Honest question: With this kind of system, how do you verify who filled in the ballot? In my country we have “mail in” voting, which consists of going to a polling station in some other district than the one your from, filling in a ballot in the normal way, and then they send it for you.

Also: I’ve seen people talking about how you have to vote in person on election day, don’t the polling stations open before that? I usually vote a couple days before election day, the polling stations open like two weeks before…

It’s true that a lot of peoples (maybe most?) today live in a place which they took by force from someone else, though you don’t have to look far to find areas that are still inhabited by the first people that arrived there. Still, for a fair comparison you need to separate between those that took areas by force either from necessity (e.g. they were displaced themselves) or otherwise before any kind of international regulation existed.

You cannot compare a tribe or small kingdom taking land by force 2000 years ago to a modern state annexing land, just like you cannot compare the sacking of a city 1000 years ago to a modern genocide. The world has changed.

No I didn’t mix it up, I included the Amish, could have included Romani, and specified that I was talking about geographically dispersed ethnicities in general.

Yes, some Jewish people have ties to what is Israel today, and no it really doesn’t open a can of worms. I was very clear that displacing any group of people is wrong: Hence, the state of Israel should never have been created, but now that it exists, we need to figure out a solution that doesn’t involve displacing any more people.

To answer the “how far back” etc: Quite simply put, everyone today (sans a couple hundred thousand stateless Palestinian refugees, and a few others) have some citizenship and live on some land. Nobody has the right to displace others to claim that they have “more” of a right to that land. Thus: If you have ties to some land, and someone else lives there, you’re shit outta luck unless they want to negotiate with you. If, like the Kurds, your living in the place you have ties to, but don’t have your own state, you have a decent case.

It really isn’t that complicated: Don’t displace/murder people. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

The way I understand this, the issue is that without reading it they cannot verify that it doesn’t contain sensitive information, so they can’t give it out. That sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.

Exactly: I am antizionist because Jews getting a place of their own implicitly means that some other group, which currently has that place, must be displaced.

Saying that Jews should have a place of their own is not comparable to saying that Italians should have a place of their own, because being Italian is tied to having hereditary ties to the place that is Italy, whereas being a Jew has no tie to a specific piece of land. It is rather comparable to saying that Christians, Muslims, the Amish, or some other group of people that are dispersed and unified by beliefs not tied to a place should have their own place, and that if such a place does not exist it is legitimate to displace others to establish it.

I firmly believe that Israel should never have been created. As do many Jews (often ultra orthodox ones). However, I recognise the reality on the ground, that the state now exists and that many of those that moved there have now lived there for up to several generations. I do not believe that two wrongs make a right, and as such, I’m not a proponent of dissolving the state of Israel and displacing the Jews that now live there to make room for those displaced following 1948. However, I do believe that the displaced Palestinians should be allowed to return and have equal rights within the now existing state of Israel.

It honestly feels like we somehow have to take back the (very loaded) word “antisemitism”, as Israel and its supporters seem intent on making it mean “anything the Israeli government disagrees with”.

I’m not an antisemite, and have no hate whatsoever for anyone because of theirs religious beliefs or where they come from. My views are antizionist and antigenocide. Which are strictly political views, not tied to any specific demographic of people.

The issue with online voting, no matter what you do, is that someone can force you under threat of violence to vote for a specific candidate, and watch to make sure you do it. Complete privacy in the voting booth is paramount to ensuring that everyone can vote freely.

I’ll be completely honest: I was on board the hype train. I thought it was awesome that someone was investing in EV’s and pushing them into the market. Hell, I was even fooled by the whole hyperloop thing…

I’m glad it’s not too late to admit that I was terribly wrong about the guy.

At the same time, I don’t blame those that were fooled back then, and I most definitely don’t blame anyone for having bought a Tesla and keeping it even though the guy turned out to be who he is. Some years ago he honestly looked like he was trying to do a lot of good, at least for those of us that didn’t look very closely.

“All the troops, both sides” is half my point when pointing out that enemy combatants historically have often held respect for each other.

Yes, I respect a combatant fighting for something they believe in that’s bigger than themselves, people not fighting for personal gain, but because they want to give someone else a better life. That’s regardless of what side they’re on- even if they’re on the side I’m actively trying to kill.

This take just baffles me… you can disapprove of a war, and still respect people willing to put their life on the line for something they believe is right. Even in war, opposing sides have a long history of showing their enemy a certain amount of personal respect, even though they clearly disagree about something to the point of killing each other over it.

Your take is just condescending and unempathetic. You can respect someone for sacrificing themselves without agreeing with them about what they’re sacrificing themselves for. Regardless, it shouldn’t be hard to see how someone fighting to depose an infamously brutal dictator (Iraq) or a fundamentalist regime that stones women for wanting a divorce (Afghanistan) can believe that they are doing something good.

And your solution to the problem is literally not vote, which is doing exactly nothing. I have a really hard time seeing how you can expect yourself actively not influencing the system to somehow influence the system.

Your suggestion to fix this failure of a system is literally “do nothing”. Please try to recognise that: You are advocating for fighting the status quo by doing nothing.

It will not work. If you want change you need to take action. Not voting is the exact opposite of attempting to change things. Use the influence you have to push for a change in the right direction.