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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21718 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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The premise of democracy is that we can access truthful information, and that we can share political information to peers using the expected normal means of communication. The normal means of sharing political information since 2010 has been online. Yet, every major company which controlled our normal means of political communication conspired to hide essential political information. This thwarts how democracy is intended to operate, regardless of whether it technically violated a rule. It is very much central to the concern of, “is our democracy working or did an actor destroy it?” And this is the heart of the concern over election fraud, whether it in substance thwarts democracy, not just by a technical rule.

(If one political side is fundamentally thwarting democracy, then in my humble opinion the other side can do the same. They can do this by, for instance, accusing them of technical election fraud or vampirical adenochrome or whatever they want. They are morally justified to defend themselves using the same weapon as their attacker.)

(If one political side is fundamentally thwarting democracy, then in my humble opinion the other side can do the same. They can do this by, for instance, accusing them of technical election fraud or vampirical adenochrome or whatever they want. They are morally justified to defend themselves using the same weapon as their attacker.)

This is just silly. If you're saying you wouldn't look down on the other side for getting down in the mud with their opponents that's one thing, but I think setting things up so that if Side A suppresses even a single voter-relevant news story, then that gives Side B full moral license to claim actual election fraud without evidence or to make up conspiracy theories, then I think you've set up an insane and unworkable game.

I think you've set up an insane and unworkable game.

This... does not seem like grounds for ruling out such a situation currently being in effect?!

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