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“Let’s go Brandon” was kinda funny at first
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Unpopular Opinion
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I mean sure, but there’s nothing you can do about it in the short term besides philosophizing a binary decision. Who’re you voting for?
I get the argument, and it would be disconnected from reality to disagree. "Yeah, the democrats are taking our options away, but what choice do we have?" In the US, it always comes down to 2 people and you pick one even if you don't like them.
I'm not going to vote. I vote on principle, I believe that voting is giving legitimacy to a democratic system. And this system does not have legitimacy anymore, and probably hasn't in quite some time. Democracy is dead in america and it's just a veneer, a show, and I don't want to grant legitimacy in my mind and heart to a Potemkin democracy. I will not put one ounce of effort legitimizing the lie that I have any representation in this country.
That’s most definitely an option, but it does little good. If you’d like to see yourself represented, I recommend local elections. National elections are only good for stemming the bleeding whereas local can offer a surprisingly vast allotment of improvements. The pacifist’s prayer is worth infinitely less than the chud’s vote.
When there are two options, and you choose not to decide, you are declaring that you approve of both options equally. If all but one person abstained out of principle it wouldn't expose the flaws in the system, it would just leave the decision in that one person's hands. When all the people who don't want to legitimize the broken system choose not to vote, then it's decided by the people who do want to legitimize the broken system.
This is a prisoners dilemma, yes I understand it. But there's a factor you're not considering: when all the people who don't legitimize it withdraw, it loses it's power over everyone by a little bit. If we all withdrew our support the system we live under might very well change to get our support back.
No it doesn't though?
That's what you said, yeah. Doesn't make it true.
The system we live under doesn't exist in a vacuum, it doesn't have power on its own, it's not a temple we worship in. It's one we maintain. Without us it doesn't exist.
That is the mechanism by which the system works, functionally. Deviating from that system requires some concerted action, passive abstinence is not positive action. Simply not participating does not change the system. Simply not participating yields the result I outlined above.
"Us" is not you and the people who agree with you, it is the sum total of everyone who actively participates. If you subtract yourself and the people who agree with you from that sum total, the "us" that perpetuates the system becomes those who continue to actively participate. You do not speak for everyone, so choosing to be silent merely erases your voice from "us". Do you want everyone else to speak for you?
Nobody speaks for me but me, not even "my representative." It's not just silence, it's withdrawal. I will not be browbeaten and scaremongered into participating in my own abuse. Enjoy your token voice, I'll be busy out here living my way.
Withdrawal does not have a function in the process. There is no clause in any Constitution which declares that if a large portion of people "withdraw", they have a new election with better candidates. Withdrawal is simply forfeiting your share of the decision making process. You will be out there living by the whims of those who chose not to withdraw.
Well there's reality and then there's these documents. It doesn't matter what the paper says, if enough people don't behave as if it is legitimate it will lose it's power over people. You're thinking from inside the system as if it is eternal made of stone. It isn't. It's made of us.