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fairilu wrote

It's not just people who voted for Trump, anyone who supports the existence of the government in general is responsible for the things the government does, regardless of whether "their guy" is the one in charge of it or not.

You can't erect a giant murder machine in the hopes that it's going to be used "responsibly" and then shrug your shoulders when someone starts using it in a way you don't like and be like, "Well I didn't want him to be the one controlling it."

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heckthepolice wrote

This. You can't just vote for Hillary and wash your hands of all this shit. Anyone not actively fighting against domination is responsible.

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edmund_the_destroyer wrote

So what kind of active fighting against domination do you think we should be doing?

I want to change things but I'm not ready to grab a gun and go blast some politicians. Is that what you're doing (not that I expect you to confess on a public forum)? If not, then what?

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heckthepolice wrote (edited )

To be honest, I don't actually do a whole lot. And yeah, that makes me a massive hypocrite. I really am trying to get more involved, but I don't really know how. It certainly doesn't help being in a town where I am literally the only anarchist.

Like, I have a general idea what direct action can look like. And I really think we can be using a diversity of tactics. So I guess the answer to what kind of fighting we should be doing is "whatever you can".

Squat abandoned buildings if you can. Do guerilla gardening if you can. Do Food not Bombs if you can. Throw molotovs at cops if you can. Make agitprop if you can. Make music if you can. Distribute zines if you can. Slash the tires on ICE vehicles if you can. Write to prisoners if you can. I don't think there's really any set formula for what resistance should look like. Even little things can be a good start.

Edit: Oh, and for some ideas and instructions for various types of direct action I'd recommend the CrimethInc book "Recipes for Disaster". It has a lot of useful information

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edmund_the_destroyer wrote

I appreciate your honesty. We have to start somewhere.

I am relatively new to anarchist ideas myself, and when I bring it up in conversations about politics I get blank stares. I guess I need to work on my oratory skills. Everybody agrees with me that bureaucracy is a corrupting and inefficient thing most of the time, but when I make the argument it's inevitably, inescapably corrupt I lose them.

I'm not at the point where throwing molotovs at cops is an option. I'll try to get involved in little things, though.

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heckthepolice wrote

Glad to hear it comrade. I'm working on getting involved in the little things too.

Oh, and I'd recommend checking out if there's an anarchist bookstore/infoshop or other anarchist space in your city. That can be a good place to meet like-minded folks and learn about ways to get involved.

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go1dfish wrote

This ^

Arguing that coercion is being used for the wrong ends is not a valid defense.

If you accept the violence of government; and especially if you attempt to direct it to your own benefit you are absolutely responsible for the disastrous effects of that violence and coercion.

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ziq wrote

Yes, I don't think there was any nuance to his political statements or room for misunderstandings; they knew exactly what they were opting for when they elected him. White supremacy that would benefit them while hurting everyone else.

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libre_dev wrote

Yes?

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Nuktuk OP wrote

If we are to assume Hillary won, are those who voted for her responsible for the actions of her government? Does the answer change if the voter is an anarchist?

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ziq wrote (edited )

Yes, she was openly a warhawk, openly took bags of money from lobbyists to do harm, was openly rightwing, racist, antigay, nationalist, bloodthirsty, antifeminist, etc. Her supporters couldn't have missed her long history of oppressive words and actions unless they were willfully ignorant in order to justify their support for a far right zealot; the same way female Trump supporters ignored the fact that Trump openly boasted about groping women because their whiteness was more important to them than anything else.

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edmund_the_destroyer wrote

But again, what should we be doing instead of voting, then?

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

Accept that any parliamentary system is an insult that doesn't represent your interests and represent those interests for your neighbors, I guess. The dems or labor aren't ever gonna actually do anything about people being hungry and homeless, so organize food drives or start a FNB chapter. Gun control will always target minorities before it targets rich white men, so help out at antifascist gyms or teach people to use the guns they've held onto.

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libre_dev wrote

Hillary winning is not the same thing as voting for Hillary.

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[deleted] wrote

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rot wrote

voting for a third party does take away votes basically the highest % wins. The votes narrow it down to 2 and then the electoral collage decides who wins.

It's all fucked up and votes don't really matter unless they are big numbers (someone could win by 60% or have the majority of votes and still lose)

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arduinna wrote

I believe a common stance is to vote for the lesser evil in swing states, and the Socialist or Green party in states that are firmly entrenched either way, as to prevent things like Trump winning without campaigning for everyone to buy into the DNC.

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this_one wrote (edited )

In my opinion, yes. And so are people who didn't vote (who could).

And if Hillary won and you voted for her, you'd still be responsible for the actions of her government.

I know that's not the most anarchist thing to say, but to be honest, I'm more interested in making the world better (and less bad) than I am in ideological purity or whatever, and voting for a lesser of two evils is definitely a small contribution to making the world less bad.

That said, if you think you could spend whatever time it takes to vote more efficiently doing some other action that makes the world even less bad (or more good to balance things out or whatever), you should do that. But not voting is a choice, and you're still responsible for that.

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Nuktuk OP wrote

So the only option that doesn't leave the voter responsible is if they vote third party? Wouldn't that be equivalent to not voting at all?

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this_one wrote (edited )

In America, I'd say it's almost the same as not voting, but a bit worse, because you went to all the effort to vote and still did nothing. There is no extra effort required at that point to make a small contribution towards a less bad world, and you still didn't do it. If you're somewhere with a halfway-functional voting system, though, by all means vote for the least Evil.

Also, as I said in my first post: not voting is only something you should do if you use the time it would take to do something even better, which a 3rd-party vote absolutely comes nowhere near achieving. "A bit worse" is a bit of an understatement ;P

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Nuktuk OP wrote

So voting for Trump is "bad" voting for Hillary is "bad" voting for anyone else is "bad" and not voting at all is also "bad"?

Am I understanding you correctly here? Are citizens always in some way responsible no matter how they vote/don't vote?

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this_one wrote

Pretty much. They're all different degrees of "bad", so it's not like I think they're all exactly the same, but yeah.

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rot wrote

Indirectly, but yes.

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Captgouda24 wrote

Yes, somewhat. People voted for him for all sorts of reasons. Some people voted for him for disgusting reasons, but others voted for him because they despised Hillary even more, or because they believed that trump could be controlled, and that he wouldn’t do much more than sign the bills passed by Congress. I had a friend vote for him because he believed that things were going wrong, and something had to change, and voting for Hillary would be just more of the same.

Also, what would them being responsible for it even mean in practical terms? I hope that you are not suggesting such as all Trump voters should be arrested.

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Nuktuk OP wrote

More of a thought experiment than anything. I personally do not vote in my country because if the party I vote for gets in, then I would consider myself somewhat responsible for any and all the the atrocities they (inevitably) commit. But other people I know feel that voting for one party in an attempt to prevent another from gaining power is sometimes or always justified and maybe they're right idk.

Anyways, a vote for any of the two parties in a dominantly two party system is a vote for the other party as well as I see it.

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GiftedWitch wrote

Yes, I feel like he hasn’t even tried to hide his idiocy so if anyone voted for him they knew he wasn’t fit to be president.

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wanab3 wrote

Not directly because they voted. dump "won" because of EC. Not common peoples votes.

Responsibility comes far more from actively supporting dump socially. Through their various sociopolitical actions.

Ultimately dump is their personification of "american exceptionalism." Which they use to justify and "legitimize" their interpretation of this "exceptionalism."

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