Lesser evilism and war
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Washington Post, already implicated by the DNC leaks of conspiring to help the Hillary Clinton campaign, should publish an article endorsing voting for lesser evilism.
Imagine an election where the only options are Queen Cersei from Game of Thrones, and Sauron, the Dark Lord from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Wow, really? You couldn't make it any more obvious, could you? Gosh, I wonder which one is Trump?
And didn't Sarumon tell us that voting for Sauron was the lesser evil?
There are several problem with lesser evilism logic. For instance, the complete absence of hope.
Lesser of two evils is an admission that we can never expect fundamental change and must stay forever on the road we are on. Except that road is increasingly unsustainable and crisis-ridden. We cannot avoid serious consequences in any event.
Some of us refuse to give in to despair, and I guess that somehow means unicorns.
Another problem with lesser evilism is that by a constant slow decline into evil, you will eventually reach a level in which both sides are too evil.
Ask your friend to try a few thought experiments. Let's say they are a Hillary Clinton supporter. Ask them if they can imagine a candidate worse than Donald Trump. If they claim to be unable to do it, ask them to consider whether they are really being rational about this. Suppose you had a candidate identical to Trump except that he insisted on the need to sacrifice infants on the steps of libraries to appease the god of children's books. Which of the two would be the more evil and which the less evil candidate? Now ask your friend, in a situation in which Trump was the less evil candidate, would your friend campaign for and vote for Trump? If not, why not? Isn't the logic of lesser evilism as solid no matter the details and no matter how evil the less evil candidate may be?
If your friend sticks to his or her lesser evilism, try this. Consider an election between a candidate who proposes immediate nuclear war and a candidate who proposes immediate nuclear war and encourages everyone to commit vicious crimes before the world ends. One is more evil and the other less evil. But both will quickly destroy all human life. Would you campaign and vote for the less evil one?
Even the most fanatical gun-nut will agree to some gun controls (such as, people who live near commercial airports shouldn't be allowed to use surface-to-air missiles).
Even the most fanatical Democratic voter will admit that there are theoretical limits to evil of which they can no longer support.
So what we are really debating is acceptable levels of evil for our surrender.
It occurred to me that lesser evilism is most on display, not in the voting booth, but in war.
For instance, consider this headline.
Al Qaeda a Lesser Evil?
The guys who did 9/11 the lesser evil? Why not? If we were voting for president, and the choices were ISIS or Al-Qaeda, who wouldn't vote for Al-Qaeda? Amirite?
Of course, the lesser evilism logic can go all the way to it's logical conclusion.
'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it'
- AP correspondent Peter Arnett writing about Bến Tre city on 7 February 1968
It became necessary to save the Iraqi people from Saddam by invading and destroying Iraq.
It became necessary to save the Libyan people from Gaddafi by bombing and destroying Libya.
Soon it will become necessary to save the Syrian people from Assad by bombing and destroying Syria. Those that survive, if any, will thank us.
And in November we will participate in the slow destruction of our democracy, by endorsing an undemocratic nomination and undemocratic candidates that don't represent us, so that we may save our democracy.
Those democratic institutions that survive, if any, will thank us.
Comments
Redacted Tonight
Reason I'm Voting Shire...
Wait, I mean Green... ah hell with it, Lord of the Rings Justification, HO!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAF1YThcbc]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Then, Hillary Clinton should have voted to leave Hussein alone.
Saddam and his disgusting family caused less evil than the Iraq War, including Al Qaeda Iraq and de-stabilization of the entire the Middle East. The evils of that war were eminently foreseeable because they had been predicted before Hillary's speech and vote on the war.
I cannot take credit for comparing Hussein and Hillary. While channel surfing not long ago, I happened upon a panel discussion. Seeing Susan Sarandon on the panel, I stopped surfing.
The panel had its own stand up comic interlude, with a young male comic of Middle Eastern descent. After doing a good job with the obvious airport-type jokes, he began a riff on Hussein, the point of which was "As horrible as he was, don't you miss Hussein, now that you've seen Isis, etc.?" However, his "big finish" to this routine was, in essence, so vote for Hillary, because Trump will be even worse. I guess that makes Hillary Hussein and Trump Isis. (But the reality may be that Hillary is the more evil.)
How clueless do you have to be to think you can cobble together an argument for voting for Hillary by bringing up the Iraq War or comparing her to Hussein?
Anyway, when faced with a choice between Hussein and Isis, I will vote for Jill Stein. As Dr. Stein noted, nothing that Trump has done comes even close to the evil Hillary has done. In fact, since we've been promised that Bill will have a large role in her administration, it's fair to include the evil both Clintons have done, from lying under oath, to lobbying for bills that brought down the economies of several nations in 2008, to helping sell the Iraq War to Americans, to the questionable (at best) acts and omissions of Secretary Clinton. And, all on top of near annihilation of liberalism (in the best sense) within the Democratic Party.
Maybe, just maybe, if we vote for people we can at least tolerate, we will have more options than trying to decide whether Trump's mouth and Trump U are really as evil as Hillary's bloody and dishonest history.
Even better, let's try to unite good people in one party and have them work as hard, and donate as much, as they have in the past to campaigns of Democrats, including the campaign of Senator Sanders for President.
If I lived in a world where...
I think I'd join up with a bunch of hobbits and others to overthrow the fucking system.
Hey, it worked for the
Hey, it worked for the Hobbits!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I would join Denarius
Love is my religion.
Thank you for this!
As one who sways between to hell with them both I'm voting for Jill, and, can't let Trump win I may have to vote for Hill, you give me something to think about.
At what point is lesser evil too evil?
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At what point is the lesser evil NOT evil? That's what I've
been asking myself.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Easy, it's all evil and
Easy, it's all evil and therefore not to be voted for. Follow in the prints of the big, hairy feet of the Hobbits, overthrow the evil of all sizes, then sit back and smoke a little pipe-weed with the elves instead of letting the Evils hog it all for personal profiteering.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Yes but, is it too late to overthrow it this election cycle, and
if so, is voting against the greater evil the best we can do for now?
I am collecting signatures to get Jill on the ballot, I'm just thinking ahead to what to do in various possible scenarios in November.
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Lesser evilism exists through fear
Fear can only be defeated with courage.
Bingo!
Lesser evilism is still EVIL. The way to stop this continuously downward slide into greater and greater evil is to have the courage to stand up to it and refuse to be a part of it. Otherwise, we continue to enable it.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Realignment will never happen y'know.
Better vote for the Democrats, then, because you wouldn't want the Whigs to win.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
When it comes to matters of war $Hillary by far the greater evil
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
Really? Trump wants to take out terrorists AND their families,
and not to lunch. He also is willing to use nukes to take out terrorists, even if they're hiding in Europe, although he does say it would be a last resort.
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Hillary's wars took out lots of families with no terrorists
in them.
These are actual deeds, many done in secret, as opposed to bluster at a podium for the cameras.
There was a 90-year-old WWII vet doing an AMA on Reddit the other day with his wife. He's a Democrat, she's a Republican. Both essentially made equally dismissive spitting noises when asked about Trump. However, when asked about comparisons between Trump and Hitler, this man who actually fought against the Axis pronounced such name-calling stupid.
Operationally, that's what we do now...
...(take out families) with our remote-control assassination machines.
Recently Chomsky has went off the rails arguing for lesser-evilism (I dunno if it's that Halle with whom he's collaborating slippin' something in his tea or what), but before that he had a long discussion with I forget who from I forget what magazine (Edit: looked it up - Sam Harris & Reason) but the guy was a NeoLib/NeoCon "Dem" cheerleader (he thinks himself a "realist") and the debate touched on Bill Clinton bombing the pharmaceutical plant, Al-Shifa, in Sudan. This joker argued that since the aim of bombing that plant, which turned out to be totally bogus anyway, because the aim was not to kill tens of thousands of people through lack of medication, that it was not an evil act. Chomsky argued that since the result of bombing the plant was totally predictable yet Clinton did it anyway, the intent didn't really matter and, in fact, said something very very chilling about Clinton that he'd go ahead with it knowing so many would die.
Same thing with half-a-million dead Iraqi children. Half-a-million. Dead. CHILDREN.
Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.
Sam Harris is a notorious anti-Muslim bigot
See here for example. Or check out his blog (I'm not going to link to it because I don't want to improve his page rank).
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Sam Harris is Anti-Islam (as well as all other religions. )
As am I.
I think they are all equally silly, but some religions are obviously way more savage than others.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
Granted. I'd rather our civilian casualties be unintentional.
Just like I think I'd rather die in an accident than by murder.
But of course, I'd rather not die and I'd rather they didn't either.
But I don't doubt that Trump would make good on his rhetoric. Especially since he'd be surrounded by enablers.
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I have a problem with this
When you know for a fact you are going to kill a lot of civilians, how "unintentional" is it really?
A more accurate word would be "deniability"?
True. As I understand it, drone missiles can be targeted quite
exactly and timed to avoid civilian casualties. But often are not. And since Hill in her acceptance speech talked about arming the locals and sending them to fight ISIS, any control over civilian casualties would be taken right out of our hands.
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If I had any Photoshop skills
I'd take the butcher cover (Beatles reference for the youngsters) stick Hillary faces on everyone, label each with Iraq, or Syria, or Sudan, or Honduras, or Libya, or [your country here] and put a nice quote from Madame Albright at the bottom.
Now interviewing signature candidates. Apply within.
Oh, but the half-a-million
Oh, but the half-a-million dead children are safe now and will never hurt again. It was all worth-while to profit the right corporations and billionaires through numerous and egregious war and other crimes.
How can anyone consider voting for evil ever again, when alternatives exist and when, if enough people vote for a non-corporate candidate concerned with maintaining life on the planet and bringing democracy to America, that person will win, just as Bernie won the Democratic nomination? The people must hang together, so that they're not hung separately.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
(No subject)
(I removed my comment because I don't think it was on-topic enough.)
Fight or flight
I've just finished readings the comments on Gail Collins' "lesser evil" column in this mornings NYT (I read it so you don't have to - it's just one of the services I provide
) Usually I enjoy her irreverent look at things, so the fact that they have got her writing on this subject means they are getting pretty worried.
The thing that struck me about all the comments and arguments (loved the screaming for chocolate ice cream analogy btw) was how it was all focused on this election. The danger is now so you have to act fast. It's all about fear and triggering fear based responses. If one takes a longer view, then one can overcome the fear.
This is just the old "seeing the fnords" problem. Stay calm, think things through, don't give in to fear - and stand up for what you believe.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
If I have to use fantasy metaphors
it's more the White Witch from Narnia vs Gargamel. Also, neoliberalism and Clintonism are the enablers for neo-fascism (a thought not original to me). If Clinton wins and sticks with Clintonism, I'd bet the next guy is going to do fascism right.
Great read gjohnsit...
How evil can they get and still be a Democrat?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
That depends on the definition of "Democrat." It seems
to have been undergoing a dramatic change lately.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
As I always say...a slap on the face or a kick in the balls
Then again I don't live in a swing state so...I'm looking around.
The political revolution continues
If someone
is going to make a decision on voting for a person based on perceived evil or lesser evil, then it might help to look at the actual evil committed by that person. Actions speak louder than words!
Based on your output over the past days
I would say, you are on fire.
Don't stop.
Heads would explode at ToP if you attempted same there imho
Keep it up!
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
"The Devil he has a slippery shoe
if you don't watch out he'll slip it on you." Both Clinton and Trump are very slippery characters, and you can't take either of them at their word. Trump is the more obvious fraud, but Clinton is by far the more powerful, and influential manipulator.
In this video Mike Morell, ex-CIA chief and Clinton sycophant, is angling for a slot in her Administration. He is being interviewed by Charlie Rose, who seems aghast at what this man is proposing for the Middle East. It is clearly irrational, very dangerous, and quite frightening. Yet it's typical of the mindset of the advisors Clinton surrounds herself with.
native
This guy was a high official in the CIA?
How utterly delusional. We see the results of his policy all over the Middle East and it is a blood drenched failure. In over 16 years that Putin has been in power, he unlike Soviet predecessors has not armed not supported armed opposition groups to American allies, puppets, nor foreign regime supporters. He did act in the case of the Ukraine, but even as Obama admitted, Ukraine doesn't represent a vital interest to America as it does to Russia. Start killing Russians and that may change. Provide the latest and greatest weapons to Hezbollah--start arming any and every Shia faction in the Middle East. Heck, start arming Sunni Arab spring protesters in Egypt to overthrow the pro-US regime. We in a way have already saw this. The US put pressure on Putin to delay sending S300 missile systems to Iran. Putin delayed. After the Ukraine, Russian sent them.
Yeah right at the top.
He served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as its acting director twice, first in 2011 and then from 2012 to 2013.
native
I always find...
the lesser evil argument lacking. I think a more apt comparison would be Cersei Lannister or Tywin Lannister. Both are selfish, power-hungry, greedy, vindictive, and many more negative qualities. The huge difference between the two is competency. Cersei is clearly someone, like Trump, who is a know-nothing who thinks much higher of her own ability. Tywin on the other hand is more like Hillary. He is shrewd, smart, very effective (Hillary in effective, except at campaigning on her own merits, but is not on our side), and ultimately only out for himself and his family. Which would you want? The incompetent Cersei Lannister or the competent Tywin Lannister?
Now the NY times endorses lesser evilism
It's all they've got
I thought I could hold my nose, punch my face, and vote HRC
My hot issues are around war and foreign policy. My realization comes that Clinton is far worse than Trump as she has a record as always favoring ultra violence against masses of people. Trump is hit for asking naively about using nuclear weapons and as far as I can tell, the serious neocon dominated foreign policy and military establishment is serious looking at using "tactical nukes" against Russia thinking somehow killing untold Russians on Russia soil will cause Putin to back down and will be a victory for the USA.. Who is insane? The neocon establishment or somebody who actually has said he wants improved relationships with a nuclear armed country?
And of course, the rabid Clinton supporter therefore concludes I will vote for Trump. Nope. Jill S. all the way.
As for the Democratic party? As Chris Hedges noted, Democratic leaders have learned to talk "faux liberal" and yet act in favor of corporations and American oligarchs. Today, appears the Obama administration has declared pot once again evil. The very drug at the center of the mass jailing of Americans and in particular African Americans. The majority of Americans arrested and jailed on drug charges is for pot.
If Clinton is elected, we will have war, and a major war. We will see the Democratic party become the most rabid pro-war political party exceeding even the gop under Bush the Lesser. This will have consequences of course on the domestic front which will not be good. Not good at all.
Anyone who cannot envisage
loyal Democrats marching proudly off to another disastrous war, under the leadership of Hillary Clinton, should watch this DNC speech by General John Allen.
The reaction of the crowd is even scarier than the speech itself.
native