Why does the left seem to hate harm reduction?

No, seriously, why is the left so appalled at the idea of choosing the least of several evils? I can absolutely understand reluctance and frustration, but not choosing at all isn't really an option here.

I'll explain my frustration with this phenomonon by explaining my frustraiton with another: people who disregard the point of thought experiments.

So, with thought experiments such as Omelas (or the better known Trolley Problem), I've seen some people respond with some way to save everyone involved, which frustrates me because it completely misses the point of these thought experiments. The purpose of these experiments is to force you to choose between several immoral options, consider why they are immoral, and justify why the option you chose is the least immoral; making up a magical extra option that fixes everything is entirely anathema to the point. You have to choose: save the child and doom all of Omelas, or save Omelas and doom the child; there is no scenario in which both Omelas and the child are safe, and you have to choose something. Yes, Omelas shouldn't be predicated on the suffering of an innocent child, and yes, that trolley should have functional brakes, but Omelas is and the trolley doesn't, so what'll it be? Dreaming up a fantasy scenario won't stop the trolley from barreling down the tracks and it won't stop the child under Omelas from suffering, so pick from your options.

This attitude of refusing to abide by the laws of the thought experiment is mirrored by the online left's apparent attitude of refusing to engage in damage control, viewing choosing the least evil as supporting that evil. While reluctance, frustration, and anger at the idea of voting for Biden is understandable and right given his support of Israel's active genocide campaign, the idea of refusing to vote at all is patently absurd for several reasons. First and foremost among these reasons is the fact that voting is not some manner of ritual magick binding the voter to support the current system, and that it also does not prevent the voter from pressuring the government for change by other means. Threatening to withhold the vote may be successful in pressuring a candidate to change their policy, I admit, but progressives refusing to vote ensures that conservatives and fascists gain power in their stead.

Lastly, I want to adress a couple sentiments I've seen bandied about that I couldn't wrangle a whole post out of. Of these, the most personally troubling is the idea that the only way that the West could be persuaded to give up imperialism is the threat of war, or that the inevitable outcome of Israel's actions is a World War III. While I concede that violence may be the only viable option with which to stop Israel's campaign, a third World War would simply cause a mass extinction. The first two nuclear bombs devastated multiple cities, and Bikini Atoll is still high in radiation in several areas; the inevitable use of further nuclear munitions in a third World War, coupled with the sheer amount of nuclear bombs in existance, would turn the world into a sterilized wastelend before you could say 'Fallout'. As you can no doubt imagine, I do not particularly enjoy that possibility. The second of these sentiments is the idea that democracy is dead, or otherwise nonfunctional. This is the sentiment that drives military coups. While I share in the anger and anxiety that the flaws in American democracy cause, I do not think that it is incorrigible or irredeemable. The idea that the only solution to the rigging of the proverbial game is to knock over the board can only serve to benefit those who would replace a rigged game with a loaded gun; let us take a lesson from the results of previous coups and endeavor not to repeat history. The flaws and biases in the system of American democracy are numerous and difficult to fix, but the hard work of fixing these flaws to correct the system is a likelier path to justice than the path of razing the whole system to start anew.

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