Holy Whataboutism Batman!

It’s actually okay to say that they’re right on some topics and wrong on others.

This page, while obviously specifically advocating against the ADL, is well sourced in its criticisms: https://droptheadl.org/the-adl-is-not-an-ally/

I would guess that your average PRC citizen is less likely to be a tankie than your average hexbear.

Nice non sequitur. Thanks for confirming what I wrote.

Words have meanings. If you don’t want to answer the question because you’re embarrassed of the fact that you care for political purity over the lives of others, that’s on you.

Only one of the two major parties helped ensure that a good friend of mine had legal access to lifesaving healthcare recently, and it wasn’t Republicans. Pretending one party isn’t worse isn’t productive. How are you going to approach the spoiler effect, or do you simply not care about all the death and suffering that will result from strategy that doesn’t tackle the spoiler effect?

If the Republican party regains power in my state, my life is in danger. Even if I were so selfish as to only care about having “got mine,” that non-sequitur would still be irrelevant.

Right now I live in a state with a Democratic governor, a Democratic state senate, and a Democratic majority on the state supreme court. And these three things are preventing major catastrophes here. So no, this has not already happened, and what I have to lose here is quite literally my life.

How do you plan to avoid the problem of abandoning the DNC causing Republicans, who are worse than Democrats, from gaining unmitigated power while said other party is gaining momentum?

I literally know someone who’s not running for a state office because even with the compensation he can’t afford the expenses of actually being in office.

Many US states got their capital chosen because when the territory became a state it happened to be the closest to the centre of population of the state. Jefferson City, MO is a good example of this. The three major population centres at the time were St. Louis, Kansas City and (to a much lesser extent) Joplin. So Jefferson City was right by the centre of population.

Meanwhile, most European capitals (including at the provincial level - think German states or French regions) came to their state by being the capitals and cultural centres of feudal states, which gives them more depth.

I don’t mean any offense to Iowa (this time), but there’s not a huge amount going on there. It exists almost exclusively as an administrative division.

Fortunately she’s in Davidson county, which is very blue. After 2020 the Republican state legislature redistricted in a way that cracks Nashville (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee’s_congressional_districts#/media/File%3ATennessee’s_Congressonal_Districts_(2023-).png). That got Nashville voters pretty pissed.

I’ve given more details elsewhere, but the short version:

We can classify US presidential votes into three categories:

1. Vote for the Democrat
2. Vote for the Republican
3. Vote third-party/independent or don’t vote

The most effective vote to make on an anti-genocide platform is #1.

Voting for a Republican is voting for a party that appears to be profoundly okay with the genocide in Gaza AND wants to start some genocides of their own (e.g. against trans folks, immigrants and racial minorities). This is the most pro-genocide vote.

Voting for a Democrat is voting for a party that has a fairly significant group that opposes the genocide, and which appears to be movable on the topic.

Any other vote is roughly equivalent to not voting. On the presidental front, there is no chance in this election that anyone other than a candidate from one of the main two parties is elected, and that’s also true for most senate or house races. (Possibly all, but I don’t want to make that strong claim since I haven’t actually researched all the races.) Voting for a candidate who you know won’t win is explicitly choosing not to have a say between the tho feasible candidates.

I do have one caveat though…

If you live in West Virginia for example, it’s a bit more complex. There your choice is essentially “the Republican or not the Republican,” so third-party/independent moves into category 1. However, then I’d argue that voting for the Democrat for president may still be the preferable response because if the Republican wins the electoral college but, (as has happened in every presidential election since 1990 except 2004) the Democrat still wins the popular vote, it further delegitimises the Republican’s presidency and the electoral college.

Agreed, but while we’re working on that in multiple avenues, we still need to vote for the harm reduction choice.

The US green party is essentially an astroturf movement to prevent people from even going as “left” as the Democrats. The Tea Party is there to move Republicans to fascism. The Greens have been co-opted to lubricate that process for them.

It’s harm reduction. Voting is what you do to prevent the more evil thing from happening while you work towards fixing things so that you have better options.

Hand them to zoomers as 3d printed save buttons

Not to take away from your entirely valid point, but most people don’t know that most small airplanes still use leaded gasoline and that the EPA found that “Lead emissions from aircraft are an important and urgent public health issue.”

The lead levels near general aviation airports are a big problem, and airport proximity tends to have a negative effect on property values, which combine to be an equity issue - children born into poorer households are more likely to live right near airports than those in wealthier households, and thus they’re likely to have higher blood lead levels.

Worse still, while some of these aircraft are important (pilot training, connecting island communities where boats aren’t feasible for large chunks of the year), many of these aircraft are primarily used for hobby flying, meaning that wealthy people who fly as a hobby are poisoning poorer communities with lead (often unknowingly, as they don’t necessarily know that this is a problem).

The FAA approved an unleaded 100 octane avgas in 2022. Something most people reading this can do is find out who owns their local municipal airport and demand that they convert to only unleaded avgas.

Perhaps they could disbar his member?

Probably the black sea, dad.