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kore wrote

I'm glad you said this. I also think it depends a lot on situation. Like when Obama was elected, things probably would have been pretty similar if it was McCain instead. But with Trump it doesn't really seem like that. There's also the case of local politics which I think is a completely different story, where elected people can put in some beneficial programs. As a random example take the idea of sanctuary cities in the USA. Those exist because people voted Democrat in their localities.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I'm under the impression that Trump was a direct result of a Black man having been voted in previously, so I think that when we take a longer-term view on the consequences of a vote, it often undermines this kind of argument.

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Bezotcovschina wrote (edited )

I don't think that voting can bring a sensible change in most of cases. But I think that the statement "You should never vote ever, period" is too dogmatic.

Edit: explaining why something is harmful is great, though.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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Bezotcovschina wrote

Is it as dogmatic as saying you should vote, considering those people who say that have magical thinking and assume it will fix... anything.

Agree 100%

Seems to me that the word dogmatic has lost all meaning and simply means 'the opposite of what I believe.'

As many words did, really. But I firmly insist that any strict statement, especially "You should always..." or "You should never..." is dogmatic and harmful by itself.

Or, maybe, it's just me wanting to stab people that tell me what to do.

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AnarchoSpook wrote

Well any kind of appeal starting with "You should always" is referring back to some transcendent plane of ethics detached from direct experience. There is also a striking resemblance between the assumptions of institutional justice imposed by authority and these kind of claims. imo anarchist ethics is really about the inclusion of all but domineering perspectives (whether collective or individual) of the world as we recognize and act on it here and now.

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