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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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I understand where they are coming from, but its not their job to dictate what mail gets delivered.
and it opens the door for right wingers to do the same if they do not get serious punishment for this.
Yeah like I agree with the thought but the mail is kinda sacred.
yep. Don't fuck with the mail.
Especially in the times we are in right now.
Which is why these carriers, as much as I sympathize with not wanting to deal with the hateful messages, need to be punished severely and swiftly.
We shouldn't punish people for standing up to fascists. Fascists are acting in bad faith and bad faith actors will abuse any system no matter what. We should focus on defending our institutions from infiltration by bad actors and refuse to tolerate intolerance.
and part of defending those institutions is punishing bad behavior, regardless of how much you might agree with it or think its righteous.
Because the carrier does not get to dictate who gets what mail. Their job, the entire basis of the institution, is to deliver the mail on their appointed route, regardless what it is, regardless to whom it is to.
You arguing that each postal carrier has some intrinsic right to not deliver mail they find objectionable is arguing for the destruction, not the defense, of the US Postal Service.
It's got nothing to do with me or righteousness. This is about strategic decisions to defend life and liberty from bad faith actors such as fascists.
Not if it's dangerous to the people it's being delivered to. We do not want dangerous substances or bombs sent in the mail.
No, I am arguing that we as a society should refuse to tolerate intolerance. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. The success of this targeted disinformation campaign would put trans people in a life-threatening situation. By refusing to spread this disinformation campaign, this Canadian woman made the strategic decision to defend life and liberty.
Here in the US, the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement is attempting to takeover our democracy this November 5th. Depending on the outcome of the election we me all soon find ourselves in the position of this woman. Acts of civil disobedience might be the last line of defense to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not allow our institutions to be the instruments of our destruction. edit: typo
You can drown your post in as much honey sweetened words as you want.
You are still, ultimately, arguing for the destruction of our institutions by trying to give the people you agree with special privilege to do wrong that you agree with.
It is not the postal carriers job to censor or filter the mail. It is their job to deliver it.
Flip the story around.
Its now a right wing mailman refusing to deliver stuff that he doesn't like.
My argument would be the same, That they would need to be punished severely to protect the institution of the US Postal Service, in order to prevent other bad actors from doing more of the same and destroying it from the inside.
I highly doubt you'd mount such stalwart and furious defense of a right wing mail carrier, as you are right now.
You are as much a cancer and threat to our institutions as all the other bad actors.
Fascists subverting the mail for their own ends to the detriment of other groups' liberties would be a form of intolerance which we should not tolerate. That is what the fascists were doing in Canada without evening needing to infiltrate the mail service. We should prevent them from doing this if it happened here in the US. To do otherwise would be to be complicit in our own destruction. We should not put our institutions above our liberties. Our institutions are meant to be for our benefit and not tools for fascists to destroy us. To put it another way, standing up to fascists does not make us fascists.
Your argument gets into a common neoliberal talking point about our institutions. That they are infallible and that any attempt at systemic change would destroy them. So in my argument I'm going to talk about US institutions more broadly for a bit. My point is that our institutions are deeply flawed and without systemic change we will lose them.
Our democracy, our market economy, and our mail service are all essential institutions. However our political, economic, and public institutions are flawed. Our democracy is comprised of anti-democratic institutions such as the Senate and the Electoral College. These allow for minority rule and routinely prevent popular legislation that is supported by the majority of the population. Our economy is in the death throes of late-stage capitalism. The owner class has extracted so much wealth from the worker class the only way from them to gain more wealth is to form an oligarchy around a christo-fascist dictator. And our mail system uncritically allows for the spread of life-threatening disinformation campaigns on well researched and understood topics. Not only do these disinformation campaigns threaten groups of people they threaten our democracy as well.
Our society is a fundamentally useful tool that benefits around 340 million people. If we categorically refuse to improve upon it will eventually self-destruct. The way we are living is not sustainable or equitable. The MAGA movement is the direct result of the material conditions of late-stage capitalism that have been allowed to fester for 40 years thanks to neoliberalism. The fascist movement will only grow unless we are willing to introduce systemic change to the society that spawned it.
I dont know who'se fucking posts you've been reading, but they clearly werent mine if thats your conclusion you came to.
But then again, given your general right wing argument style of "Its okay to do bad things as long as I agree with them, who gives a fuck about consequences down the road", I'm not entirely surprised you are choosing to respond to a imaginary arguments instead of mine.
These were in your argument. I assessed them as part of a neoliberal argument.
This gets at the paradox of tolerance. Essentially the paradox of tolerance is how should a tolerant society deal with intolerant people or groups. By reframing tolerance as a social contract or peace treaty, we can resolve the paradox. If a group of people, such as fascists, decided to be intolerant, they have broken the social contract of tolerance. Having broken the agreement, the fascists are no longer protected by the agreement. Thus their speech in the case of the targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign is not protected speech.
So denying the fascists the ability to use the mail in this way is not special treatment, but a refusal by society to tolerate intolerance. Ideally we would have systems in place to prevent disinformation campaigns, but we should rather have individuals exercising civil disobedience than nothing at all. There is no point in an institution such as the mail existing as it does now if it's going to be used to deny people the fundamental right to exist.
Bad-faith actors do not care about being punished. The christo-fascist movement seeks to use our own institutions against us to destroy our way of life. We should not put institutions above the way of life that they are supposed to foster. To do so would defeat the purpose of the institutions.
The argument that sounds right wing is yours. edit: typo
No, it doesnt. You're again being disingenuous.
There is no paradox.
The mail carriers deliver the mail. They do not censor it based on personal feelings.
He says, literally trying to undermine the institutions by arguing to allow people to undermine them, as long as he agrees with their undermining
Yes yes, Gaslight, Obstruct, Project
Your entire argument boils down not in favor of justice, accountability and integrity, but in favor of "Let people undermine things as long as I agree with it".
Fascists getting people killed with a disinformation campaign is not feelings. We do not have to tolerate intolerance in order to be a tolerant society. We can make the strategic decision to defend ourselves and our liberty from fascists who want to destroy us.
FYI I'm a woman. I'll add my pronouns to my bio.
Eventually there won't be a mail service if fascists kill us all.
This is what your argument is doing.
None of these ideals are embodied by a life-threatening disinformation campaign or those who would knowingly let such a campaign slide.
Only because people like you are actively arguing to undermine and destroy it. And you'll have it done before the fascists can.
Changing an institution to improve the institution is constructive. Keeping an institution the same when its flaws will cause the institution to collapse is destructive.
Standing up to fascists doesn't make us fascists. Changing flawed institutions for the better is not the same as destroying them. The way things are is how we go here. Keeping them that way is how things will get worse.
and the only flaw you can come up with is that mail carriers might be punished for doing wrong that you agree with. Wrongs that, as long as you agree with, somehow magically are not wrongs in your view.
You have argued for more fascist control of the mail than any right winger I've ever heard of.
Again, you and the bullshit you are trying to hide behind honeyed words are a far larger, and more immediate threat to everything.
The flaw being that we don't have any system in place to prevent life-threatening disinformation campaigns from being spread in the mail. People being denied the fundamental right to exist is contrary to who we are as the US. It is not a question of morality, but utility. It is a strategically sound decision for people to defend life and liberty against intolerance. The fact MAGA cultists believe they are living an alternate reality should not factor into our decision making process of what we know to be true through research and study.
If fascists takeover our democracy they will have total control of the government. They won't need us to pass laws or amendments for them to abuse our institutions. They will have total control over all of our institutions at that point no matter what we do. Our efforts should be focused on preventing them from taking power, because once they take power they will not give it up freely.
My argument is that we should act based on utility not morality or some arbitrary notion of fairness. We should reject a false equivalency between groups that are pro-democracy and groups that are pro-authoritarian. We should also reject the neoliberal idea that our institutions are perfect and immutable. Our institutions are deeply flawed and need systemic change if we want to continue to benefit from them.
My argument for changing our institutions, including our democracy, so that we can keep them is not a threat. Nor is it more immediate than the MAGA movement's publicly announced christo-fascist takeover. The presidential election is this November 5th.
Words are the medium of my argument. The fact my argument refutes your argument's points does not make the words honeyed.
You are a concerntroll, sitting here wringing hands and clutching pearls while making the exact same style arguments that the fascists you claim to be so very much against make, and for the very same reasons.
There is only one objective answer that protects the integrity of our institutions, and that is punishing the bad actors. By holding them accountable and removing them from their positions when they do wrong.
Something that you, bizarrely, have taking significant umbrage with, because you don't want bad actors (who are bad actors in the way you agree with) to be held accountable, to be punished. You want them to be free to continue to be bad actors. You want them to undermine our institutions (in ways you agree with) and to bring about their collapse. So you can replace them with something more easily weaponized against anyone that disagrees with or opposes you.
And golly gee, that sounds awfully familiar, doesnt it?
The fascists in this case were spreading a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. This in not a false concern, but a well researched fact. In this Canadian woman's case the integrity of the mail service in Canada was being threatened by the fascists. The fascists were the bad-faith actors. With her civil disobedience, she made the strategic decision to defend life and liberty. This Canadian woman was acting in a way that was consistent with our ideals here in the US.
We should change our institutions so that they reject intolerance. This will help us prevent the self-serving agendas of bad-faith actors. Our institutions do not need to collapse in order to accomplish this. In the US, we have the capability to amend the constitution. In fact it is much more difficult to build useful institutions from the ground up, as that historically has required significant military capabilities. The integrity of our institutions is preserved by preventing bad-faith actors from misusing our institutions. Not by blindly allowing fascists to spread disinformation campaigns.
Your argument repeatedly asserts a baseless concern about systemic change for our institutions. There is no utility in being arbitrarily impartial to fascists. Turning a blind eye to their disinformation campaign would not have preserved the integrity of the Canadian mail service. Allowing fascists to takeover our democracy in the US does not preserve the integrity of our democracy. Once bad-faith actors control our institutions the institutions are lost. No amount of arbitrary impartiality before a takeover of our democracy will tie the hands of bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will use this leeway to harm groups of people while they are out of power.
Society should not tolerant intolerance. We should not be complicit in our own destruction. If we want to keep our democracy then we must stand up to fascists who attempt to take it away. Even if this means engaging in civil disobedience. We should not want our institutions to be impartial between truths and falsehoods. We should want our institutions to be committed to the truth even if that means being biased against fascists.
Yes yes, big words and upset that you've been called out for wanting to undermine the institutions and lots of paragraphs bemoaning the big bad evil fascists.
and somehow instead of actually dealing with that, you want to undermine the mail service, which is totally not a thing that they want to do to interfere with elections or anything.
Weird how you decry fascists yet want the same damn thing as them, with the same damn tactics.
Ignoring my argument is not a refutation of my argument. However my argument is a refutation of your argument.
We should want to improve all of our institutions. Public institutions like the mail service are no exception.
Improving a thing is not the same as destroying a thing. We should improve our institutions by using our institutions. We should not replace democracy with a christo-fascist dictatorship. Falsely conflating these two different actions is not a compelling argument.
I'm ignoring your bloviating bullshit cause its already been refuted, despite it being a masquerade and irrelevant to the point of the topic at hand, all of which is nothing but an example of you desperately trying to distract from that topic.
And that topic is mail carriers not having the right to choose what gets delivered and what doesn't based on personal feels and opinions, and that doing such deserves to be punished to prevent others from doing the same.
Something that, when you deign to acknowledge the topic at all, have argued against, because you agree with them, and you want to let government employees do whatever undermining, institutional destroying bad behaviors they want as long as you agree with it... Which is the core component of most right wing arguments "I agree with it there for its right and moral"
People can confirm these are false statements by reading what we wrote. It is self-evident.
No where in my argument do I advocate for these positions. The decision should be based on empirical evidence.
I cite sources in my comment here:
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/16679003/10778009
Here is the link about gender affirming care:
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-gender-affirming-care