Taite wrote:I sincerely hope no one "hates politics" here, chooses not to vote, etc, because this is your life. "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Honestly this is one of my only peeves when it comes to politics, so while I welcome your opinion and want to know what you believe, I'd hope any discussion wouldn't float around how much people hate politics.
See, this attitude is, conversely, one of MY pet peeves. I've made several posts on this subject already before, and I don't feel like getting angry about this again, but I'm sorry - because it is my vote and my life is exactly why I DON'T vote. I've seen enough of this. Let me quote a few posts I made about it before...
Otohiko during the last Canadian election wrote:I'm gonna be really uncool according to a lot of people today, but I'm not voting. Not because I'm lazy or uninformed, but because after making a genuine effort familiarizing myself with platforms, candidates, and all the possible options, I see nothing to vote for except "lesser evils", which I can't ethically agree with anymore. And I'm really disappointed in that. Sorry Canada.
If you think that this is without any foundation, allow me to quote one of the public figures, a Russian musician and poet whom I greatly respect, as to why my reasons for this...
Boris Grebenschikov wrote:My childhood, my formative years, were lived under the Soviet regime... voting under the Soviet regime was absolutely meaningless. To date, anything is yet to change my point of view... any ballot is completely meaningless [...] One cannot say that we determine the regime, or the regime determines us: we determine each other. We exist in the same universe. The thing is, choosing between two people that I know absolutely nothing about... based on what, falsified information? Sorry, but I know it's falsified. Thankfully, people like me are a minority. There will always be people who vote. My voice is simply not needed.
And while that was spoken by another person, that may as well have been said by me. I don't know how you know that voting is "your life, your choice" - you may have good reasons, and I can respect that. However, in my case, please do not look down on my position - it is born out not by imagination, but by direct historical experience of me and my family. This is not a matter of laziness or lack of ethics, but quite the opposite - the only way for me to preserve my ethical position and not be complicit in what I see as unfair agendas.
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Therein, perhaps, lies the issue with my political leanings - I do not like to call myself "a" something. I will never, ever belong to any political party or movement. I will never state anything in terms of identity.
I do generally have very socialist leanings, and although in some ways I'm very pragmatic and reasonable, in others I'm what some people would regard as radically on the left. No party in North America adequately represents my views, and probably never will.
I am very liberal on most social issues, although unlike a lot of the social democrat movements, I regard them as actually unimportant and not the business of government at all. I hate how these have taken over politics, and this is one reason I refuse to vote, especially in the face of huge economic issues that are out there today. American politics in particular gets scorn from me for its flavour of right-wing (and both major parties in the US are right-wing by any global standard) social obsessions that distract the US from dealing with the massive responsibility that the country has by virtue of its unique economic position. all the same, I'm not a radical here in any sense, and some of my social views could even be considered somewhat conservative. More than anything, I believe in an enlightened, pragmatic approach to dealing with social issues that should not be dictated from above and should work at community level first and foremost.
Economically, I am pretty radical. I am not necessarily Marxist, but to a degree I am a materialist. The less is said of what I think about capitalism, the better. Here economic libertarians usually get flak from me, because of my belief that one cannot simply be left alone to do what they want with what they earned. For me the real crux of the issue is ethics - i.e. the REAL price of everything, and the reality of what one "really earns". I honestly think that noone should be allowed to be rich beyond a certain point, and I won't say where I think this cut-off point is, but suffice to say it's lower than what most people think. I believe that rewarding speculation and "permissible cheating" of markets is no foundation for a healthy society, and the degree to which the present-day markets have taken it is beyond criminal - and practically everyone is complicit to a degree. Again, I won't shoot my mouth off on what should be done about it, but like I said, my views are pretty radical.
I still do have some faith in Western liberal democracy, but I think the degree to which the political systems of most places have been sabotaged by runaway market capitalism have rendered it practically unsalvageable. Having lived through the total collapse of one society and ideology already, I have few reservations and regrets about the prospect of this one crashing down. It's bound to happen. It's not a big thing, not an apocalypse like some people think it is - life goes on. My bigger concern will be with what comes after.
The Birds are using humanity in order to throw something terrifying at this green pig. And then what happens to us all later, that’s simply not important to them…