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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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.
This rule will result in a slippery slope where any post critical of Biden will be be removed, resulting in an echo chamber of like-minded individuals with little engagement and discourse. It has the potential to stifle and eventually kill the community.
Seriously any criticism of Biden and the clowns come out to tell me I should fear Trump is gonna accomplish everything he wants on day one, but Biden can’t do most of what he promised because? You ask for a third party and get accused of dissuading voters from voting. I see Biden “supporters” calling him Hitler lite, and asking well if not Biden then who? Like believing the DNC tale is exactly how these clowns can make someone as unpalatable as Biden seem decent. And the best part is they will always say its no competition and I should be happy for the crumbs of the promises Biden kept because in contrast you better believe Trump is gonna keep all his promises 🙄🤣🤣🤣
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
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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.
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
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.
I was comparing the nuance in your comment to Mister PeopleAreStupid’s comment. It’s fine to say some people are voting badly, but the answer to that is not less voting, but sometimes more voting (hence the Trump example), but more often better voting.
Don’t talk about how people shouldn’t vote. Talk about what can be done to fix bad votes, if you really care about voting at all.
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.
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.
Not voting is a vote of no confidence.
similar deliberative body indicate that they no longer support a leader, government,etc.
Voting is a choice. Not voting is a choice. If you take away the choice of not voting, while only allowing two candidates that a vast majority of Americans don’t want, then can you really call it a democracy?
If voting is important to you, then it would serve the community better if the suggestion of not voting was discussed and denounced in the community itself. That is the purpose of social forums, to discuss ideas.
A forum is a public meeting place for open discussions. This rule is the policing of thought, and the antithesis of a forum.
If voting is important to you, then it would serve the community better if the suggestion of not voting was discussed and denounced in the community itself.
…It would be kind of interesting if the amount of people voting plummeted so much so that it removed almost any sense of considering the results legitimate and representative of the populace whatsoever. So far as I’m aware I don’t know of any democracies that have a sort of minimal threshold explicitly set to account for and address such a situation…They all seem to presume sufficient civic participation and confidence in their institutions that their citizens wouldn’t simply not participate/vote en masse.
I think part of the reasoning for that being that if things have gotten that bad, surely the citizenry wouldn’t simply not vote, they’d actively be overthrowing the institutions they had lost confidence in.
The fact people are in this thread discussing the merits of voting should indicate to the mods why this is an ill-conceived rule.
OK boomer
Ok unemployable guy.
Oh yes, of course! Its why antifazcist groups should welcome fascist speakers to engage in open, honest debate.
That’s a lot of fascists.
Got this account tagged as “russian shill”
Its incredible how often this one turns up whenever voting comes up to let us all know its uselss and not to do it. Almost like itd benefit them if you didnt.
How do you tag an account? That would be useful.
Yes, we Russians are very concerned about the less than 20,000 users on Lemmy World.
I have never said not to vote. It is statistically useless though. We’d be better off donating to causes and charities. Which is another reason why this rule is inane.
Voting is how Portugal enacted a sensible drug policy, gutting the institutions that were created and shouldering the financial burden on charities and 3rd party benefactors is how the program was turned to useless mush. The constant regurgitation of “im not against it, i just think its useless/dishonest/etc.” works better at putting ppl off from voting than outright saying so would.
Tags are placed in the users profile. And given that leftist spaces on reddit were infiltrated first, im not surprised the troll farms are going after the competitors that the most resolute members that refuse to parrot the krem’s BS would go to next.
Portugal is not America. The science is in the articles I linked. Political Scientists Adam Dynes and John Holbein did the math. I didn’t make reality, I just relay it. Ignore it if you want.
Edit: Wait. Your account is 6 days old and you’ve already decided I’m a Russian shill? Cyka Blyat! You’ve found me out. Now I’m required to inform you that I am indeed a Russian shill as decided in the IRC Troll Treaty of 2006.
various frontends allow it. voyager, maybe?
Yeah, I’m on voyager. I don’t have that ability. I’ll live. Thanks
eternity? i’m honestly spitballing but i bet someone here knows…
i installed every open source android client. none support it. BUT
if you use mastodon, you can add tags there. but i don’t know any mastodon clients that let you log into a lemmy instance, so you would need a mastodon account too.
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.
They hate authoritarianism, unless they’re the ones doing it.
What is the verdict on this comment from that post?
I support the change
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.
Sustained.
In favor of this rule
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I fundamentally disagree with the underlying assumptions of this change, but understand its rationale, especially during an election year.
I fundamentally disagree with the underlying assumptions of the “Patriot Act,” but understand its rationale, especially during a War on Terror.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove here. Take any statement, put it in an absurd context, you get an absurd statement. Sure. But why?
“I disagree with capitalism and the elite hoarding all the wealth but I’m not sure I can do much about it alone”
“I disagree with Pineapple pizza and the cooks hoarding all the dough but I’m not sure I can do much about it alone”
Ok.
The difference is that I can share the underlying goal of what the mods are trying to achieve, while I wouldn’t share the underlying goal of the war on terror.
But you already guessed that I’m sure. A few edgelord points cheaply scored. That’s nice.
This isn’t about me or you. It’s about an unnecessary rule that forbids “thought crimes.”
” Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ”
Benjamin Franklin
Well, after giving it a second thought, I suppose Lemmy may be small enough to avoid be targeted with both domestic and foreign efforts to favor Trump by having part of left demographics abstain.
If that’s indeed the case, there’s nothing I agree with in the suggested rule.
Voting/Abstention can be manufactured to a certain point. But if we take that away, it’s a matter of strategy. I’ve always been an abstentionist.
(my two replies may display in the wrong order, this is the latest one)
It’s a shame the mods are turning this community into another /politics or /world clone. I found it charming when it had eclectic and strange news stories you wouldn’t find anywhere else.
Imho, voting is a right, not a duty. It’s as stupid to try to convince people to vote than the other way round. What I was thinking about when I wrote my message is, well, the probability of a coordinated effort from right wing networks to turn left leaning demographics away from voting. This, I agree, would make some kind of anticipation measures useful.
What I fundamentally disagree on, and actually a bit more than “disagree”, is the idea that abstention leads us where when are now. As a political science professor, I’ll just say it goes against most, if not all, contemporary research findings.
(And yes, I can be a professor and have trouble writing correct English. To the brilliant mind who may want to phrase such witty comment, consider for a second that I may very well be from a non-English speaking country. Those still exist to this day)
with a total of 66,000 monthly active users as of 27 July 2023. Source.
It’s probably less than that now. It’s nice to think it’s important, but it’s not.
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.
