Fair enough, my position is that the voters are responsible of electing the officials, and recalling/ not re-electing them if they are unhappy with the officials performance, but the voters are not responsible for the actions of the official while in office.
Power and a certain level of autonomy were given to the elected offical in order to perform their duties, if that power is misused, the official is legally and morally responsible, not the voters who elected them. Perhaps it was a jump in logic on my part, thinking that was close to what you were arguing.
Fair enough.
Doesn't that put us back where we started?
Oh, that's why I strive to be an elected official, so I can fuck up and blame everyone else.
Not really, because Protest is still an utterly useless medium with no quantifiable results for system change. If you default to not trusting any politicians, I reckon your results driven options are 3.
Try to use the system to create change (Sue the government agencies, Draft bills to submit to legislators, run for office, etc) (hard work and tough to get actual results), leave the Country you do not trust for one that you do (easy to accomplish, easy to observe results), or attempt to use violence to force change (mainly for crazy people most the time).
There are countless assumptions that you are careful to overlook so your sanctimonious soundbites pass the red face test.
What about access to information and an independent free press? What about the 4+ hour polling lines in poor and minority communities? What about gerrymandering and the herculean efforts to disguise it? What about election machines that change your vote?
The list goes on and on...
It must take a large effort on your part to maintain your brand of absolutism in the face of observable reality.
All of the minutia you seem fixated on are articles that can be addressed by the people who control the system, which is again, the masses. Hell, some of them are things I have previously brought up on the forum as issues that require change to help fix our democracy. The difference seems to be one of perspective. I own my participation in society, and recognize that since I choose to be a part of this nation, its poor decisions are a part of me, as much as its successes and great victories. If you choose instead to play the victim and insist society is doing shit to you that isn't your fault, I guess that is your choice, but we had a name for that type of guy when I was growing up.
I'm not sure waht absolutism are you referring to exactly? The only absolute position I have taken is that meaningless sentimental gestures (street protest) are garbage, and we are all responsible for the lives we live. Each person's life is their own responsibility, their own fault. The society they choose to participate in is one of their choosing.
If you don't like it, take action to change it, but wasting time crying while doing nothing, but holding a sign because it makes your feels all sweaty is self indulgent, narcissistic bullshit. It is garbage culture driven be herd animals who have feels abotu issues and give a shit if they are alone in their feels or not. They want to feel united in their feels, and once that is accomplished, they can all go home and weep with relief that they finally did something, when really they didn't do shit but spend a ton of tax money on managing the feels-o-rama they were shitting all over the streets while the rest of society was trying to actully do something useful like go to work.
That paradigm leaves a great and wide range of options on what choices an individual and a society can make, with the exception of little tolerance for waste and inefficiency in effort.
whoa- why are you all replying to this as serious? i assumed that he is a satyrical/farce poster? is this person actually serious?
Yes, I have a position on independence, personal responsibility, and the destruction of Groupthink that is farther out than most people are comfortable with.
