Friday, May 24, 2024

Why voter shaming "triggers" me and moves me in the opposite direction

 So, I've had this debate a few times now. I mean, I am on that pro Biden side this time, and I've been distancing myself a bit from the third party voters, as I dont find their rationale for supporting Stein convincing. As I have said, there REALLY IS "too much" at stake this election to go all single issue over gaza of all things. This tends to push me toward a more liberal crowd, and these guys just believe in voter shaming. And sometimes when they make their arguments, the "old me" comes back out and I just cant help but rip on them like the people ripping on "person C" in trevor's axiom. 

And I've gotten a lot of crap for this. Been called a "reactionary" (even though reactionary politics have nothing to do with emotional reaction), been told I get triggered and blah blah blah. So I'm just going to spill it out for you guys, so people can make no mistake of my thought process and actions.

Ultimately? It's about control. I like being in control of my own moral decisions and my own conscience. I put tons of thought into the decisions that I make with politics. I just wrote a fricking long article about how if we didnt have first past the post, I'd vote for stein, and outlined my exact thought process on the matter. 

But...let's face it, democratic blue no matter who types, they dont argue from a position of reason as much, as reasonable as their decision is this time. They argue from a position of moral SHAMING. They try to bully and pressure and shame people into supporting a position. The purpose of this isnt necessarily isnt to reason with them, it's to attack them, to make them feel bad, to emotionally manipulate them into the position that THEY want you to have. 

And I tend to not mix well with that. As I always say, you cant force people to care about things. And a lot of liberal and leftist politics these days is virtue signalling about how much people care about things. Like, oh they care about women, and POC, and the LGBTQ+ community, you cant just abandon them for a third party vote, can you? 

And my position is, I can, I have, and I will. Because I recognize shaming for what it is: an underhanded tactic to emotionally manipulate people into agreement with your position. This doesnt honor the person and their conscience and their rational decision making. It honors YOURS. It tells them that their concerns suck, F their concerns, and you BETTER support MY concerns instead. 

And my gut reaction is...F your concerns. And F you too. Now, I wont say that voter shaming changes my position. Sometimes I'll rhetorically say that it makes me wanna vote third party harder (while simultaneously still supporting Biden). It's not that it changes my position. I came to my position, I support it, I defend it, I encourage others to have a similar poition, but I'm not gonna shame or emotionally manipulate people. And when people play these games, basically, I'm just going to intensify my existing position. I'm going to dig in, and say, ya know, i didnt agree with you before, but now I agree with you even less. Get F-ed for even trying this crap on me. 

And I do that intentionally. I do it to explicitly punish the person who tried it. To let them not that not only is their behavior ineffective, that you cant manipulate me, but now im shutting down and digging in further. Because quite frankly, this kind of behavior shouldnt be acceptable. Shaming should not be an acceptable tactic in trying to shift peoples' position. people who shame often do so because they have no better option to convince the person. And often times, it's more about making the person doing it feel good, than about convincing them. But again, because I take a principled stand against this behavior, I basically double down on my existing position. I tell them there will be no debate, youre not changing my mind, I will meet your attempts at shaming with being absolutely shameLESS, and I will unapologetically push my original position in all of its glory. And if that contradicts your concerns, then your concerns can get F-ed, and you can too. 

I mean, we all have priorities. We all have issues we prioritize over others. What SJWs, and the more "care" type people are trying to do is to emotionally manipulate people into giving up their existing positions to support the positions you want them to. And quite frankly, given I do have a general pecking order of policies that I prioritize over others, when people try this, I do the power move of basically telling them that I support my positions, you have to meet me where I'm at, I'm not gonna shift to support your positions, and while we can theoretically work together, if youre gonna pull this my way or the highway crap, so will I. Again, it's a power move. Because shaming is an attempt to exercise power over people by emotionally manipulating them, and I meet that with me standing in my own power, holding my ground, and telling them "no." 

And that's how I see it. These guys HATE being told no. It makes them go ballistic. But, you know what? I kind of like that it does trigger THEM. Because they think they can just push everyone else around and then I come back after them standing in my own power and they just get flabbergasted by it. And thats why I'm like, yeah, I don't care if you think I'm a horrible person. F your entire morality. Get out of my face. I have my morals, I stand by my morals, I dont compromise my morals more than absolutely necessary, and I refuse to give into your petty attempts to bully me into a position I dont agree with. 

So don't do that. It won't work. And thats also why i go after the gaza people in the same way. They do the shaming thing too, and it just backfires hard. I don't care about your issues as much. I care about mine. I aint opposed to working with others i ideologically think similarly to in coalitions within the democratic party, but if my core positions arent represented in the party, I'm fine with walking. And you can either win me back or cope and seethe. Again, it's not about emotion. It's about power. It just comes off as emotional, because YOU come off as emotional. Because your entire behavior is predicated on emotionally manipulating others, and I have zero tolerance for that crap. 

My way or the high way. That's how I see it. Politics is all about power and its exercise. I understand this well. Don't try me. 

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