Don't Touch That Ballot! Higashikata Josuke!

[rainbowhorsehead]

Relatable.

 

[twinklecake]

Why can't we go back at tearing each other's throats about which way to hang toilet paper rolls, what color a dress is, or whether circumcised dicks are better than uncut ones? Y'know, like the good old days?

 

[22nd_Ranger]

Based

 

[Tamerlane]

@Ominous
It refers to the suspicious jump in votes that occurred between 4:00-5:00 AM on Wednesday after several hours at which both of the states had a sudden jump in votes out of proportion

Spoiler

@bowser_communist

@Denrick19 If he won fairly, yes, but there's enough suspect around the election to at least cause a suit/investigation

 

[WillowWerenti]

Ugh. If this is irony or political satire, it doesn't seem to deliver what those promise. Political satire should expose a comic truth about a political situation and help us laugh about it. Irony should present something literally false that exposes a truth. Like calling the biggest guy in Robinhood "Little John" or a Nixon impersonator raising his hands and saying "I am not a crook," we should get a funny window into something true (i.e. that Little John is not little - he has snarky friends, and Nixon was the kind of crook who would say he wasn't while looking like a crook with his hands up).

Is this manga ironic? By presenting a universe where Biden is freaking out over potential voter fraud and Trump is chill, to an audience seeing these people exhibiting the opposite behaviors irl, the manga suggests (a) their public personas are fake, or (b) there is no fraud because this is not what we're seeing in the real world. It's not funny though...maybe because, (1) it's not clear that it's meant to be ironic. It might intend (a) and be pushing the truth of the debunked conspiracy theory (search "Michigan vote jump debunked" and you'll see USA Today, Vox, Forbes, et al debunking this theory that Trump retweeted). At that point, where's the truth it's exposing? No wonder it doesn't deliver a laugh. It's trying to trick me with fake news.

If the author intends (b) and irony, maybe it's not funny because (2) several commenters in this audience buy the debunked conspiracy theory. Maybe it's because (3) reading/throwing shade on the U.S. election is what Russia, Iran, and Trump are doing with documented ulterior motives. Maybe it's because (4) armed U.S. militia groups are saying they might cause carnage if the vote counting doesn't support Trump (more likely if counts seem fraudulent). Cheering for violence against vote counters doesn't seem like fun. Without them, Americans don't have a republic or democracy, maybe an oligarchy? Is it fascism, like Louis or Mussolini might say, is "Trump the state?" So this seems like an awfully sensitive time to circulate an anti-election conspiracy theory, even if it is for the purpose of reinforcing the legitimacy of the vote. For me, it gives me pause instead of a relieved chuckle. Maybe (5) my sense of humor just isn't dark enough.

The art's not bad, but the message seems to straddle the line between political speech and misinformation, so it's difficult to rate it. How would you rate an ironic manga circulating posts from QAnon? Should we rate it down if the comment thread shows people now believe Dems are secretly a ring of pizza house pedophiles? Is it the audience's fault if a piece of satire fails to convey the irony in its message? Idk.

 

[vodkavodka]

MAGA!

 

[CyanHide]

“Ganbatte Darnodu-san!!!”

 

[Ominous]

@Tamerlane That was the result of both states releasing their mail-in ballots all at once for the count. Turns out the remaining ones were predominantly Biden over Trump.
There will definitely be a demand for an investigation.

 

[Denrick19]

What I don’t get that let's say Biden did cheat...... well isn’t that good?

Obviously, cheating is bad but if the end goal is something I want.... well why not? It's just a couple of votes.

What's stopping me, a Biden supporter, from just going “oh ok, good” to this situation?

I mean I voted for him for him to win, why would I want him to lose? It just seems cuck like to get rid of an advantage like that when it's for the greater good.


Genuine question.

 

[Tamerlane]

@Denrick19

Principles. If you believe that you should do whatever it takes to win, cheating, bribery, etc., that means you should, in theory, be willing to let the people you don't like do that, which only will make society worse off as a whole. It not only shows hypocrisy, but that you do not care about justice, fairness or democracy.

"The greater good" is a principal that can justify anything, just as "the ends justify the means." It is more important for the long-term health of this nation that the institution of legitimate elections and democracy be preserved rather than an just usurpation take place, regardless of who does it. Take the fall of the Roman republic where every other consul was declaring themselves Dictator until they solved their issues and it ended with an assassination, military coup and the ascension of Augustus as Emperor who ended the vote for consul. It is more important for the election to be fair and just to disincentivize bad behavior from politicians in the future looking to usurp democracy to tow the party line.

@Omnious

Here's the issue with that: the only state that wasn't allowed to start processing states earlier than the polls was Wisconsin, and they were going to do that before polls closed.

What's more suspicious is that a lot of those states announced that they were closing their polls until the next morning before a huge jump in votes flooded. Additionally, certain states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina extended their ballot times in their supreme courts and even ruled that if the post mark is damaged or absent, it is meant to be assumed it's on time.

Is there a chance that all of these votes just so happened to buck the general trend of the election in their states despite the likelihood of it? Yes, but we should still investigate because if Biden won fairly, then we shouldn't be worried. If he didn't however, then we should be concnerned

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/politics/mail-in-voting/

 

[vodkavodka]

I couldn't stop myself from doing this.

 

[Denrick19]

@Tamerlane


Not really.


> be willing to let the people you don't like do that

Nah, I don't agree with their ends so it doesn't justify the means........ if that makes sense.


If I think they're going to do something good and all they need to do is cheat, then they should just cheat.

 

[Tamerlane]

@Denrick19

Do you see the issue, though? If you're willing to do whatever it takes for you to do what you subjectively to be "the right thing," then the people that you oppose will see that you are changing the rules of the game and see it as justification to do what they perceive to be "good."

It's essentially the golden rule, or the categorical imperative in that if you wouldn't want a someone to cheat you out of something, you shouldn't cheat them out of something. If everyone was cheating, it would defeat the point of an election, and make it one big farce.

This is why principles are so important because if you're willing to do whatever it takes to win, there are no lengths you won't go to stop it. It's the old Nietzschean quote about fighting monsters. You set yourself standards to abide by as a means to ensure you do not become as twisted as the foe you seek to face.

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

 

[dsfargeg]

@denrick19
What you've struck upon is called Nietzsche's will to power. The problem that it causes is reciprocity: when you play by the rules of anything goes, then so will others. When any method of enforcing your will upon the world is permitted, then violence invariably gets used as it's generally the easiest way to force people to do what you want, and the most successful at violence get to rule over everyone.

Conversely, violence by a single person, no matter how skilled, loses to violence from several people. Eventually people remember the easiest way to get several people working together to commit violence is with a system of rules that enforce reciprocity which get enforced by violence; those things we call laws.

The reason you don't want to do everything to win is because the long term consequences of that pattern of behavior is you and uncountable others getting killed in the violence of the collapse you helped bring about before people remember the importance of laws.

Screaming about how righteous you are and how you're on the right side of history won't actually stop people from killing you for resources, nor does your selfish attitude promote the group coherence needed to survive against hostile groups.

 

[Denrick19]

@dsfargeg

> won't actually stop people from killing you for resources,

I feel like you should worry about the people willing to kill civil, harmless, well-meaning people like me over counting a few more votes than what was intended.

>you and uncountable others getting killed in the violence

But isn't murder wrong? Why are you acting like people deserve to be murdered over something like this?

I miss it when people were civil and we didn't have conversations about a group of people willing to murder someone over a coupe of votes.

 

[dsfargeg]

@denrick19
You are assigning intent where none exists. I am simply describing the inevitable long-term outcomes. You may as well have accused me of wanting to murder you after I replied 'You'll go splat and die' when you asked 'What happens if I jump off a building?' When violence is not measured out by laws it is invariably used selfishly, and when you discard rule of law you arrive at widespread selfish violence.

You rhetorically ask if murder is wrong, but by your own definition of ends justified by means, your answer would be a deafeningly loud 'No.' Within your proposed moral framework, murder is unambiguously moral if the individual committing it believes it will justify the result.

 

[Denrick19]

@dsfargeg

hm, maybe.

 

[WillowWerenti]

You all raise some good points. This discussion about cheating seems to miss a few important points.

1. If you read, "Republicans Claim Voter Fraud. How Would That Work?" You'd realize it's too hard for either candidate to cheat by submitting enough fraudulent votes to swing the election. Cheating through poll workers would be hard too, because reps for both parties are watching them count and scrutinizing their tallies in real time. It's pretty hard to hide voter fraud and it's easy to catch perpetrators (like that GOP group in 2018 that was "helping" people by filling in and submitting their ballots). Add to that the criminal consequences for actually committing voter fraud, and it's not just wrong, it's stupid.

2. Unlike what this manga presents, Trump has not been chill. He's declaring victory without a majority of votes, saying votes he disapproves of are illegal and fraudulent, and trying to move the contest to the courts (that he's stacked with GOP judges). Still, judges have thrown out most of his challenges because they lack evidence of fraud capable of shifting the election. At best they present a few potential examples, when it would take (today) discovering >20k fraudulent votes to shift Wis., Ariz., Pa., or Nev. into Trump's column. It would take discovering about 150k for Trump to reverse Biden't lead in Mich. Even in Ga., he would need to discover almost 10k to reverse Biden's lead. That's a lot more fraud than they have evidence to prove. The only successful challenge I've heard of so far let his poll watchers get closer to poll workers in Pa. (6 ft away instead of 15ft away).

3. Besides being difficult and potentially sending you to prison, there are moral and ethical problems. On the moral side, if you are voting, you are expressing faith in a system that decides representatives based on each person getting an equal say. While that system is not actually equal in terms of federal or state representation (the Senate and electoral college mean each CA voter counts less than each WY voter, and GOP gerrymandering means a majority of Dem voters hold a minority of legislative seats in several states), submitting fraudulent ballots dilutes your neighbors' voices. It's a betrayal of your [church,] community, country, and your own right to vote. Attacking polling places or poll workers counting votes does the same. That's not patriotic. As @dsfargeg suggested, it undermines the security and trust that we all rely upon.

4. On the ethical end, you might refer to Kant (as @Tamerlane did discussing a categorical imperative) and wonder, if everyone cheated, would the world be a better place? If everyone committed voter fraud, it would be victory by the best counterfeit. The person who submitted the most fakes without getting caught would win. If those were the real terms, politicians would have strong incentives to serve the best counterfeits, who would probably be rich. If anyone discovered this fraud, it would undermine everyone's faith in voting, preventing America from being a democratic republic.

Why should we vote if our votes don't count? If all the politicians ignore me, my vote can't make a difference even if poll workers count it. If voting is a scam, why hold competitive elections? Why not let our leader serve for life (DPRK/Saudi Arabia/Iran/Syria/China/Russia style)? If those scenarios don't sound better than ours, then we have good reason to avoid cheating as an ethical matter. And if you want to improve the system to make it more fair, you probably need to follow the rules so your voice can make a difference (if you don't respect anyone else, why should they respect you?). This is like what @dsfargeg offered, but, as @Denrick19 wrote, I don't think you have to resort to violence to present the value of reciprocity. Reciprocity has value, even if society doesn't wholly revert to a violent, Hobbesian state of nature as a result of a little cheating.

5. If you don't care about the consequences or moral/ethical problems, cheating might still look alright until you remember, getting any benefit (in your case, submitting thousands of votes against Trump and GOP senators) means you'll probably get caught, erasing the benefit of your fraud and sending you to jail. That would also make your allies look like crooks, hurting your efforts to achieve those ends you like.

That's probably why Dems instead focus on encouraging people to vote, like that Rural Utah group that drove through the Navajo Nation, offering free tacos and helping people without formal addresses use Google location codes to request ballots and vote. The GOP focuses on mobilizing Republicans and making voting harder for others to do (e.g. Gov Abbot in Tx only allowing one vote drop box in each county, even though Harris County, full of Dems, has 4 million residents). Dems: If enough people vote, broad coalitions can enact popular policies. GOP: If voting is hard enough, you might be able to disqualify enough voters (e.g. Ga. 2018) or throw away enough votes to help your large minority rule (what Bush did in Fla. in 2000 and Trump's trying to do in Pa. 2020). We'll see which strategy decides this election.