Could you be more specific? It doesn't help to berate me for not doing more without actually telling me what I can do. Because I feel pretty helpless here and I have no idea what I can do besides vote and talk to people.
I think we need to actively engage. So that means we actually do need to volunteer. We do need to donate. We even need to run for office. I don't know if my experience is a corner case- but every politician I've ever met has been weird. They don't seem like normal americans.
We need to recognize that the world runs on PACs and that if we don't have a PAC to advocate our position, we're not going to get the outcomes we want.
I think we've been raised to believe there's some holy power in our vote- but this is a distraction. Unless we fund our efforts & win in politics, this is all for naught.
I also think that we have to accept when we lose in politics. This campaign is absolutely the opposite of that value. I share many of the opinions about this woman, but I find the campaign to be shameful in light of my previous opinions.
If you claim to value democracy and then execute this kind of witch hunt when democracy doesn't deliver the outcome you hoped for, there is a problem.
Who do I volunteer with and donate to? There are no political parties I can stomach. Even if you go beyond the two big ones and posit that it's useful to contribute to a third party (and I'm already skeptical of that), they're all completely bonkers.
Run for office? That's too much of a sacrifice to ask. It's not a job I want, by far. If I ever managed to get nominated, I'd do my best to sabotage my own campaign so as not to get elected. No wonder politicians are all weird, no normal person could ever want to be one.
Is not "accept when we lose" completely contradictory to the rest of what you're saying? You say that we should get out and do things to fight for what we believe, and then you turn around and say we should just let it go. This isn't some pointless notion of vengeance, it's a real concern over what her involvement with Dropbox could mean for the company and our data in the future.
Personally, if you claim to value democracy and then call it anti-democratic when there's a completely non-violent grassroots campaign against a political figure, then you're completely off your rocker. Nothing could possibly be more democratic. Even if you disagree with the campaign, how can you call the very idea a bad thing? What could possibly be a better way to exercise your political views than to vote with your wallet and encourage others to do the same? Are we supposed to just shut up and ignore it all? Are we supposed to vote with our own wallet but never talk to other people about it? How does that fit in with "volunteer, donate, run for office, the world runs on PACs"?
"Is not "accept when we lose" completely contradictory to the rest of what you're saying?"
This is the price of democracy. Not everyone disagrees with you for malignant reasons. They can have legitimate, ethical reasons for disagreeing with you.
"You say that we should get out and do things to fight for what we believe, and then you turn around and say we should just let it go."
I appologize if that's what it sounded like. I'm saying we have to accept democracy's outcomes if the democracy is actually functioning (i.e. no ballot stuffing). If you don't like the outcome of a vote, continue to work within the democratic process. Lobby for an idea through Publicity. Lobby your congress critters. Keep working within the political system.
Keeping tallies of the thought-infractions of citizens in the private sector is not healthy though. I see no difference between that and the assassination of the jesuit priest in Syria last week.
A healthy society should be supportive of and accepting of diversity of opinions and lifestyle. That means more than just being nice to LGBT folks. Even people with religious beliefs you find abhorent have the right to prosper to the best of their ability, as long as they are not violating our laws.
"I see no difference between that and the assassination of the jesuit priest in Syria last week."
OK, seriously, what the fuck. You see no difference between a public campaign to switch away from Dropbox because of someone on their board of directors and an assassination?
This conversation started out bad and has now become complete shit. I'm not going to continue. I don't understand why, but something about this topic has turned half of the HN commenters into drooling morons.
(I know that this sort of language is not supposed to be used, but personally I think it's justified in the exceptional situation where someone declares a nonviolent internet campaign to an assassination. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.)
I see it from a different perspective: You are trying to rob someone of their ability to work because you think their politics should have been prosecuted.
And thank you for the wonderfully engaging insults. Enjoy your bigotry.
Ironically, the one tactic that might be more effective than the ballot in deterring bad leadership is hitting bad leaders in the pocket by.... making them into pariahs that corporations don't want to associated with.
Indeed, making it a common think that a company suffers when they donate to causes that their customers disagree with would be a great way to curb the huge increase in the influence of money in politics.
Would you apply this standard for encouraging suffering to your local pizza place? Your neighbors? Your kid's teachers? They're probably the political actors over which you have the most leverage.
Could you be more specific? It doesn't help to berate me for not doing more without actually telling me what I can do. Because I feel pretty helpless here and I have no idea what I can do besides vote and talk to people.