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There are no apolitical people.
Only people who don't understand that everything is political.
When you're stuck in traffic commuting to work, that's a result of political decisions made by others.
When you go to work despite being sick, that's forced on you by political decisions made by others.
When you have to decide between buying your meds and buying food, that's due to political decisions made by others.
"Apolitical people" just accept (or are forced) to let others dictate how they live.
I had a friend years ago that studied political science at uni, that told me i couldnt discuss politics cause i hadnt. Took me a while to realise who the idiot was.
Unfortunately too many are like him and i.
when i poop is that political?
what if when i go to work, i sometimes drive, sometimes walk, sometimes take a bike, and sometimes take public transit, depending on the weather or my mood? does that mean my politics changes each and every day?
The fact that you even have those options, as well as the weather, are affected by politics.
Yes, when you do it at work.
Even at home. The luxury of indoor plumbing and utilities in general are pretty firmly political.
sorry, so who i vote for affects if it's cold or not?
If you buy the current science on global warming, literally yes. The politics of generations ago still affect us to this day, including such things as the fossil fuel industry's massive prevalence.
OK, so I voted for harris. And it's cold this year.
apparently my voted caused it to be cold this year.
did i vote wrong if i didn't want it to be cold?
You're not interested in good faith discussion, so literally fuck off!
is in good faith discussion if I start pointing out the absurdities that come from your arguments? that are massively overgeneralized?
lots of things are apolitical. most people are not thinking about politics every moment of everyday. even if you are.
Something like the climate is a centuries long process to change. Your vote moved the needle one way or the other, absolutely. But something like the climate takes generations, multiple administrations, choices, processes...
So like... You didn't vote for it to be cold, no. You voted for a person who had a set of policies that will impact the world, moving things in a certain direction. And further, the fact that the world is as it is now is the result of all of those previous votes throughout history. You live IN politics. You are not exempt from it, your world is literally molded by it.
you are basically arguing for the butterfly effect. i open my car door, does that cause a typhoon in japan?
if i did, how could it ever be proven?
and if things are so deterministic, what is the point of making choices really?
most of us are not that important. my vote for harris did nothing to help or harm the climate or change weather patterns. i won't be here in 50 years, let alone 500, so it climate policy is irrelevant to me.
I vote all the time. just don't have any delusion that my vote is this big huge deal or that I'm 'changing the world'. I also don't care about a lot of issues, and that's fine. I am limited being with limited time and resources and I not everything I do is an explicit endorsement of any politics. Perhaps for you it is, but for me it's not.
Just like maybe you enjoy PB and J sandwiches, and I do not. People are different. Some people don't ever have a PB & J sandwich in their life, and the concept doesn't exist to them.
I rarely come across comment chains so dumb I hope they’re trolls and not an actual person thinking that way
I regularly come across people who insult others and claim they are superior without actually making an argument or engaging in a meaningful way.
It's almost like it's easy to sit in a glass house and scream you are smart than actually going outside and interacting with people.
Are you pooping at work? Politics that force companies to allow you to have bathroom breaks can be thanked.
Is there a sidewalk when you walk or ride a bike? Thank your taxes and the people that pushed city politicians to install those pathways.
Like being able to take public transit? Then be glad regulations and ordinances in your city encouraged those services to be available.
Your political opinions and your thoughts on how your community and city are run, will most certainly change with regularity if you are putting in the effort to understand what can be done to improve things. And most people start with the things that affect them on the daily.
no, i don't poop at work. is pooping in my own house a political act too?
i ride my bike in the road with cars. riding on the sidewalk is illegal and dangerous.
public transit is often falling apart where i live. it has been underfunded for 50 years. it's very unreliable and nobody wants to fix it because that would mean raising taxes.
Pooping itself, no. Probably not political. But getting to the point where you have indoor plumbing, provided by a utility company you probably pay significantly less than the actual cost of said utility? Yeah, that's the direct result of politics.
which politics though? is that progressive or conservative?
It's not about sides, in this context. It's just -political-. Whether you vote conservative, progressive, anything in between, you, me, and the whole rest of the world has to deal with that decision.
So I vote for Harris and she doesn't win, it's my fault she lost? and i'm personally responsible for USAID being dismantled?
No. Politics isn't just about voting. It's everything Every action. Every shitty post on the Internet. Everything you buy - you're voting with your dollars. Your attention. Your time.
No, you individually probably don't contribute that much to the direct decisions, but your voice reaches others, helps mold their opinions, change how they see and interact with the world. Then they go and do the same thing. That's all politics.
I'm against self-righteous twats who declare they know best for everyone and anyone who doesn't agree with them is an idiot or bad person.
I am actively politically involved and have been my entire life. I just missed the memo where that gives me the right to browbeat and harass and lecture other people for not choosing to do that. Am I being irresponsible for not lecturing you about going to local town meetings like I do? Or writing your city councilmen, or voting in in local referendum elections?
And yeah, I do think politics is about direct impacts. being politically involved on an abstract level is nothing more than mental masturbation. It's ego stroking. hence why people on the internet love it so much. they get to faff off how superior they are to other people in the abstract, without dealing with any of the real world specifics that complicate their moralizing of their own superiority over 'apolitical' people and how 'stupid' they are.
my brother in law can't vote. he's not a citizen. he can opine all day, but literally can't vote for anything or affect any real change. he has no rights to do so. he is effectively apolitical, as he's not allow to participate in the democratic process by law.
do you ever ask yourself why does it upset you that other people are different than you? have you ever asked yourself that?
or is it that if people think differently than you, they are bad and wrong, because it invalidates your personal choices and thoughts? and you need yours to be validated by other people's agreement?
and why you must insult and demean anyone who doesn't validate your views, rather than consider their validity as their lives, experiences, and knowledge are very different than yours?
You're American, aren't you?
Politics isn't sports ball. Especially on a local level, it usually isn't "us vs them", it's a bunch of people with different opinions about how things are supposed to be done. Politics is more complicated than red vs. blue.
Although the US "red" and "blue" parties do everything they can to convince people like you it's that simple.
Yeah I am. Where I live it very much is sportsball. Even on the local level.
I am involved in my local cities politics. It is not very complicated. Most people believe in winners vs losers and most every debate is framed that way. it has nothing to do with red vs blue. my city is like 90% blue, but still very anti-progressive on many issues.
for example in my city bike lanes are super controversial, because while the city has been adding them, many residents feel that bike lanes are theft from cars and car owners. many of these very same people are progressives, who have BLM stickers on their lawns in multi-million dollar homes, but think bike lanes are for 'privileged white people' and their are just poor struggling folks!
my line of questioning is to point out the absurdities of what you are saying that derive from such a vastly over generalized as to be totally pointless and any generally broad concept can be used. God, nature, the Force, etc.
You seem to think politics is anything and everything, sort of like how religious people see God, or natural spiritualist see nature. You are imposing a generalized belief structure on everyone, without realizing a lot of people just don't believe in what you believe in. And you deem anyone agree with your belief structure as heretical and ignorant.
I don't believe anyone does anything 'in my name'. But I don't see myself as part of some grand unified force you seem to believe in and call 'politics'. I'm only a part of the systems I choose to be a part of, by my own desires. I vote for certain things, support certain things, and not others. It's all very specific to me and sometimes I don't have any views or concerns on the topic because it has no impact on me...
It means that the impacts of the politics on you change each day. It means you are in a place where the politics have allowed you to have these myriad options.
and if i moved to where only travel by car was viable, what does that imply about my politics?
I'm not reading you. Nothing is implied by anything. You live in a political world. It is shaped by the politics going on around you. Your simple existence shapes the politics of the world. You cannot be apolitical. You can only be ignorant of the myriad ways politics influences your life, your abilities, the obstacles you fact, the choices you have.. Everything.
I'm not saying you have to pick a specific side, or that anything you do means you're going to vote one way or the other. That's insane. Its a bit like Rush. You ever listen to them? If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose not to engage with politics actively, but you're still engaging with it by just existing. May as well do so with an informed opinion.
Meh, probably. It's fun though.
Indirectly, yes. How is the infrastructure of your town/city maintained. Is it falling apart or is it in good condition. Do the richer neighbourhoods coincidentally see more city workers updating their plumbing while you sometimes have to flush twice to get it all down because of unmaintained pipes, and are therefore paying a higher water bill as a result?
These are all political decisions.
i have no direct say in any of that.
especially as i don't have the cash to say, tear down my building and rebuild an entirely new modern one with new plumbing.
But that's exactly the point. That would be what people who vote would look for in a local election. What's this politicians stance on spending money on ageing infrastructure. (For example)
We're not saying its "progressive" or "conservative" just that everything is political at the end of that day.