Disingenuous bullshit gets you blocked. Goodbye.

Thanks, I’m sure you’re pretty swell too ✌

edit: typo

I tried to edit the comment but it seems to still just read as removed, so I apologize jordanlund but I’m going to tag repost my comment below this one, minus the offending last line so as to hopefully be within policy compliance. Comment (sans final line), was as follows:

What disingenuous bullshit. Did you actually read that page or just find the first google result that supports your claim?

Because that page is basically two things: legitimate raging against real anti-activism efforts and a bunch of defeatist bullshit nothing based on a strawman assumption that the harm reduction argument is inherently one which is at odd with other forms of activism. Yeah no shit the deeply systemically-rooted problems aren’t going to magically get solved just because you got off your ass for one day in November. And yeah no shit there are more effective, necessary, and righteous ways of affecting change and activism.

But nobody, nobody, is saying otherwise.

But the fact remains that whether you abstain from the practice entirely or you’re the most involved on the street activist in the world, an election will happen in November the results of which will have real world impact. And yes, again no shit both options are horseshit. Yes life under Joe Biden will be one where corporate interests reign free, minority and indigenous and disenfranchised people will continue to be treated unequally and exploited in America, and the economic divide will only further. Yes, that’s all true. But it’s also true that all of those things will happen, but even worse under Donald Trump, as well myriad other genuinely measurable worse things. So if we want to reduce the harm that will happen, logic dictates we ensure Donald Trump isn’t President.

Now tell me where, anywhere in that I say that voting is a panacea for all ailments or anywhere discourage any kind of genuine activism outside of voting.

You can take comfort in being so pure and above it all by not stooping to the levels of supporting an imperfect system all you want, but at the end of the day that’s just selfishness that serves only to feed your own ego. In the meantime, in the real world, abstaining from the system just makes things worse. The point is to do all the shit that I’m sure you pretend to encourage from your desk chair here on Lemmy but never actually do, and also take the fucking 1 hour out of your day once ever four years it takes to vote as well. It literally only helps things and does not in any way take away from legitimate efforts.

Then explain how you mean so, in your words, not in links.

That’s awesome to hear and a great principle to have! Tell me what steps you’ve taken to personally motivate the Democratic party to run primaries and which candidate you’re choosing to support in the primaries and how exactly you’re providing said support.

Or if you’re talking third party, that’s awesome too! Please tell me the steps you’re taking to legitimatize your chosen candidate, raise awareness of them, and prepare them and their supporters for opposition. I’m excited to hear the stories of both your hard fought battles, and more importantly since this is paramount to the viability of this as a strategy, the wins and achievements you’ve accomplished so far so as to cement your candidate as a legitimate option!

And then, if you’re really feeling up for sharing, I would love to hear at which point in the process after your chosen candidate has either lost their primary slot (if they do so, god forbid) or been proven statistically irrelevant as a third party (which I truly, truly, as somebody who has actually worked with local third party candidates in their campaigns, hope doesn’t happen) in the general election will you concede that your battle was hard-fought but ultimately lost in greater war effort that is change and make the reasonable harm reduction choice to vote for the objectively better of the two remaining viable candidates rather than standing on your own ideological purity selfishly at real world expense of greater harm befalling countless real world America citizens?

Don’t be pedantic. We are talking about reducing the amount of harm that will be done. I don’t care if it fits your clinical definition of the term, I’m not speaking in phraseology, I’m speaking in plain language. Voting reduces harm being done.

It absolutely is a pedantic argument. If I see a shitty beater car competing in a race and say “that’s a race car” and you say “no a race car is a professional racing car” you’re being pedantic, its both, “race car” is shorthand for “professional/sport racing car” but its also just what the words mean together.

Language isnt always as clear as we like: if you want to be crystal clear about “drug harm reduction programs” which are part of broader “addiction harm reduction models” that can sometimes include non drug models, well you can be precise with your meaning or you can be flexible in meaning, but outside that its just pedantry. So yes, you can consider a lot of things “harm reduction” because its shorthand.