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Does voting for more money over all else make someone a bad person?
Quid
Definitely not a bananaRegistered User regular
Definitely not a bananaRegistered User regular
From the Obama thread because it was once again becoming horrifically off topic:
spacekungfuman wrote: »spacekungfuman wrote: »A side effect of having two parties is that there are different constituencies in each party. I have no doubt that there are many people who are at least tolerant of minorities but who still vote straight R because even though they disagree with the GOP on the social issues, they agree with them on taxes or regulation, and care about those issues more. That doesn't make them bad people or bigots, just people who have different priorities than you.
No, not really. You can't look at GOP fiscal proposals and not see the blatant bigotry and classism that are the foundation of the policies. Now, you might not care, but that doesn't make you a good person.Harry Dresden wrote: »spacekungfuman wrote: »spacekungfuman wrote: »I don't think you can say it is unreasonable for someone to vote their self interest. If someone cares most about paying less in taxes, and has a secondary concern about equality, and the choices each only address one issue, how can it be that the only "good" choice is the choice that doesn't address your main concern?
Their main concern that they're acting on at the cost of others is what makes them selfish.
Literally the definition of the word.
That's why I said it isn't unreasonable, not that it isn't selfish.
You realize being selfish is a bad thing, right?
There's more in there if you want to read it.
So it's pretty obvious where I stand on this. Yes, I do believe valuing money you don't need at the cost of minority rights, welfare recipients, and actually less government interference in their lives are bad people. The group of poor people that actually do need the money that would be brought in by lower taxes are, at best, woefully ignorant.
So I guess pick whichever label you think best applies. Selfish or dumb.
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Primarily because the people who can do so effectively have the ability to influence enough stupid people to see their agendas go through
Greed is an incredibly destructive thing that can ruin shit for a lot of people (See: Casino capitalism since Glass Steagall was repealed).
This last election, I gave up on the republicans though. They tried so many dirty tricks to manipulate the election that I could not give them my vote.
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I have given up on the idea that Republicans are good for business, and rather their primary focus is the CEO's and private equity because they can get them rich without all of the "running a business well" tomfoolery.
Then I bet there also is at least a few very specific cases where your whole economic well being depends on a special promised policy of the cartoonishly repressive party.
Knowingly voting that way over social rights however to earn quaint extra money is reprehensible.
I believe most people fall into my first category and are in their foyndation misinformed OR plain idiots.
The Republicans are good for business only if you care about nothing but the top tax rates. Let's not forget we just had a huge crash on the Republicans watch and their only response has been cut taxes on the ultra rich more and fuck everyone else. The Bush years really broke that meme like the Iraq war broke the concept that the GOP is somehow better on defense.
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I would say they're good for those at the top of the chain in big-business. Being good for big business would imply the benefits flow throughout the entirety of that business. Unfortunately the little guys get shit wages.
I'd say they're good for big oil, traditional autos, and high-end investment firms.
Because they sure as hell aren't good for say, anyone doing renewable energy, private space travel, start-ups in biotech or science...
They are exclusively good for people who are rich, and interested in preserving the status quo of old-money.
EDIT: And if Mitt Romney is any guide, I'd scratch "traditional autos" from that list as well.
There's also the whole issue of enlightened self-interest to consider. Seeing how the thread came about from SKFM's post, I can comfortably say that yes, it does make you a bad bad bad person.
Treat everyone equally and make people not be dicks.
and
All that stuff, plus I pay less taxes
Then I'm voting for B, assuming it wouldn't turn us into Zimbabwe or something. But these are not the options we have in the US, so...
Does anyone actually have hard data that supports the off-the-cuff 'common sense' notion that Republicans / Conservatives are 'good for the economy' 'good for business' etc?
It's a mix of various things. Partly, it's a constructed idea, and 'common sense' as a result. Basically low-octane propaganda. It's also about public opinion.
People have terrible memories, and pay attention mostly in short-term. They might see many companies putting out massive profits and payouts, and think that the economy is doing well, when in fact the executives might be just wringing out the most they can out of the companies before going bust. People might see many companies making little profits, and lower payouts, and think the economy is suffering, even though most of the money is going into internal investment, expansion, hiring more employees etc. In effect, the economy might be booming, but the public perception is that it's struggling. It depends too much on the filters people look through at the situation, and the entire issue is hideously complex without bringing in the various business and economic mechanisms in play.
Basically, the idea that one's political leaning contributes to better economy or business-sense is bollocks. One's education and experience do that, one's political leaning just dictates one's priorities, i.e. whether you should invest, hire, develop, payout, etc.
In this case, as in basically all cases, it comes down to the overall effect on everybody. If scrapping the rails is going to destroy the economy and wreck a whole ton of people's lives, and the second candidate isn't going to be able to do much regarding the social stuff anyways, then yes, you can vote for that person.
The short version: You are a bad person if you vote for the candidate who is unambiguously worse for the population as a whole. You may find exceptions to this as are reasonable given whatever absurd circumstances you can come up with ("nice" candidate is also going to personally execute you, for one).
no.
This might be a more interesting question if it wasn't an absurd position. You might as well have switched railroads with breathing, as an issue. If there are only two options, both of which are terrible, obviously one votes for the one that is less terrible.
It would not be wrong to vote for the second candidate, but it certainly wouldn't be right. The first option would essentially kill the country because railroads are fucking vital for any country with significant in-land industry. The second option would be a bad choice due to the candidate wanting to hurt people because he's a cunt. Presumably he wouldn't have autocratic power to hurt protections and laws already in place without resistance, so while there's a possibility he could case damage, his position wouldn't be economic suicide like the first candidate's.
Still, it'd be more interesting to discuss something like this if the examples weren't absurd. This doesn't really support any stance on the issue due to that absurdity.
My intuition is that self-sacrifice for the greater good is laudable, and sacrificing the greater good for selfish reasons is contemptible.
Uh. No. Because some people have ridiculous and/or harmful sincerely held beliefs. For example, the sincerely held belief that buying pretty things for your wife is more important than the lives of people in Africa.
Yeah, being sincere has nothing to do with being correct, right, or beneficial in reality. A harmful/stupid belief remains thus regardless of the sincerity of the believer. It doesn't make it okay, no matter how much they believe in it. Let's not forget, sincere beliefs have led to to plenty of bad things in the past, and it's hard to think of them as okay just because they were sincere.
I think we're talking about two different things here. You should vote for the candidate you think will do the best for everyone. You should also guess as correctly as possible which candidate that is.
We're talking about failing on the first part (selfishness). It's not "ok" to fail the second part, but that's a "dumb" issue and not a "jerk" one.
here is a picture of a city in africa. The place isn't an endless baren wasteland you'd expect from all those charity commercials.
maybe someday we can get around to helping the starving children inside our borders?
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What children?
That's not to say you can't make choices that help others at the cost of hurting yourself. It's just a bit much to label anyone not doing so as a bad person.
Not that I know of, but I have seen several basic measures like gdp, stock performance, etc go the other way
Actually, I'm just referring to kungfuman's value system, where he buys diamonds for his wife because they are just sooooo pretty, despite being well informed of where the rocks come from.
This is a pretty good way to sum it up. The second issue is something that one can fail at sincerely and not be a jerk. While not "ok" in the potential consequences department, it doesn't really reflect one's personality as much as it does one's degree of ignorance, intellect, effort in researching candidates etc. The first one is something that one can only fail at on purpose, and is definitely not "ok".
I think that was a reference to blood diamonds, not just the usual abloobloostarvingafricankids-bollocks.
Endr pls
Stahp
This is an interesting question and I would love to see some conversation on it... I don't want the sins of SKFM past to become the topic again.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Ultimately people make decisions based on their own self interests. People with a wider wold view will realize that a stronger society to live in benefits them greatly and will pick a candidate that will cause them some harm in exchange for the greater good.
that said, if a candidate has made it their stated goal and campaign promise to destroy your financial well being, then you would be a goose to vote for that person, and would totally be in the right for voting for the other guy.
The larger problem is when you can exert your financial influence to unfairly skew the campaign in favor of the horse you want to win the race. I have no issue with the Koch brothers voting straight ticket republican, but I have serious issues with them spending hundreds of millions of dollars to seize the airwaves in favor of their candidate.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It depends.
You cannot make a sweeping statement because it is all a question of degrees. Everyone votes for their own self interest in some fashion. I would say if someone is voting for the current GOP, given their platform and stances on basically every issue, because they want to save a few bucks on their taxes they're, not necessarily a bad person, but a massive fucking idiot.
Also progressive candidates wouldn't be against railroads!
That's the GOP again!
But like, if you are voting for railroad subsidies and against keeping Medicare around you're a terrible person and can go fuck yourself.
All a matter of degrees.
Yes, there very much can be.
If you don't understand this concept, perhaps it is time to take a vacation out of NYC.
ahh, yeah we can thank the entire jewelry industry for that. Diamonds are basically worthless now due to simi-recent discovery of more diamonds than we will ever need, and our ability to MAKE a stone that shines better than natural diamonds.
but the industry is keeping the price on diamonds artificially high. if they just shifted focus to other gemstones blood diamonds would stop being an issue at all.
Greed is certainly at the center of that atrocity..
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If you are voting Republican because you don't give a shit if people's civil rights are taken care of, you just want dat dolla you're an asshole.
In order to believe that it is okay to vote for your own interests to the detriment of others, you must believe one of the following things:
1) Putting your self-interests ahead of other people's well-being is not actually immoral
2) Your self-interests align with other peoples' well-being, overshadowing the possible detriment
3) Voting is a special domain where everybody is selfish and the usual moral rules do not apply
I hope that nobody here is seriously arguing 1.
I personally feel that 3 is a nonstarter. I've seen that argument before, and I find it weak. It usually involves an empirical claim ("everybody does it") that is not supported, and then a non-sequitur drawing moral legitimacy from that empirical claim ("everybody does it, therefore it is okay.")
That leaves 2. There's a lot of room for complexity in there. A pro-labor, pro-union voter might sincerely believe that the net effect of unionization protection laws overshadow the detriment to the economy. A pro-labor, anti-union voter might sincerely believe that laws protecting unionization cause a chilling effect on hiring. A pro-capital, anti-union voter might sincerely believe in a trickle-down economic theory.
And there's a lot of room for rationalization and availability bias there. Just because somebody believes it to be true does not mean it actually is.
But there's a difference between somebody making a good faith effort to improve the well-being of other people and just making a mistake; versus somebody going, "Fuck it, I got mine."
I don't see how explicitly saying "Fuck it, I got mine" is at all acceptable in any conherent moral framework.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Is it so wrong to want to make things easier for you and your family? I mean sure if you're Scrooge McDuck I can see you just voting straight greed. But a man who wants to make it a little easier to send his kids to college, get clothes for his kids, and put food on the table while still having some semblance of a nice lifestyle doesn't seem evil to me. I think it's pretty easy to be here and say with no effort that its more important for a gay fella you've never met to have marriage rights than for someone to get more money. Because the principle is right. But I think it wouldn't be that easy if I was having a hard time with the bills and my family's lifestyle was already taking a hit. You don't have to be poor to be having a hard time with the bills. And saying that people are horrible for not wanting to take a lifestyle hit to their family is pretty impractical.
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