A.R. Moxon: There Is No Trolley Problem

[Nevilledog]

https://www.the-reframe.com/there-is-no-trolley-problem/

*snip*


The trolley problem would be a horrific scenario to set up in the real world, you know: to tie people to tracks, to force somebody to make a choice between killing a few people and killing one of their loved ones, to set the trolley in motion to ensure that the people chosen really do die; to take away every option until nothing is left but the switch and the victims. It's the sort of thing a cartoon villain in a silent movie does.

It's also the sort of thing our national fascist party, commonly known as "the Republicans," are doing right now.

Everywhere we look, they're throwing somebody or another on the tracks, and demanding that we recognize their right to do so, and validate their rationales for doing so as good—or, if not good, at least reasonable. I could give hundreds of examples, but let me lay out just a few. There are the lawless and unaccountable gangs kidnap squads who harass and terrorize and kidnap immigrants or those suspected of being immigrants. And their Nazi-aligned White Christian President has mobilized the U.S. army to invade and occupy American cities, sending armed troops up and down the streets to intimidate citizens and noncitizens alike and terrorize homeless people, who fascists frame not as the people in grave danger that they are, but as a disease to be cleansed. And the fascists have started making it impossible for trans people to exist in more and more places, stripping away healthcare access and the ability to secure government documents or even to use a public restroom. And the fascists recently started kidnapping Democratic elected officials in Texas, forcing them to accept full time law enforcement escorts so that they could be compelled into participating in the Republican-led Texas legislature's racist gerrymander. This gerrymander is a tactic designed to further erode our badly eroded democracy by ensuring that already underrepresented racial minorities in Texas are even more underrepresented, particularly when compared to voters who are deemed "white." This is the sort of thing an organization would only initiate if it intends to further marginalize already marginalized groups, and it's been a very common practice of Republicans over the decades—as you can imagine would be true of a white supremacist political party. And the racist Texas gerrymander did indeed pass, which is a big problem, because Texas is a big state, economy-wise and influence-wise.

In all such cases, specific groups of people are targeted by the Republican fascists based on rationales constructed of the most laughable bullshit, with the either explicit or implicit promise that if everyone else allows the few to be harmed and excluded and neglected and terrorized and killed, then the rest will be spared. And then they tell you that you have the switch and must decide who dies first.

This is the standard fascist offer, and it's exactly what you'd expect from a government-as-mafia ideology like fascism—that is, it is a shakedown. There are many reasons fascists make the offer, one of them being that it allows them to terrorize and exclude and neglect and kill people without consequence, another being that it forces people into positions of complicity so that the blame for the outcomes that the fascists want can rest upon somebody other than the fascists.

*snip*

[LearnedHand]

1. Great essay! And it advances a solution we must keep harping on!

REJECT THE PREMISE! We, and Dems in general, keep arguing from Republican frames. (Just revisit threads about trans people participating in sports for evidence of this.) Instead, we should be shouting from the rooftops that it is never acceptable to sacrifice any group of humans to “protect” another group of humans.

[Towlie]

4. Captain Miller (Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan) saw it otherwise.

Captain Miller: You see, when... when you end up killing one of your men, you see, you tell yourself it happened so you could save the lives of two or three or ten others. Maybe a hundred others. Do you know how many men I've lost under my command?

Sergeant Horvath: How many?

Captain Miller: Ninety-four. But that means I've saved the lives of ten times that many, doesn't it? Maybe even 20, right? Twenty times as many? And that's how simple it is. That's how you... that's how you rationalize making the choice between the mission and the man.

Edit, link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/quotes/?item=qt0441654&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

[Towlie]

2. The Trolley Problem is between pulling the lever and killing 1 person or doing nothing and letting 5 persons die.

There are numerous variations but "killing a loved one" is not part of the original Trolley Problem.

[RandomNumbers]

3. Kinda like sitting on one's hands

instead of voting against Trump?

Because ... (pick favorite litmus test issue where Dems "aren't good enough" but never mind how evil Repugs are)