is valid, but if it’s “Vote for a third party, likelihood be damned”, it does sound more valid. That said, I have yet to see memes positively highlighting a valid third party from front runners.
I’d definitely like a return to elections where we decide which candidate is best, not which is least worse.
Informed voting is what’s important. Voting in-and-of-itself doesn’t contribute to a healthy democracy. To the contrary, mindless voting almost killed democracy multiple times recently.
To that end, I disagree with the notion that everyone should vote: filling your ballot on name recognition or in accordance with some preacher’s orders or some shit is dangerous, and if that’s you, then you absolutely should not vote!
Dig. Get at least some basic info on the people on your ballot. Consider the secondary and tertiary effects of any proposed policy; consider how it could back fire, etc. Once you actually understand what you’re voting on, THEN vote. But if you won’t take the time to do that, just showing up isn’t doing any kind of civic duty.
It’s not misinformed voting that caused Trump’s ascension to power. Participation was abysmally low (55% of the adult population). I don’t think Trump, or any other far-right lunatic, can win an election without voter apathy.
Do not reinforce stereotypes that some people should not be allowed to vote because they’re too stupid. It is sterile and dangerous.
I don’t think his point is that people should not be allowed to vote.
True, but the undemocratic idea that voting should be left to “informed” people (who decides who’s informed, or how do you make sure people are impartially informed, anyway?), is still dangerous. The idea that a part of the population is too dumb to take part in democracy is a core motivation of eugenism.
Don’t discourage people voting against their interest from voting. You need their vote to dislodge autocrats. You need to convince them instead. If you believe in democracy, that is.
I think it goes more for people who are uninformed and don’t want to vote anyway, but are forced to make a bad decision off the top of their heads. My country has mandatory voting and I see this happen quite a lot, we have the exact same problems.
In that sense encouraging someone to vote won’t really matter if their decision is uninformed and can even be detrimental because people do willingly vote for these autocrats when they rightfully see no real option.
The first step is not voting but to encourage people to be politically engaged not with ideas but their surroundings and immediate material needs, and teach them how they can check in on the powerful. They can be coopted by bad actors all along this journey too.
Discouraging someone to vote, though? Eh, by all means vote if you want but I don’t think voting really works that much at all because the system is completely broken in most places, and I will always point this out. If that counts as discouraging then here I am.
I can say these problems happen simply because most powerful people fucking us over are not elected, and they can and do choose which politicians will be on the ballot for us to fight over. Always have that in mind.
That’s a lot more elaborate than saying that some people shouldn’t vote, which was a marvellously shitty take.
how so?
maybe its because english is not my mother tongue, but I didn’t really say this at all, no.
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Your right maybe we should have a test that you have to take before you can vote. But that might accidentally disinfancise people who are competent to vote, so to be safe if your family has a tradition of voting you probably learned about it at home, so if your grandfather could vote you don’t have to take the test. This is a good and original system you have created.
To vote answer this question.
Snow is the same color as:
- -flower
- -grass
- -skin
- -roses
Aight I thought the other guy was just trolling, so I didn’t bother with a reply, but it looks like you reached the same conclusion, so maybe I didn’t make myself clear.
No where in my post did I say uninformed voters shouldn’t be allowed to vote; I said they shouldn’t vote. That might sound pedantic, but it’s an important distinction.
My issue is with the cultural notion that “It’s your civic duty to vote!” cuz no, it isn’t. Voting is a tool, and like any other tool it can be used in a dangerous way if you don’t take the time to understand how it works.
If you’re not sure how to operate pneumatic hammer, you shouldn’t do that either; but I’m not saying you should be disallowed from handling one or face legal consequences for trying; I’m saying YOU should have the sense to recognize the potential for harm from misuse of the tool in question, and YOU should choose to abstain from trying until you’ve done some homework.
If you are asking people to self select not to vote, only informed voters will self select out. The vast majority of poorly informed or misinformed voters don’t know enough to identify their knowledge gaps. Like a voting Dunning-Kruger asking people to abstain from voting if they are uninformed will actually result in an overall less informed voting population. If you want informed voters then get everyone to vote and increase voter education.
The fact that the facts you’re outlining are unpopular here is baffling. It seems like people forgot what “democracy” actually means 🙄
Thanks for putting it in words better than I did.
Finally someone with a reasonable opinion that outlines why discouraging people from voting is dangerous!
I would assume the poll meant “flour” and choose the first option.
Part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now is because participation in democracy is abysmal
No, the reason for the mess is a system deliberately designed to benefit a handful of people at the expense of the rest. Blaming those who don’t participate in the system for the system is an absurd little act of mental gymnastics (as well as a service to the aforementioned handful of people, by buying in to the division they sow for the sake of distracting us from them, who are actually responsible).
Should people vote? If they want to. Will it change anything? No. Because the choice is an illusion, as is “democracy”.
Perhaps if you actually let people have the conversation instead of shutting it down because confronting the actual depth of the problem makes you too uncomfortable, we might reach a point where we can be rid of this rigged system and build one that is actually “by the people, for the people”, because that sure as fuck isn’t the case at the moment. Maybe the real issue here is for you to consider with yourself why you’re so invested in defending the status quo…
https://libcom.org/article/capitalist-democracy-illusion-choice
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
E: having seen the example you’ve given, I’m outa here anyway, new rule or not, would love to know if you mod any other communities so that I can block those too. 👍
Oh look at that, they’re also the mod of like a third of lemmy.world including news and world news. Such unbias, very discussion.
Oooh!! The same World News that i wasnt banned from for calling out russian propaganda?! No way!
The rule isn’t in place yet. That’s why this post was made to generate feedback, and attempt to engage with the community instead of rule with an iron fist, but you don’t seem to understand that.
Bye.
I understand fine, the fact that it is even up for debate is already enough of a problem, which you don’t seem to understand… But hey, way to demonstrate how unbiasedly you’re willing to “engage” lol
I support the change
can you give an example of the kind of post you are talking about?
This is an example of one that is getting a lot of reports today. https://alexandrite.app/lemmy.world/post/11948936
i think it’s pretty obvious that the post you linked is NOT discouraging voting. it’s clowning democrats. but there are comments in that thread that are discouraging people from voting if they are considering someone besides a democrat or a republican, and it is reasonable to curtail that kind of activity.
there are comments in that thread that are discouraging people from voting if they are considering someone besides a democrat or a republican, and it is reasonable to curtail that kind of activity.
jfc, can you people not hear yourselves?? 🤦♀️
America is a democracy NO WAIT YOU CAN’T VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE THAN THESE TWO PEOPLE THAT’S ILLEGAL
i know what i said, but i don’t know what you’re saying.
What is the verdict on this comment from that post?
Good. Apathy is a tool of the oppressors utilized on those who think they’re being ‘rebellious’.
You don’t have to burn the memes; just remove them
Super in favor of this one! Barely just got on lemmy and all ive done is engage the bad faith actors in hopes of leaving some trace of sanity for the more impressionable to find.
This very thread is full of, “but cant you see how this rule change could turn authoritarian,” and “what u claim to have witnessed isnt real, its all just butthurt democrats and no one is actually actively trying to suppress voting.” To the lurkers, take note of the accounts that seem to do nothing but post about why voting is useless, why any complaints about biden are as relevant as complaints about dorito mussolini, or why russian imperial interests arent actually imeperial bc the west only ever lies, a fact unique to the west exclusively.
In favor of this rule
Sustained.
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I fundamentally disagree with the underlying assumptions of this change, but understand its rationale, especially during an election year.
voting is not the only way for a democracy to keep its legs. very very far from it, actually. voting barely works and someone organizing on an union is doing far more for democracy than a lifetime blue voter ever will.
getting your opinions challenged is very healthy for public discourse, and this rule is just gonna turn this comm into a US democrat echo chamber.
also there are valid reasons you are even allowed not to vote. theres no reason to vote if you perceive candidates to be all bad (which they usually are), or if you are uninformed/disinformed. it goes on.
just because some people here disagree, doesnt mean that everyone who says this is a paid shill or something.
someone organizing on an union is doing far more.
Because a union - and I’m in one - helps organize … you can get there. vvvvvvoooooo… you’re almost there.
Worker unions serve the purpose of pressuring employers and/or governments directly for action on issues. Like salaries, leisure time, climate policy, etc. We do it mainly by the implied threat of a strike, mutual aid, and other ways.
Specifically as something beyond just indirectly voting for, say, a presidential candidate expecting him to do everything on our behalf.
Thats because its not meant to just leverage electoral power, but mainly the worker’s bargaining power directly: This way our often crappy elected officials on an often rigged system matter way less.
Banning memes that “discourage voting” seems open ended enough to easily be “memes that make my preference look bad” are banned.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t address how people vote, but even those who don’t agree with you and your political views should still vote. We all should.
Quoted the relevant section since you missed it.
