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‘They will vote against Harris’: Arab Americans in Michigan desert Democrats over Gaza
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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It's a basic philosophical question.
Say you find yourself locked in a room with a gun, and two people tied to a chair. A voice announces that if you kill one of them, you and the other go free, if you don't kill anyone or if you kill yourself, everyone dies.
Your solution to this, voting Harris, is trust the voice is telling the truth and figure out who is the worse person so you don't feel as bad about being a murderer.
Their solution is not being a murderer.
Maybe the voice is telling the truth, and thus the voice will be a murderer, but they won't be -- you would be though with your choice. Maybe the voice is lying, in which case they made the right choice and you objectively made the wrong one, the worst one.
Most humans, ideally, would choose to not be murderers, even if that means a psychopath does a murder "because" you refused to.
In your example, their solution is absolutely being a murderer. They didn't pull the trigger, but they condemned those people to death. They know that refusing is killing those people, that their refusal is the cause for those peoples deaths. I'm not saying that I don't think Gaza is important, or that it's not worth fighting for, but I extend that same importance to my countrymen as well. I think the woman who may need an abortion is important, even if I never get one. I think that my neighbor's kids should have a save school, and not be laden I'm debt, even thought I don't plan to have children.
I cannot stop what's going on in Gaza. It's a horrible, terribly bitter pill to swallow, but it is the truth. However, I'm not going to set everyone else on fire so we can all burn together in solidarity. Too many other people's lives are at stake. And I'm not saying their lives are more important than those in Gaza, I'm saying they're just as important. Kill one person, or kill everyone. I would rather save someone than no one.
Exactly, you think being a murderer is okay.
That is the core philosophical difference.
You are completely okay with killing innocent people. These people are not, normal people are not.
This difference cannot be reconciled. These people will never think the way you do, and thank every God ever imagined for that, as someone needs to be the moral party if only as an example of how normalized and justified pure evil is.
That's not at all what I said, and I think you know that. Wanting to help someone is not the same as wanting to kill someone else. My vote doesn't save Gaza, because there is unfortunately no option, but my vote could still help someone. Not voting, or throwing it away, literally doesn't help anyone.
I hope you find peace with your indecision and your cowardice should the rest of the country not be able to make up for your inactivity. But I'm sure those suffering in Gaza will feel better knowing that someone in Texas is bleeding out in the parking lot. That'll show 'em.
Have fun in international court.
I'm sure the Nazis that just voted felt the same way.
Fucking ridiculous.
A vote for anyone OTHER than Harris directly results in MORE Gazan suffering.
Trump will not restrain Israel. On the contrary, he will encourage them to 'end it' and achieve "peace" by ACTUALLY genociding all remaining Palestine resistance.
There already has been no restraint from Biden. Genocide is genocide, and Harris supports genocide.
I'm not voting for genocide, there is no moral argument to do so.
Are you really so deluded to beleive all of Bidens play acting about how he was seeking peace all this time? He used 0% of his levers to make peace happen and 100% of his levers to encourage Israels murder spree.
How are you not a murder in your role play here? By doing nothing everyone dies, that blood is ALSO on your hands for inaction.
I'm not the one murdering them, quite literally. Just like in real life, there is no mystical unstoppable force of nature in play. It's another person, like you. Their choices aren't your choices.
To put it another way, if you sold a kid a bike and he later crashes and dies despite the bike having no faults, are you responsible? Most would correctly identify that you are not responsible in that scenario, as the kid is responsible for what they did with the bike.
In this case your entire argument about the election is moot. If I vote for a president, their actions are not mine, I am not going to Gaza to kill Palestinians. You can even go a step further, neither Harris nor trump is personally going to Gaza to kill people. The choice of killing Palestinians is up to the Israeli people who are doing the actual killing.
The opposite. If your vote for a president their actions are yours. You endorsed and aides them.
This is ridiculous. The most harm-reducing outcome for actual Gazans (not to mention everyone else) is if Harris wins.
Because, either Harris will win, or Trump will win.
There is NO other possibilty and no amount pseudo-philosophy word games will change that fact.
How is being genocided without restraint better than being genocided without restraint?