Should We Really Encourage Everyone To Vote?

[Galloism]

Degeneracy is anything that goes against the white race and Western culture. Things like interracial marriage, homosexuality, transgenders, Marxism, feminism, and Socialism are all degeneracy. There are countless more examples that I can name, if you wish.

I feel as if you're misappropriating the actual definition of degeneracy here.

Having been around several dozen centuries, let me tell you that degeneracy has been reappropriated multiple times.

[Valaran]

Having said that, I'm skeptical of most get out the vote efforts. Every election, we're hit with public service ads on television and online encouraging all of us to do our civic duty and vote. I personally don't see the point. Yes, in America and elsewhere, it's a constitutional right. Yes, people fought, bled, and died for that right. However--and this is a big however--I really don't think that those who are politically apathetic should vote.

Thoughts?

A lot of it is lip-service - we care about getting everyne to vote in theory, and less so in practice or policy. But there is meaning to that lip-service; if we accept that parts of society are ostracised or disenfranchised, then this can undermine the concepts like the democratic mandate, or the popular legitimacy of the electoral process. You may feel that this won't be undermined, and its certainly not a likely possibility. But if we were to drop the pretence, it doesn't help, and it would be a contributing factor to any such erosion in any such slide of democratic values - which many do feel is happening.

There are also various other reasons to push people to vote - belief that it makes them more likely to be engaged members of society, fulfill Rousseau's societal contract, etc etc. I agree with those reasons, though its not like everyone does.

On a more upbeat note - there is also (misguided?) belief that getting people to vote will gradually inspire them to become more politically informed and so forth. I'm cynical and thus sceptical of this idea, but aside from education reform and political reform, this is a fairly cheap and viable method to trying to improve the engagement and awareness of the body politic, espcially neglected elements of the body politic. Its probably worth a shot.

If someone can't be bothered to keep up with world events, or thinks that all politicians are the same, or has no understanding of economics whatsoever, then I don't want that person within a mile of a voting booth. We have enough of an issue with the uninformed, the simplistic, the narrow-minded, and the outright bigoted swaying votes in the United States. Why would we add to that by encouraging a bunch of people who don't actually believe in the process to take part in it? To put it crudely, why would we encourage these dipshits to vote?

I agree that many non-voters are politically un-informed. But, I feel the exact same way about many who are ardent voters and politically active and I'm not sure why the non-voting part is a crucial differentiation. Equally, I know many who vote but still don't believe in the process; it certainly isn't just no-voters who have issues with the system.

In short, I don't feel that the act of voting should be the basis of judgement, since it doesn't delineate who is a dipshit and who isn't. These views carry over to voters, and often in rather worrying degrees. Should we be pandering to dip-shits? No, but several do pander to dip-shits who vote for them, and tbh, we're never going to stop insurgent candidates taking advantage of non-voters (who then flock to vote for these candidates). Becuase even if we don't pander to these people, someone will, and they will tell every lie they can to ensure they vote. The real problem with a bloc of non-voters, in my view, is that they might vote under the right circumstances - and that being for a Trump-like candidate. This presents way more problems, because such an event is unpredictable, normally borne of anger/resentment, shakes up the whole system for a bit (in a bad way), exacerbates societal divisions on several levels, and provides a blueprint for future insurgents to do the same. If we get them voting regularly, they're no different from the voting uniformed dipshits, and we don't get sudden explosions of anger in the electorate that poison societal relations and issues, and breed yet further resentment. If they'e voting, we know what they'll do, and we can work around that. We might even be able to inform them.

So the best way is simply have them vote normally, even if that means an uptick in uninformed voters. Becuase that uptick might happen anyway, and not when we're expecting it. Meanwhile, its not like their misinformation doesn't already filter through society - media outlets of a certain type will always pander towards this demographic, and then frame issues the way they like, and so on. So, its unlikely to make society less informed if they vote, since society is already affected by them. But if they vote irregularly for Trumps, that does upend the political system in nasty ways. By contrast, if they vote regularly, we have a chance to partially remould them and inform them. Not much of a chance, but something of one.

This is a bit incoherent.

(Incidentally, this is why I'm for representative democracy and not direct democracy, where said uniformed make such decisions for all of us. That's neither here nor there. I just feel representative democracy doesn't get enough credit these days)

[Zottistan]

If somebody who, of their own free will, would not have voted votes because they were pressured into it, the election results will not be representative.

[Zottistan]

I suspect we differ on what to classify as degeneracy.

Degeneracy is anything that goes against the white race and Western culture. Things like interracial marriage, homosexuality, transgenders, Marxism, feminism, and Socialism are all degeneracy. There are countless more examples that I can name, if you wish.

"The" white race invented feminism, Marxism and modern socialism, and made homosexuality cool.

[Socialist Nordia]

o you do not believe that degeneracy exists?

I suspect we differ on what to classify as degeneracy.

My definition of degenerate is someone who wastes their time on Internet forums like NSG
that's a joke, don't take it personally

[Valystria]

I suspect we differ on what to classify as degeneracy.

Degeneracy is anything that goes against the white race and Western culture. Things like interracial marriage, homosexuality, transgenders, Marxism, feminism, and Socialism are all degeneracy. There are countless more examples that I can name, if you wish.

Interracial marriage isn't in itself against Western culture. Allowing interracial marriages but generally restricting it to only being permitted between whites and far east Asians would be very beneficial to the long-term survival of the West and would be very much in our best interests.

As for homosexuality... that's been around since the dawn of European civilization, and was commonplace up until Christianity began repressing it. Many of the West's greatest minds happened to be gay or fancying same-sex relationships. That includes leaders as respected and renowned as Frederick the Great, and Alan Turing who is widely considered to have invented computers. There is much to gain from homosexuality, and nothing to gain from suppressing it.

Do you realize LGBT people tend to be the demographic most inclined to be loyal to Western culture?

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/01/how-marine-le-pen-is-winning-frances-gay-vote/, http://www.thelocal.fr/20150328/gay-support-for-national-front-on-the-rise, http://www.independent.co.uk/news-19-4/sweden-right-wingers-plan-lgbt-march-through-stockholms-muslim-majority-neighbourhoods-10415932.html.

2-to-1 LGBT support for the National Front in France as of 2015. By that measure, the French LGBTs are twice as patriotic and nationalist as the rest of the populace. Other countries are no exception. The Sweden Democrats have embraced LGBTs, as has Trump. LGBTs in the West have the most to gain from defending their civilization. You would therefore be wise to accept LGBTs as your natural allies, and in doing so gaining their votes and the votes of those supportive of them. The far-right has already largely reformed on that, and it's time for you to catch up.

[Sanctissima]

I suspect we differ on what to classify as degeneracy.

Degeneracy is anything that goes against the white race and Western culture. Things like interracial marriage, homosexuality, transgenders, Marxism, feminism, and Socialism are all degeneracy. There are countless more examples that I can name, if you wish.

Western culture lives and dies with its origins in the Graeco-Roman world. Homosexuality was so common in the Graeco-Roman world that the Greeks and Romans didn't even bother giving it a name.

So either Western culture is decadent, or you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that its progenitors were ass fuckers.

[Socialist Nordia]

The Sweden Democrats have embraced LGBTs, as has Trump.

Heh. Good one. No matter how many times you say that you stand with the LGBT community, it's still false if you endorse a platform that advocates conversion therapy and traditional marriage.

[Valystria]

The Sweden Democrats have embraced LGBTs, as has Trump.

Heh. Good one. No matter how many times you say that you stand with the LGBT community, it's still false if you endorse a platform that advocates conversion therapy and traditional marriage.

I'm really not sure where you would get that impression, as I endorse no such advocacies. I can't tell if you're simply slinging mud in the hope that it sticks, or if you're merely impulsively demonizing your opponent with falsehoods. Perhaps you've fallen sway to the Left's misinformation campaign. If it's simply that you had been misled, it happens to the best of us. Either way, your baseless claim is an excellent example of how the Left lies to LGBT people and sees them as nothing more than a minority to milk, kept in line through a steady stream of misinformation.

If the Left respected LGBT people, they would be trusted to make their own informed decisions instead of being manipulated through misinformation. If the Left respected LGBT people, the Left wouldn't be determined to demonize far-right parties that have realigned towards modernization. Instead of welcoming a reformist opposition, the Left prefers an opposition that has contempt for LGBT people. When it comes to the GOP having the first pro-LGBT candidate in decades, the Left displays nothing but hostility towards that candidate instead of being welcoming towards a reformist opposition.

Much like how the Left prefers far-right parties not modernize, the Left prefers a GOP that remains the party of theocrats. That is not a relationship of respect the Left has towards LGBT people. It's one of tokenism.

As I do not know if your accusation referred only towards Trump or to Trump and the SD, I include both in the response.

https://sd.se/var-politik/var-politik-a-till-o/ (translation)

No one chooses their sexual orientation. Harassment and discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation is unacceptable and should be legally prosecuted. Furthermore, Sweden Democrats believe that people's sexual preferences is primarily a private matter and nothing party attaches no importance.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/sweden-democrats-jimmie-akesson-far-right-europe/

The party is still full of adherents who cannot keep their mouths shut, and the de-demonization campaign has not been easy. Setbacks have included brazen expressions of homophobia and calls by local representatives to “eliminate” Minister of Migration Tobias Billström and to grant asylum to Anders Breivik, the Norwegian fascist terrorist who murdered seventy-seven people in 2011.

In response, the party has expelled scores of members and, in September, even severed ties with its youth organization, which the leadership viewed as embarrassingly extreme. It has managed to project an image of the party as not totally unblemished by racists and extremists, but now in the hands of a leadership doing all it can to clean out such odious elements.

In addition to the SD having updated its policies, the SD maintains an internal de-demonization campaign going back from as as 2015 when the party took its first steps towards modernization.

As for Trump, you appear to be confusing or conflating Trump's platform with the GOP platform. Trump has not endorsed the GOP platform, and has in fact very much kept his distance from the party platform. This is a rare election in which a party's presidential candidate rejects the party's platform. Trump doesn't decide the party platform. The party platform is decided by the platform committee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/us/politics/republican-convention-issues.html

As delegates debated in two marathon sessions here on Monday and Tuesday, they repeatedly rejected efforts by more moderate members of the platform committee to add language that would acknowledge or condemn anti-gay discrimination — something Mr. Trump has done himself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-party.html

In 2000, when he briefly considered running for president, he gave an interview to The Advocate, a gay magazine, in which he supported amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to “include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

“It would be simple. It would be straightforward,” Mr. Trump said in the interview, adding, “It’s only fair.”

Mr. Trump was believed to be the first private club owner in Palm Beach, Fla., to admit an openly gay couple, according to Laurence Leamer, the author of “Madness Under the Royal Palms,” a book about Palm Beach society.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_Civil_Rights.htm
Q: You say you would have liked the states, rather than the Supreme Court, to decide on gay marriage. Is this a dead issue for the GOP at this point?
A (Trump): Some people have hopes of passing amendments, but it's not going to happen. Congress can't pass simple things, let alone that. So anybody that's making that an issue is doing it for political reasons. The Supreme Court ruled on it.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/donald-trump-2016s-most-lgbt-friendly-republican

In his 2000 book, “The America That We Deserve,” Trump outlined his dream of a nation “unencumbered by bureaucratic ineptitude, government regulation, confiscatory tax policies, racism, discrimination against women, or discrimination against people based on sexual orientation.” Eleven years later, Trump told CBN’s “The Brody File” that gay people were “tremendous” and that “there can be no discrimination against gays.”

Trump has a lengthy history of being very pro-gay. He's currently in the precarious position of attempting to modernize the GOP by getting the party to discard its opposition to same-sex marriage as a dead issue, without personally driving away votes from the party traditionalists in the process.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/while-trump-stays-out-of-it-gop-platform-tacks-to-the-right-on-gay-rights/2016/07/13/969165ca-490d-11e6-acbc-4d4870a079da_story.html

While Trump stays out of it, GOP platform tacks to the right on gay rights

On conversion therapy, that's Pence you're thinking of. The running mate's views are not the candidate's views, and Trump's views are not the party's views.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/14/republican-platform-extremist-conversion-therapy-donald-trump

The Republican platform is extremist – and so is anyone who supports it
~ John Paul Brammer

It endorses ‘conversion therapy’. It rejects marriage equality. Incredibly, it’s to the right of Donald Trump. This is a party that has abandoned the mainstream

It really doesn't get more Left or against Trump than the Guardian, and yet the Guardian recognizes the GOP is to the right of Trump.

LGBT Republicans also recognize the GOP is not Trump's party.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/07/13/gay-republicans-furious-with-new-party-platform-backing-gay-cure-therapy-opposing-equal-marriage/

In a message to supporters, Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T Angelo savaged the new platform.
He wrote: “There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell — and I know you are, too.
“Moments ago, the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history.
“Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there.
“This isn’t my GOP, and I know it’s not yours either. Heck, it’s not even Donald Trump’s!

Indeed.

[Ostroeuropa]

The Sweden Democrats have embraced LGBTs, as has Trump.

Heh. Good one. No matter how many times you say that you stand with the LGBT community, it's still false if you endorse a platform that advocates conversion therapy and traditional marriage.

What is traditional marriage? For the record, Trump has stated previously that he believes traditional marriage is a changing format.
By the way, what kind of person says that about marriage and isnt open to its expansion?

I'm reminded of when Owen smith got angry about the conservatives being more pro-LGBT and shrieked out how the labour party is the only party for gay people, a few weeks before waffling that he was normal because HE has a wife and children. *nod*