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Do You Understand How Dangerous This Moment Is — How Far We've Drifted? (www.commondreams.org)

submitted 1 day ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/usa@midwest.social

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Once the government claims the right to strip anyone of due process, rights cease to be rights and become privileges, granted or revoked at the whim of those in power. That is not a constitutional democracy. That is the scaffolding of fascism.

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[–] Maltese_Liquor@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that would be a good argument if it wasn't a blatant case of emotional manipulation and a poor metaphor on top of that.

Like it or not your life comes with responsibilities, one of those responsibilities are to those around you. Your gun to the head metaphor implies that you are the only part impacted by the consequences of your actions, but that's obviously not the case here. If you imagine 100 gunmen have guns to 100 people's heads and then tell on the them to start marching or else they all get shot, then it would at least be a little closer. I can understand and even sympathize with the unfortunate situation the marcher is put in but that doesn't mean he still won't receive some of the blame when he decides for the entire group that enough is enough and he'd rather just end the whole thing then and there.

I think this is what the rest of us see as the core of the problem and what you all seem unwilling to see; refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils is inherently selfish, even if it is understandable.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 10 hours ago

I agree, it's basically a team of gunmen forcing a crowd of prisoners. I didn't want to make the metaphor too complicated, but that's exactly what it is

Voting for the lesser of two evils is obeying the gunmen. Meanwhile, others in the group have died of exhaustion, continuing to walk means more will drop

The best thing to do is to all unite as one and take the guns... But you have to act as one. People will get shot, and it might all be for nothing if we don't commit

What we have now is a tense standoff. Part of the group is negotiating with the gunmen to try to get them to shoot someone else, part of the group is making eye contact and getting into position, and the majority is just scared

You can talk about responsibility to the group... I'd agree. But obeying the gunmen isn't the morally superior choice, it just kicks the problem down the road so we can do it again, when everyone is more exhausted and more people have dropped already