Susanna Starrett on Facebook
Susanna Starrett on Facebook
August 28-29, 2020
Comments
Susanna Starrett Stop vote shaming, Nancy! This is BS. Maybe the dems should push for actual change and help working people instead of belittling them.
Nancy Matlack Williams This is a political cartoon. Humor is totally subjective, some people like it and others hate it, but this is not vote shaming. I'm sorry it offended you, Susanna.
John McLaughlin Susanna Starrett, voting choices have consequences. They are calculations and, in the end, those calculations yield a result. Voters must always evaluate whether or not they can live with the result of their calculation
Susanna Starrett Nancy, the cartoon is vote shaming, as it puts down (shames) others’ voting ideas. Just because you think it is funny, it does not mean that others do. Very ableist, IMO.
John, I will vote how I want, not how you see fit. All the gaslighting in the world won’t change that. Thanks for explaining your views of voting though 🙄.
Perhaps if centrists stopped belittling the left and coddling the right, we would not have fascism right now! This is what hands another four years to trump. Ugh.
Becky Griffin Stauffer Susanna Starrett this cartoon is not vote shaming, it is putting into perspective the very real outcome of our choices. When we vote, we put our choice into a pool of other votes. We will influence the outcome. Voters need to be smart and pragmatic and not just idealistic. Make your vote count.
Susanna Starrett Mmm, okay. Belittling people’s views on voting is now called, “putting it in perspective” I see. Lol.
Shockingly, people understand voting and are capable of their own thoughts. You have no idea how I’m voting and yet you feel the need to matronize. Just stop. Centrists are turning voters away. Good luck in November.
Barry Kort Susanna, it appears to me that you are conflating education with shaming. In science there no shame in peer review, where the function of peer review is to identify and weed out previously unrecognized or undiagnosed misconceptions.
In the world of science, we have a sacred duty to conscientiously identify and eliminate mistakes and misconceptions.
As 5000 years of human history lamentably reveals, erratic thinking in the political sphere can have disastrous long-term consequences. The political sphere could sincerely benefit greatly from attending to the attitude of science on this crucial perspective.
Richard Feynman put it this way:
«Now I am going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.»
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Becky Griffin Stauffer Susanna Starrett I was not belittling. I'm sorry you took it that way. You seem like a smart person and can certainly figure out for yourself whether your vote will be meaningful or wasted.
Susanna Starrett Silly me, I thought that my vote was my voice. Go find someone else to bully into voting the way you want.
“Either you believe that a vote is a damn-near sacred expression of a person’s political values, therefore they have the right to express those values any way they see fit, or you don’t, opting instead to use coercion and the threat of social shaming to get what you want.”
Susanna Starrett You guys need to step out of your privileged boomer bubbles. If you think I am alone in my thinking, I’ve got news for you. Not everyone is comfortable and they will not vote the way you demand. Most folks were hurting long before trump and think that incremental change will accomplish nothing. Fight for real change or step aside so those that hurt the most can be heard.
John McLaughlin Susanna Starrett, it isn't us who is shaming you, but quite the opposite. You live in your white progressive bubble and will vote your conscience but like I said your vote has consequences. And the consequences of your vote might be that others who are less fortunate and less privileged than you have to suffer with them for much longer and far more seriously than if you had calculated the actual result of your voting decision rather than just made your personal statement. You are, of course, free to make your protest vote against biden, but the result of your calculation is a vote for trump
Susanna Starrett Sure, keep attacking the left. How did that work out for you in 2016? Right...
Have you actually asked BIPOC how they feel? Protested with them? Done any BLM ally training? Spare me the trickle down narrative and stop belittling people doing the hard work. Lift them up, not put down. You’d think I was arguing with republicans!
Barry Kort «“Either you believe that a vote is a damn-near sacred expression of a person’s political values, therefore they have the right to express those values any way they see fit, or you don’t, opting instead to use coercion and the threat of social shaming to get what you want.”»
Susanna, that's a false dichotomy, based on an unexamined theory of mind regarding those who disagree with you and adopt a different perspective.
Barry Kort Umberto Eco said, "Whereof we cannot express a theory, we must narrate a story instead."
In politics, haphazard theories of mind regarding one's political opposition frequently are expressed in terms of unfair and unexamined narratives purporting to characterize those holding an opposing point of view.
Susanna Starrett Barry, whatever. Your VBNW rhetoric is what gave us trump in the first place. Keep belittling people for their votes and see how that works. We obviously have different versions of the end game. Bet you’re excited for brunch without worrying about the Cheeto!
David R. Whitlock Susanna Starrett No, what gave us Trump was people voting for Stein, instead of Clinton. If the people who voted for Stein, had instead voted for Clinton, she would have been elected President.
It sure sounds like you want Trump to be elected, just so you can say "I told you so".
Sort of like what Nader did, when he said that Bush and Gore were 'the same', and worked to get Bush elected by campaigning against Gore in the swing state of NH, where Nader succeeded.
Bush won NH with fewer votes than the Democratic candidate for governor, who was elected, got. What that means is that some people who voted for the Democratic governor, didn't vote for Gore.
If they had voted for Gore, then Gore would have won, and there would have been action on global warming 20 years ago. There would have been no war in Iraq.
But people with privilege had to 'vote their conscience', so they could avoid the narcissistic injury of having to vote for someone who was merely decent, who was going to help the environment.
Now you want to elect Trump again, because the Democrats didn't nominate someone who is 'perfect'.
https://www.villagevoice.com/.../ralph-nader-suicide-bomber/
VILLAGEVOICE.COM
Ralph Nader, Suicide Bomber | The Village Voice
Susanna Starrett More people left the presidential ballot box blank than who voted third party in 2016! 😂 Again vote shaming instead of doing the work to get votes. Have fun with that.
Barry Kort Here in Massachusetts, where I have lived for more than 30 years, our current governor is a well-respected Republican. Previously, we elected Mitt Romney as our governor.
This incontrovertible evidence falsifies your apparent working hypothesis that here in Massachusetts (one of the bluest states in the nation), we always "Vote Blue, No Matter What."
Susanna, you continue to adopt erroneous and unexamined theories of mind of those who do not share or adopt your unbecoming practice of demonizing your corresponding respondents with lame and bogus attempts as unjust character assassination.
What disturbs and chagrins me, Susanna, is the lamentable absence of hypothesis testing in political rhetoric.
David R. Whitlock Barry Kort Yes, and Mitt Romney was the only Senate Republican to vote in favor of impeaching Trump.
Susanna Starrett Now you’re just being mean. I guess that’s all you’ve got. MA resident here, with a MA in PolSci. But you must be much smarter than me about all of this. 🙄 Enjoy the circle jerk and four more years of trump!
Barry Kort If there was any actual science in Political Science, it would be apparent in the scientific practice of conscientious hypothesis testing. The manifest absence of even any attempt at hypothesis testing disqualifies a political operative to lay claim to be engaging in science. Political Rhetoric is manifestly not a science.
David R. Whitlock Who is being mean, and to whom?
What about the 180,000+ people who are dead because Trump didn't deal with Covid effectively? Do their lives matter?
What about the children and parents that Trump has separated. Do their live matter?
What about the people who have health care through the ACA, which Trump is trying to destroy, and will destroy if he gets a second term? Do their lives matter?
What about the people dying of air pollution, because Trump is eliminating EPA limits on pollution? Do their lives matter?
What about the farmers, who's income was destroyed because of Trump's trade war with China? Do their lives matter?
Barry Kort My standard of living hasn't changed very much in 65 years. No president, in a matter of four short years, has the power to substantively change an entire country's standard of living.
But a pandemic that is poorly managed can degrade the standard of living for a substantial portion of the population — especially the working poor.
Barry Kort Although you won't find the phrase "hypothesis testing" or "working hypothesis" in the scriptures, it's in there. A surprising number of modern scientific principles are in there, if you know how to recognize them when you see them employed in context.
There is one especially famous passage in the New Testament where Jesus challenges his interlocutor on his lack of hypothesis testing in regard to a notorious example of scandalizing political rhetoric.
Who here can spot it?
Susanna Starrett Barry! Oh no, we must not demonize the wealthy! What was I thinking? Who will think of THEM? Shame on me for pointing that out.
I never said who I was voting for, but this centrist thread has me thinking of leaving the box blank. After all, my vote is meaningless unless it supports your narrative. Right?
I’ll see myself out Nancy. I don’t appreciate being ganged up on by your nice friends. You people keep attacking the left and wonder why we have fascism. Oy vey. Toodles and happy voting!
David R. Whitlock Susanna Starrett Demonizing the wealthy will be ineffective at producing the change that you seem to indicate that you want.
The only things that will produce change, are 'effective things'.
Not voting is not an 'effective thing'.
Do you want actual change, or do you want to send ineffectual signals?
Barry Kort Susanna, I could care less who you vote for.
What I care about (in this discussion thread and elsewhere in human culture) is whether our species can acquire the faculties of evidence-based reasoning, insightful scientific model-based reasoning, and conscientious hypothesis testing in accordance with the protocols of the scientific method.
Whenever I encounter someone who radically departs from those essential conscientious practices, I consider it a "teachable moment" (not so much for any intransigent individuals who are demonstrating a lamentable disregard for practicing those desirable traits, but for the curious non-participating observers who are reluctant to openly challenge the vocal but misguided few who have descended into habitual acts of propagating misinformation, disinformation, and demonizing portraiture of their colleagues on the other side of the aisle).
Indeed, this topical issue could well become the subject of a colleague of mine who has threatened to write yet another book on this very issue.
John McLaughlin Susanna Starrett, no one is trying to shame here (at least I'm not). You're making accusations without evidence. You can choose to vote for whomever you wish or for no one at all, of course, that is your perfect and protected right as an American citizen. There's no question about that. But as a thinking person, we're just reminding you that your vote, as all our votes in the past and in the future, have consequences. Sometimes those consequences are minor--to the point of being not measurable. Sometimes those consequences are major--like the few thousand people in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan who decided that they couldn't vote for Clinton. They are the ones whose votes gave us trump. If you live in a safe blue state, then your vote probably doesn't have any consequences. If you, like me, live in an unattainable red state, then your vote probably doesn't have any consequences. I've voted for Republicans when I weighed the consequences of that particular Democrat getting elected to Congress. But no vote should ever be cast without weighing the consequences.