I think protesting is stupid if you can vote

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For point of reference, I have been a consistent Dem voter for 10 years now (am 39). So, I'm hardly a right winger.

But all these protests that pop up seem to be vanity exercises to me. I see all these "national movements" where "young people are expressing their anger" by protesting. Then you see the election results and less than 30% of people under 26 can be bothered to go out and vote. I'm willing to bet that a majority of the people that protest regularly don't actually vote in every election they can.

I think people go out and protest to be seen, to feel like they are doing something, and for social connections.

When you can't vote, protesting is your only route. But that hasn't happened in a while in the US.

If people can vote and enact policies you disagree with - protesting is like saying "I think a loud minority should have more say than that voters." Its anti democratic. Don't get me wrong - I support your right to do so. But I think it backfires. I think the Ferguson protests completely backfired because a lot of moderate people saw the dude rob a convenience store right before he got shot. I don't think most people really gave a crap about the guy after seeing that video so the protests came across as people siding with a violent criminal who steals from working people over law and order. That will backfire every time.

I see the same thing in my city, Atlanta, where (mostly) out of towners are protesting "cop city." The protests have probably backfired completely because they've shown that the protestors were really anarchists.

Protesting rarely does anything. Its the same with petitions. It shocks me sometimes just how many people don't really understand how government works or how laws/policies actually get changed.

Protests are an effective means of putting pressure on the political system.

Just voting is almost useless as not voting.
Just voting imposes virtually no pressure.

Further, when no party effectively represents your views no party has earned your vote. Taking to the streets helps demonstrate that your views are widespread even if the establishment refuses to engage with them.

The right to vote doesn't provide enough political power to negate the need for protests or direct action. The right to vote amounts to only a tiny degree of influence at most and isn't adequate to address most important issues.

Neither does voting though.

So apathy does? - that's makes ZERO sense. I'm not touching that one. (actually, apathy is counted on - so keep it up and get the government you earn)

It's ignorant to act like not believing voting has much impact is synonymous with apathy.

If you don't believe voting accomplishes much it forces you to engage in other ways as well.

Tricking yourself into believing just voting accomplishes jackshit is embracing apathy.

I did my part, I put a piece of paper in a box a few years ago. And what exactly did that accomplish?

It's neither voting or protesting.

It's gaining control of the universities

https://courses.leeds.ac.uk/g528/critic ... -theory-ma

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/subjects ... es/masters


And then those students vote

Ya dude, your nuts

Politicians have no incentive to change anything if they believe they will still win an election. If they know they will win the upcoming election, you can yell and wave your signs all you want it won't do any good.

Dismissing someone as nuts without actually saying why they are wrong is just lazy.

The Leeds University site says they are influenced by the Frankfurt school which is Marxist.

1. If you think the rich live by a different justice system, congrats you are at least a little bit Marxist

2. No, its not worth arguing with someone who sees conspiracies to take over universities.

If you treat Marxism like a boogeyman, its because you don't know what it is. In fact, Marxism would teach you why some people are conditioned to treat it like a boogeyman.

Yelling and waving signs is a good way of telling them they better represent you or they'll get primaried.

What exactly does planning to vote in the next election accomplish if you're not willing to do any work to ensure there's a candidate worth voting for? If there isn't a worthwhile candidate all you're doing is wasting your time.

So the universities have many courses to do with politics, which are admittedly Marxist. But no equivalent conservative courses. So obviously the young adults are being taught biased information.
This is clearly more effective than voting or protesting.

I'm not going to discuss whether Marxism is good or bad because that's personal opinion, and would derail the discussion.

The facts show that is being spread very effectively whether we like it or not.

I used to teach college econ and that included teaching Marxism. I consider myself a Marxist - but also a capitalist. If you think that is a contradiction - congrats you don't know jack about Marxism.

You are confusing Marxism with Communism (I think?). There is Academic Marxism which is not really wrong.

If you think "those in power tend to warp the state to maintain their power" - you are a Marxist. It is not "it is good or bad," it is "hey this is actually a correct way of understanding a lot of things."

I studied Edmond Burke in college. You are repeating right wing talking points that only make sense if you never took a liberal arts curriculum.

You can study Fascism in college - they offer courses on it. What the right wing media does is find some lunatic somewhere in the academic world and try to paint all academics like that. It only works on people who were already predisposed to think that is what college academics are like.

Anyways I'm not going to waste further time debating with someone that only thinks they know what it is they are talking about.

Marxism says the workers are being exploited and that leads to inevitable revolution. Many people would disagree with those assertions. Whereas you're stating them as fact.
If you don't believe those things then what do you actually believe?

Everyone seems to say that Marxism is left wing but you're saying it's just self evident truth.

But anyway it's the critical theory stuff that is being taught to young adults. Was brought in by Marxist academics.

That is saying that colleges are going to be used for social change. As they are social institutions.

Thats the definition of communism. And yes, left unchecked the rich tend to exploit everyone else. The "leads to revolution" is not Marxism - that's communism.

Google "marxist pyramid" - thats core Marxism.

How many college classes in liberal arts have you taken?

I got a Phd in Economics - I am willing to prove it.

We have a stereotype in the liberal arts - "dude who never took any liberal arts courses, has strong opinions about it, thinks the field is biased and wrong."

In almost any other area, you'd be wrong for thinking like that.

"I never took any engineering courses, but I think civil engineers are wrong."

"I never took any medical classes but I think all doctors are wrong and I know better."

Whats different about social sciences is everyone has a strong opinion about it that they think is correct. Furthermore, there are rich interests who want to advance their version - which again is actually explained by Marxism!

The fact that you think someone can identify as a Marxist and thus inherently think it leads to overthrow is right wing propaganda's version of it.

You could you know - just favor more democracy, or more worker's protections.

Marxism is whats called "positive" analysis in that it seeks to describe how things work.

Communism is "normative" analysis in that it seeks to describe how things should go.

When I taught it, I taught what Marx got wrong about his normative analysis - his ideas hinged on a rather popular incorrect idea at the time.

If you can't tell me what Marx got wrong - about Communism, not Marxism - then you have no business being confident about discussing it. Because the core part - the Marxist Pyramid - is generally accepted as accurate as to how the world works. If you were to land in an unknown society, the Marxist Pyramid would tell you fairly accurate predictions on how it works.

Remember, when Marx wrote, non aristocrats had harsher penalties against them if they killed a noble person than vice versa. That's classic Marxism!

Last edited by Cornflake on 08 Apr 2023, 6:17 am, edited 2 times in total.: Removed a personal attack