US General Elections 2020

{ Ive been in that position before. Prior to devolution and all that. Choice between Tories I didnt like and Labour I didnt like, I went independent, knowing theyd never win but also knowing I was not in any way shape or form responsible for who did win or what they did- they werent doing it with my enabling of them. Let alone my active support. When it comes to voting you should vote most closely for what you believe in- if you vote Trump then your either in favour of what he does, or morally cowardly and selfish and will vote for what you know is bad in the hopes the bits you want happen. Instead should vote for someone who is close to the polciies you like, even if they have a chance of winning or not. In fact if more folk did that we'd probably have less of a two party system here or in America, and if voting was proportional instead of first past post there would be broader representation too.}}

Petty -"Dog whistling to racists, bullying women who critise you, lying to the people about the danger they are in from corona and all the other unpleasantness "

I'm remembering a while back you explaining to us the nature of the Scottish Ned. I'm guessing that a typical Ned might from time to time make a racist remark (dog whistle or not) and occasionally behave impolitely to women. They might even tell a lie from time to time. You say that you find them vile and you have no shame in calling them vile, but does it serve a purpose other than yet another excuse for a fight.

As to the lying about COVID and many other things, I've come to believe that Trump actually believes what he's saying at the time. That's something different than conventional political lies, and probably scarier.

{{ Dave Trump admittted in the recorded conversations form the start of the virus he was perfectly aware how dangerous it was and he choose to 'downplay it' in his own words. Thats a delibrate lie, not self delusion. He was more concerned about how it would impact the economy and his reelection chances than he was the well being of the people he was sworn to protect and put first. Its actually a shocking deriliction of duty.

I dont treat neds with any more sympathy I do people like Trump, I stand up to them too when I encounter them, the reason folk like neds, racists and Trump can prosper and flourish (even reach the Presidency) is through the silence of those who fail to challenge them. And half of America just voted to prove they are not only silent but actively encouraging, advocating for and supporting folk like Trump. So no I dont have a great deal of respect for such folk. But its why I beleive in democracy because only through debate, boiling things down to facts and thrashing out diffrences in open debate can consenus be reached between opposing factions. Trump did not stand for democracy however, he was the oppositie. And I see little evidence either him, the republicans or his followers are looking to engage in debate and consensus and democracy. They are still peddling lies, myths, conspiracies and undermining the very instuitions upon which democracy relies on to work. Trump is effectively burning the building down on his way out the door. Thats who he is, always has been.}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{ Ive been in that position before. Prior to devolution and all that. Choice between Tories I didnt like and Labour I didnt like, I went independent, knowing theyd never win but also knowing I was not in any way shape or form responsible for who did win or what they did- they werent doing it with my enabling of them. Let alone my active support. When it comes to voting you should vote most closely for what you believe in- if you vote Trump then your either in favour of what he does, or morally cowardly and selfish and will vote for what you know is bad in the hopes the bits you want happen. Instead should vote for someone who is close to the polciies you like, even if they have a chance of winning or not. In fact if more folk did that we'd probably have less of a two party system here or in America, and if voting was proportional instead of first past post there would be broader representation too.}}

You would be enabling one side or another though. The US election this year has come down to the wire... peoples votes counted. If you didn't vote for either then you are complicit in enabling either.

Well done... those Latvians are now in internment camps about to get gassed.

Choices are hard Petty. Lots of them have a negative side but you don't absolve yourself of responsibility by doing essentially nothing.

{{ Voting for who you agree with in a democracy is not doing nothing or absolving yourself, its making a moral choice not to support bad things, not to put your name to it. Voting for an independent is a valid vote, as valid as any in a democracy. }}

I agree on the independent voting. I've voted in every presidential election, and never once for either for a Democrat or Republican. I've always figured that by the time you climbed to that level in a major party you already owed too many favors to too many power brokers to represent my little rural corner of the nation.
In the old days, presidential candidates did "whistle stop" campaigns where they crisscrossed the nation on a train, saying a few words at every small town station along the way. Now many of the candidates have never even set foot in any of a couple dozen states in rural middle America in their entire lives.  Imagine if neither the Labor or Conservative MP had ever even set foot in Scotland.  But with his TV shows and rallies, Trump actually reached out and connected with these people somewhat like the old whistlestops, and they saw him as something different. Most weren't voting on the stuff you saw. They were voting for the guy they felt they knew from "The Apprentice".  You may not like how they voted or why they voted, but at least they voted and THAT is how democracy works. To call the voters themselves vile seems undemocratic to me.

{{ I didnt say they were vile. I said that those who endorsed and put Trump in his positon were bad. They voted for someone bad. They enabled someone bad. They either were for the bad things he stood for and many were and therefore are vile actually (its true not all Trump supporters are racist, but also true most racists backed Trump) and those who held their nose over the bad stuff and voted because there was some stuff they liked are just as culpable for recognising the bad and endorsing it anyway to get what they wanted- thats putting your own selfish desires above those of your nation and society. So its still bad. Especially when there were other voting options available.
Evangalists are a good example, they knew Trump had no moral centre, no religous belief or understanding, was immoral in deed, a habitual liar and had a dubious track record on women and minorities, but they backed him to the hilt anyway because he promised to give them some of what they wanted. }}

The average Trump supporter seem to have known exactly what he was but voted for him regardless, and that is probably because they believed he would bring prosperity and they didn't like Democrats no matter who they were.
look at it this way, I am a lifelong Labour supporter and never ever would I vote Tory just out of principle, but if a candidate came along who I thought would be someone to change the party and improve all the living standards for every strata of society, maybe someone like Rory Stewart, who I though was the only chance in a generation to turn the Tories away from being the Nasty Party, then I would have a serious dilemma if the Labour candidate was as shit as Corbyn. Would I vote against a lifetime of Labour or vote Tory? But if I knew that the Tory candidate was a racist, sexist sh**gibbon, even if he promised the Earth, there is no way in heck I would vote for him. Even if he promised the Earth. Because that would mean I was complicit in the racism and sexism and the hate. How can people vote for a hate merchant, no matter how much he promises riches and wealth. I get that Trump appealed because he promised so much but he failed, he almost destroyed democracy, he encouraged armed militias, religious nutters, charlatans and liars. As Petty said, if you allow evil to flourish even for the so-called right reasons, it makes you complicit.

Just listen to that Black guy on the news crying with sadness at everything he and his family suffered at Trump's hands. Maybe I am not being subtle enough but there is such a thing as a moral code and it isn't just an opinion.

There is no such thing as a moral code. Morals reflect the feelings of society at any given time. In 50 years time people will be looking back on something you think is perfectly fine now and think you are a disgusting bigot.

That being said, back to my other point if you don't vote against someone that you know has a perfectly good chance of winning when that person/party holds a position that you fundamentally disagree with (I notice you didn't answer my question earlier) then you are complicit. You had the ability to impact that outcome and you purposefully didn't.

Voting independent for the most part is fine... but if we were literally talking about something that you found abhorrent (like genocide) and your vote could make a difference then you should take responsibility for not contributing meaningfully against it.

{{ Actually many morals have remained unchanged for a long time- look at the 10 commandments- youve got dont kill, dont lie about people, and dont steal stuff. Those morals are fairly universal and can be found all across the globe in many socieities for thousands of years.

Trump killed with his actions to prevent mask wearing, he lied almost every time he spoke and his business record attests to theft (mainly of tax payer money to avoid paying any taxes) so even on those oldest morals he falls flat.

As to your question if the choice was between two parties doing bad, even if one was doing more bad than another I'd vote indpendent and if I felt the bad was bad enough I'd take direct action, as I did with Thatcher and the poll tax. Id be out there on the streets. I'd take personal responsibility for my actions and response to it. What I wouldnt do is put my endorsement, my vote to someone I felt was doing the world ill.

If for example the SNP decided that hating all english and banning them from the country was a policy they'd adopt, I would not vote for them even for independence even though they are the only likely route to it. }}

I didnt ask bad vs badder. I asked bad versus genocide where your vote could stop the latter by voting for the former.

And the fucking 10 commandments comes from a book that advocates for slavery, rape, incest, torture and murder which was the sequel to an even more disgusting set if ideals.

It also says dont have any other god before me, don't covet, don't be an adulterer, honour your parents and maybe 1 of those could be considered a moral argument but made it in to God's top 10!

As I said, the "morality" of anything is always subjective to what is beneficial for that society and the evolution of morality cab be clearly seen across history.

{{ Actually dont kill, dont lie and dont steal crop up in religions and moral texts all over the world and have done since recorded writing began, the first 'laws' we have from Summeria have them and they are 6,000 years old- howlong do humans have to have these shared moral ideals before you'll accept that there is such a thing as shared right and wrong morality for human societies the globe over? And they are moral codes. Nor does saying yeah but they did shit things too take anything away from the fact they advocated doing these right things. You dont get rid of ideals because you sometimes fail to live up for them. You certainly dont endorese or promote those who advocate breaking them, like Trump.
And no I still wouldnt vote for either - if I thought one party was advocating genocide Id take direct action, I wouldnt be voting at all and Ive taken direct action long before it ever got to such a point. Id rather give my life trying to prevent it than I would live by endorsing it. Not that its a likely scenario. }}

{{ So what parons will Trump give out? Wil he pardon himself and his family from any future prosecution for anything they did while in office? (Nixon was pardoned before he was even charged after all) or will he just pardon those who have already been convicted from his administration (quite a long list!) }}

Arguing that humanity does not have a moral code seems to me a very bizarre argument, and I don't understand why anyone would argue that morals are not also part of our human instincts as well as written and oral codes of practice. We all instinctively know when something is wrong. its not subjective, its objective. Moral codes are what human society is based on whether you like it or not. Moral codes can shift and change over time but the basics are set in stone.

It's far more flexible than you can imagine. Remember in many societies revenge killings and "honor" killings have been quite acceptable, even held up as, well, honorable.

In many african societies there's a much more communal feeling about things. If somebody borrows something there's absolutely no concept that they should return it in a timely fashion. If the "owner" needs it, they'll ask for it. A westerner would fester growing resentment that would be incomprehensible to a local.

Saying morality is universal is as naive as saying religion is universal. When was the last time you participated in a good old human sacrifice? Makes the blood sing, it does.

{{ For the most part they are not the norm, in that even societies which have practised human sacrifice- early Judaism for example, the rules against it were there, they just found ways to justify it (like segregation in America) but they still knew it was wrong which is why they had to come up with ways to justify doing it (again like segregation), other groups pressured and the staus quo of not sacrificing people soon returned. Even the Aztecs only have a period of intense human sacrifice its not the norm over the entire history and was probably dirven by a combination of climate change and disease. And especially by the time you reach the modern day there are many universal accepted norms- such as dont kill, or steal.
Slavery is good example, its obviously wrong but slaves exist to this day- but that does not mean noone knows its wrong, including those doing it. When the Uk slave trade came to an end it did so after the very first time it was tried in a court of law, as it was self evidently wrong for one person to own another- so it ended. That groups or individuals may break moral codes for their own interests is not in dispute, or we'd not have Trump at all,  but most societies have condemned murder and the like and had laws prohibiting them from very early on- or even in early societies stringent laws when they did have slaves on their treatment and well being, acknowledgments and sticking plasters over the  inherent sense it is wrong. And by now humans have overall most certainly got a lot of moral laws that are largely agreed upon in pricinciple if not always in practise. We have international bodies, international courts to which the bulk of humanity is signed up on with agreed moral codes to abide by. Morality is in our very being. You can view the entirty of recorded history as being the ongoing struggle to refine and define human morality.Its still ongoing, but its always been there.}}

I feel that sometime in the future people will be aghast that we ate animals. Some people feel it's wrong right now even as they do it, others will steadfastly deny there's anything wrong with it. I don't think human killing or slavery is that different. Just because mass communication allows us to slowly, ever so slowly zero in on a moral consensus doesn't mean that people in the past had any inkling that they were "wrong" to give away their daughters in marriage against their will or kill someone that insulted them.

I'd like to believe there's an absolute true morality, but when I see friends of mine take the same things and read it completely differently, I realize it's fantasy.

We tend to take morality (and hence the laws derived from it) as absolute for the sake of expediency. It's not so. In same cases I think belief in absolute morality is in itself cruel and wicked - it allows demonization of the "other".

{{ id say eating animals is different because for most of human existence there was little other choice to doing so if you wanted to survive, its a natural law enforced upon us by nature, not human morality. It only becomes human morality when it moves into the realm of choice over neccessity.
Same goes for killing it can be justified by neccessity- defending yourself or your family from threat for example. Killing for the sake of it, out of a desire for revenge, pure pleasure or to gain something I dont think falls into the same category, there are prohibitions against doing do so in Summerian law and thats as far back as written human records and the beginning of society so we thought it was wrong as far back as we can determine. There must be something in why?
And whilst stuff like giving your daughter away in marriage without her choice and the like can be considered moral decisons I would put them in the category of refined morality achieved over time and with greater understanding, not base morality such as dont murder or steal which are far more universal, or at least global in human societies. We tend to all share the very basic morals, after that more can get added or even come and go, but the hardcore of human morality hasnt really changed since 6000bc.}}

In most of human existence it was necessary to take lives to survive.

In most of human existence it was necessary to steal to survive.

The choice between doing so or not is often survival... do I steal to feed my family, or will that result in me getting killed when they take revenge so should I just kill them?

There are plenty of people around today who think it is right that others die and they are happy to be the one that does it.

There are plenty of people who hold no value of human life.

There is nothing objective or universal about it. People have done and always will do what is needed and only when you get to a time where you can really think about morality does other stuff come in to it.

And in my opinion Petty, making that choice is not heroic or noble, it is stubborn and selfish.

People with bad attitudes can be removed over time and divisions fixed. The mass genocide of people cannot and the reason I use this as an example is because pro-lifers believe that the pro-choice crowd are advocating for exactly that (to be honest, I have a hard time working out at exactly which point a clump of cells becomes another life and is no longer someone's choice to destroy).

I honestly think it is these kinds of attitudes that have caused the problems we are in right now.

Remainers and breixters really just spent months shouting at each other with very few actually changing their mind because they spent most of their time being called names.

The Scottish independence crowd versus the unionists were the same.

Labels like "Project Fear" being rolled out to make the other side seem like a bunch of cowards and/or fear mongers, usually being used with a dismissive hand wave.

Reasonable people are just becoming more entrenched in their ideas because the only place they have left to go is their own echo chamber of bullshit. Dont like what someone has to say, well let's censor them and create our own little safe space. That way we can think of names to call the rest of them later on.

{{Unionistss called their own plan Project Fear, it leaked, it wasnt the other side labelling it. Project Fear it was their plan name.
But again I think your confusing two things- of course there are times when you have to steal or kill to survive- I accounted for those, - we are talking about the base morality of killing, lying, stealing because you can, for pleasure, for personal gain without necessity as being morally wrong. And these types of acts have been considred morally wrong since civilisation began.
When it comes to cells becoming people there is no point, thats why its so difficult- human minds like beginnings and endings with clear defintions of which is which, but being born is a becoming process- you become a human from a ball of cells, but at no point in the process can you point to it and say 'now its human' or 'no its not'. Its a process. Which for me means trying to decide if its right or wrong based on when it becomes a human is entirely misplaced, as no such point exists.}}

Reasonable people are just becoming more entrenched in their ideas because the only place they have left to go is their own echo chamber of bullshit. Dont like what someone has to say, well let's censor them and create our own little safe space. That way we can think of names to call the rest of them later on.

 This is what we've watched play out in America.  The name calling and judgement is NOT productive.  And damn hard to break out of once it's begun.

When it comes to cells becoming people there is no point, thats why its so difficult- human minds like beginnings and endings with clear defintions of which is which, but being born is a becoming process- you become a human from a ball of cells, but at no point in the process can you point to it and say 'now its human' or 'no its not'. Its a process. Which for me means trying to decide if its right or wrong based on when it becomes a human is entirely misplaced, as no such point exists.

But if the abortion happens two weeks before it's due, nobody would say a human hasn't been killed. There has to be cutoff somewhere, but with all the name calling the anti abortion crowd has been driven into the corner of making it simple: human life begins at conception, and then they got angry about this not being accepted.

{{ There is no point in the process you can point to and say 'no its human', nature just doesnt work that way, in nice neat easily defined stages, things become things. Even something that seems as on/off as alive/dead isnt- takes various bits longer than other bits to 'die' and then their is decomposition etc is that part of death? And which point are you truly gone? When your pronounced dead? When every cell in your body ceases to function? When decomposition has taken place? Just like being born its a process of becoming.
Better envisioned as a single long unbroken line, at one end you have sperm meets egg and at the other end you have human born. But there is no magical point along the line where one changes into the other. Its the entire line. Its a process of becoming. That whats makes it so hard to argue about in terms of 'when?' is right. Its the wrong question entirely as in the context its actually meangingless.}}

If no such point exists, then pro-life are right. At the point of conception we should consider this a human being and abortion is therefore murder... abortion law is state sanctioned mass murder.

I think there are probably markers that can be used to say this is the distinction between a ball of cells versus a potentially conscious being and that this may be the balance between pro-life and pro-choice. Some may say that is irrelevant and that the circumstances of conception is the only important thing.

The name calling and shouting at each other has killed the debate and now you have two groups of people that are entrenched in their ideas.

Some of those have taken direct action and shot up abortion clinics. Some of those have taken the political route and voted for the only person that claims to be pro-life and against mass murder.

Which is worse? People dying or people being insulted?

I also totally disagree with you about the basics of morality. The primary goal of humans is survival of the gene pool. Humans will quite happily murder, steal, lie, cheat and anything else if that is put at risk.

If that isn't evidenced all over the world, every day then I am not sure what you are reading/watching that I am not but it is clearly totally different.

{{ Thats why I said when is the wrong question. Up until medicine nature didnt care, human infant mortality was exceptionally high, more than any other species due to how we evoloved to be upright- all nature cared about was if enough survived to keep the species going- individuals dont count in nature. Nature expells both sperm in discahrges, even whilst asleep, and expells eggs every month from most women, as waste product. Even fertisilised eggs have a suprisingly low chance compartively of making it to healthy born baby, even less so prior to modern medicine. In the past women would have many children just in the hopes one or two would survive into adulthood. As far as nature is concerned fertilised eggs, individually, dont matter much, its the overalls score that counts- do enough survive for th especies to continue?
The question therefore is not, or should not be about is it a person yet, thats meaningless in this context, but rather are there good or compelling reasons for why this life should be prevented from finishing developing into a human being?
I would argue there are, but not as a poisiton of morality, morality has nothing to do with it, its practicalities upon which the decision should be based.

Regards morality in general I think youre still confusing my point, its not that individuals dont have no morals, or kill, or steal, its the fact since human history began we had the basic morals in there already, and since then, though there are variations, individual expetions and cultures, the general direction of traffic has been for human morality to expland and refine. That we often fail to reach it is not the point. That they exist at all is. Nothing else on this planet we know of has any concept of right or wrong, or of morality, humans do, and far as history is concerned always have had. As far back as we can go there is morality, right and wrong- and the very basics of it are the same now as then. }}

Dogs know when they've done something wrong. You can see it in their face.