ExecutiveStapler

I agree you used chauvinistic to mean that, but you then followed it up by saying that you didn’t have to justify why what they said is wrong. You do. It’s also not the case that what they said was definitionally chauvinistic, although I’ll let that slide because it was something similar enough.

Suppose it was the case that one nation was in every way better than all other countries. Shouldn’t the citizens of that country be proud of that? Beyond pride, shouldn’t they do everything they can to spread their glorious system to the world and bring prosperity to all? That doesn’t necessarily mean wars and colonialism, that simply means all soft power efforts to implement systems that show themselves to work. I think the answer to this hypothetical is this nations citizens should feel pride and should spread their system.

The key point here is the United States isn’t better than every country in the world, thus Americans shouldn’t feel such extreme pride about their country. However, the United States is pretty good. I think some form of pride / patriotism are justified for Americans and even forms of soft power to implement effective policies are justified, but this answer is impossible to reach when you throw out all feel good thoughts about nations as chauvinistic.

Ah, what a great example of a thought terminating cliche, a statement that does what it says to save you from cognitive dissonance and nuance. You are clearly using chauvinistic as a pejorative, so you need to either justify how they’re wrong or take it back and stop muddying the waters with your empty ideological language.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily agree with op’s statement. The US as a developed nation clearly has more opportunities and advantages than developing nations, but there are other developed nations that meet and sometimes beat the advantages the US brings. I’d argue the US is at least in top 3 of being the most successful nation in diversity and global influence, but other nations have better welfare programs, housing policy, and cultural aspects imo.

Absolutely agree. I don’t know what form of doomscrolling leads to such a paranoid view of the world that they believe their neighbors would shoot them for advocating for mere voting reform, but it’s certainly not healthy. It’s also plainly ridiculous for them to advocate for unionizing in the same trigger happy society that’d apparently off them the second they enter a town hall.

It’s true that it’s difficult, but it’s not true that changing the voting system will never or has never happened. Link shows the states where RCV has been enacted on state and local levels. It’s notable that it’s mainly Democrat states that have enacted RCV and it’s only Republican states that have banned it (which is fucking ridiculous). You could be the one to get RCV enacted in your city, which’ll show everyone in your city how cool it is to have more choices, which’ll then snowball into getting it enacted in your state, which long term could snowball into it getting enacted on the federal level.
You’re nearly never more politically powerful than when you’re one of a few dozen people in a city meeting.

Another answer to your question is that it’s fundamentally misguided due to your assumption that good and evil are absolute concepts and that there can’t exist separate and consistent moral worldviews. Consider the historical crusaders joining a brotherhood of Christ to save their holy land from the infidels and secure safe pilgrimages for millions of their fellow Christians, and then consider a Muslim warrior defending his homeland and family in the name of Allah from crazed zealots of an imperfect prophet. Who is good there? If you asked them, they’d both say they’re the good one and the other is the evil one. They’d both say the reason they KNOW they’re the good one is ultimately due to insight into the moral fabric of the universe granted to them by God (the same god, funnily enough). Ultimately, it’s impossible to say absolutely which one is right without appealing to something like divine revelation.

Another assumption I think you should reconsider is your implied stance that good people are necessarily absolutists in their principles. You say the good people wouldn’t use nuclear bombs, but why? Nuclear bombs have ushered humanity into the greatest and longest period of peace in human history. You say the good people would never use torture, but why? I agree with other commenters that for practical purposes torture is nearly always useless and inhumane, but suppose a hypothetical hemophobic (and Evil!) nuclear terrorist that you’d just need to barely cut (light torture!) and then he’d tell you the secrets to his dastardly plan to bomb an orphanage. Are you sure that a good person would be obligated to stand by as the orphans explode instead of giving that guy a pinprick? Suppose the “good person” sticks to their principles and lets the orphans dies, what should they do to the terrorist? This guy’s really evil, he spits on puppies and doesn’t even feel bad about it. You also know with 100% certainty that he’ll never reform, Doctor Strange told you so. If so, wouldn’t it be more moral to just kill him? Why waste resources on his useless imprisonment when it could be spent on thousands of mosquito nets saving thousands of nonevil lives from malaria? Also, why is he evil? Suppose it’s even 1% likely that evilness spreads through genes, if the good guy knew that and let him have kids wouldn’t it be partially the good guy’s fault if his nuclear terrorist baby bombs another orphanage? Perhaps you have satisfying answers to all these questions, but if you don’t you just justified the torture, killing, and eugenics-ing of “evil” people.

Ultimately, the impression I want to leave is that ethics are hard and complicated and most certainly more nuanced than a good and evil divide. There exist counter arguments to some of the things I said in this comment, but I’m guessing exploration of those counter arguments would leave you with a more nuanced view of good and evil regardless.

This is the worst plan possible because of the phenomenon of vote splitting. If your #1 issue you want solved is FPTP voting, vote for the party that’s shown the biggest tendency to reform that, the Democrats.

If you feel your vote is still worthless, stop complaining online and get involved locally and on a state level to enact the voting reform of your choice.

Your summary is certainly not about removing LBTG rights, it’s saying he agrees with the institutions of the United States. I find it interesting however that that’s how you’d choose to summarize the quotes.

The part about removing LGBT rights is where he’s saying that law is / should be god’s will implemented and that god’s will is marriage being purely between a man and a woman. He can say he loves all equally, but he shows that’s not true when he classifies some people’s marriages as being unworthy of legal recognition.

link

Two quotes:
“But let me say on this issue, if we got to know each other, you’d know the Pences love everybody,” Pence continued. “We treat everybody the way we want to be treated. But on this issue, and it’s frankly something that when the Obergefell decision was made which legalized same-sex marriage in America, the Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy wrote at the end, that this decision will likely create an intersection and tension between people in same-sex relationships and people in the exercise of their religious liberty.”

“Look, I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, I believe in traditional marriage, and I believe marriage was ordained by God and instituted in the law, but we live in a pluralistic society, and the way we go forward, and the way we come together as a country united, I believe, is when we respect: Your right to believe and my right to believe what we believe,” Pence said.

There’s not exactly a specific law because it was decided by the Supreme Court. He’d most certainly support a law in Congress to overturn the Supreme Court decision though.