MountingSuspicion

"Blame" might not matter to you, but in my experience it matters to some people. They do not want to be responsible for genocide and will rather have not voted for it, even if it was going to happen anyway. I am not attempting to police your personal feelings or morality or sense of responsibility, I'm just trying to offer some alternative perspective so that we can all work together to build a bigger tent. I think blaming people for everything their politicians do is counterproductive to harm reduction. If you don't, you can proceed as you were. I just don't think that it contributes to a better outcome and wanted to ensure someone pointed that out. Leftism has always been about building a broad coalition, and has had people with all kinds of approaches to political change. I just hope that your opinion is able to fit somewhere into the broader cause and not push people away.

My point is that it's not helpful to tell Good Samaritans they're responsible for the people they couldn't help. We don't generally do that as a society. So if you think it was a given that people in Gaza were going to get hurt either way, blaming Harris voters for genocide on her term would also not be helpful (unless they're saying they're pro genocide). If you want people to vote for harm reduction, you can't blame them when the candidate fails to do everything right, especially if they were vocally against that specific policy.

But if you're stating harris voters are still responsible for genocide then you're saying the Good Samaritan should be blamed too. If the Good Samaritan is tried for not doing enough and found guilty and so is the bystander, then people are encouraged to be the bystander because at least then they didn't choose to get burned up in addition to being held responsible for something. If you want people to help you have to have Good Samaritan laws. If you want people to vote Harris you have to give dem voters grace when the candidate does something they disagree with and they call it out. You can't just tell Harris voters "you voted for this" when Gaza is bombed while also telling trump supporters and nonvoters the same thing. At some point you leave people with no moral opinions so they check out or stop caring about your concept of morality since it cannot be lived up to.

It did make sense and I can appreciate and respect a coherent world view. It seems like some other people took my comment negatively, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your viewpoint. I have also previously expressed at least some respect for people who were negatively affected but still hold fast to their trumpism. In my opinion they at least walk the walk after talking the talk. Other people have responded saying that I'm basically respecting people that are brainwashed and in a cult, but I agree with you somewhat that at least they didn't shy away from the consequences of their actions and that's commendable.

I think it's kind of terrible to put people in a lose/lose position that they had only an insignificant amount of control over being in in the first place. No one got to decide on Harris, and I think telling people that voting Harris and not voting Harris both enable genocide doesn't help the cause. If that is your firm belief and you're unable to conceal that because you think it's important that people know, then more power to you, I just feel like it doesn't really help. People will prefer to not vote for genocide than vote for it when if know its inevitable they'll be considered responsible. But I do have to respect you for being consistent in your beliefs, even if consistency might not be the most beneficial or expedient thing.

Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to genuinely respond. I hope next time there's a better option for us all.

I understand your frustration, but lower down in this thread you can see someone thinks that voting for Kamala makes you guilty of genocide AND not voting makes you worse than a trump voter. THAT is the issue. Not my question. The left is telling itself there is no good choice. I'm just asking if this person is someone that thinks that or not.

Maybe you don't know anyone who abstained, but I do, they are organizers and very involved. If they run into rhetoric saying "voting for Kamala makes you complicit" AND "not voting makes you complicit" they figure they're complicit either way so might as well not cast a vote for complicity. I'm not saying it's sensible, and I voted Harris, but we need to be able to separate voters from the worst parts of the politicians they voted for and give people some grace. I don't know the people in the article, but if Harris was elected and leftists that voted for her said "this isn't what we voted for" if she continued to support genocide, would these people still be in the comments saying "THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR!!" I just think it's important to understand that voters can disagree with individual policies and the left was told Kamala was "secretly wanting to be pro Palestine" so if people just got on board things would get better. If they voted for her and that didn't come true would people call the leftists idiotic for believing she would act differently? I just think we need to understand people as individuals and comments like the one above me can lead to good conversations about how we hold individual voters on both sides accountable while building a strong base.

I guess the question at that point is, if you think Harris voters would be responsible for genocide, and nonvoters are responsible potentially even more than Trump voters, than there is no winning option. If you want to say democracy has become a lose/lose, fine, but I think it's important we're conscious of the fact we're saying that. I don't think everyone is responsible for the worst actions the people they voted for take in their capacity as public officials. I think it's worthwhile to note that and give people grace in that regard. Because otherwise we end up deciding between voting for genocide, or not voting and still carrying blame for genocide, and people make the decision to just not directly vote for it.

I'm not saying Harris lost because of Gaza, but given the choice of being considered responsible for genocide because I voted for it or because I didn't vote for it, I'd rather not vote for it. I want to note that I voted Harris, but I know people who abstained and it's hard to reach them if we (the left) continue to claim that they'd be responsible for genocide either way.

How you feel about people who abstained?

I voted dem and am anti Trump, but can I ask if you feel the same way about Dems? If I voted for Harris and she continued to provide aid to Israel to bomb Gaza, did I technically vote for that?

This comes of as very "just asking questions", and I'm aware of that, but I hope you will take it as a good faith question because it is.

I see people mentioning that Trump has staff to inform him of this etc etc, but I think it's also pretty common knowledge that you don't comment on someone's grasp of a language unless you're teaching them or it's necessary. As a country of immigrants, Americans deal with a lot of immigrants, and that thought goes either way. You don't mention a heavy accent or a lack of accent. I grew up around a lot of ESOL, and even if their English was impeccable, it's quite othering and often condescending to have someone mention it. Some people don't mind it, but always better to err on the side of caution. I understand this is not someone from the US, but they're a foreign dignitary and there's no need to say something that would even be perceived as condescending.

I suggest reverse image searching whatever you like on Etsy. A lot of it is just dropship stuff where you can buy the original and cut out the dropshipper for pennies on the dollar. Depending on what you're looking for you may have to buy a minimum, but 9/10 the minimum is still less than the Etsy price. I buy a lot of craft supplies and 50/50 an Etsy listing the says "handmade" "artisanal" "bespoke" is never even touched by the seller. Additionally, if the person is not just a dropshipper, you might find their actual website where you can get things for less or at least make sure they get the full amount without giving Etsy a cut.

If you think we should offload to AI even if it's worse, I have serious questions about your day to day life. What industry do you think could stand to be worse? Doctor's offices? Lawyers? Mechanics? Accounts?

The end user (aka the PEOPLE NEEDING A SERVICE) are the ones getting screwed over when companies offload to AI. You tell AI to schedule an appointment tomorrow, and 80% of the time it does and 20% it just never does or puts it on for next week. That hurts both the office trying to maximize the people seen/helped and the person that needs the help. Working less hours due to tech advancement is awesome, but in reality offloading to AI in the current work climate is not going to result in working less hours. Additionally, how costly is each task the AI is doing? Are the machines running off of renewables, or is using this going to contribute to worse air quality and worse climate outcomes for people you're trying to save from working more. People shouldn't have to work their lives away, but we have other problems that need to be solved before prematurely switching to AI.

I wonder how much of that difference can be attributed to gun violence. I'm not anti gun, but few countries have gun laws as lax as the US so there's a larger number committed by guns which may be more difficult to solve. The sale of guns themselves are not always tracked, and gun violence is something that can be done from afar and not leave as much evidence. We're also quite a large country with very populous cities. Berlin has 3.7 million people and is the most populous EU city. NYC has over twice that. Much easier to solve crime in a town of a few hundred people than in large cities, which the US has more of.