Anonymous #1 1d

Like increased social egalitarianism has been the main focus of the left since the French Revolution when the right was pro-monarchy and the left was pro-revolution

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Anonymous #1 1d

I think people who care more about labels than actual positions in practice are privileged and ignorant.

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Anonymous #2 1d

This claim launders an outcome as a design virtue. Small states are already overrepresented in the Senate. The Electoral College doubles down on that distortion rather than “balancing” anything. Federalism means states govern themselves, not that they get weighted votes in a federal election. The framing repackages structural inequality as principled architecture, making a system that dilutes majority will sound like wise statesmanship.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

You have to be joking. You know something is fucked but you don't know what to do, so your solution is to do nothing? That's crazy. Now what is you is keep deconstructing and reconstructing until no lie will slip past you. That is our problem: we are believing lies en masse. The solution is to practice discernment.

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Anonymous OP 1d

I think they’re saying what is your plan after “waking up,” what sort of political action do you suggest beyond canvassing and supporting the best candidates available?

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Anonymous #1 1d

I think you’re missing the entire point. There is more to life than arguing about how to live. The political action I suggest is diverting your energy away from politics and back towards your own sovereignty.

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Anonymous #1 1d

Can you not see that we are all enslaving each other? Have you heard of the parable of the long handled spoons?

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Anonymous OP 1d

I think you speak very broadly but I can see how injustice is vastly prevalent in our culture and our society in a way that enslaves people and treats them as objects, yes many of our ideologies like capitalism are inherently dehumanizing despite their framing

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Anonymous #1 1d

Humans were not supposed to be overseen by other humans. That is a propaganda point to keep classism in place. The best political candidate is the kind of person who wouldn’t touch politics with a 10 foot pole. Do you see the problem?

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Anonymous OP 1d

I’m asking you what you mean by the post, that’s not my solution at all. My point is that it’s great to say fuck the electoral college and its not about left vs right but practically speaking left and right aren’t the same, in some ways it is about left and right at least until some revolution happens. Like your point about lies, the degree to which certain people are dishonest has to do with their left or right tilt

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

And yes sorta what 2 said, I’m curious how this sentiment leads to action or change yk

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

I’m literally suggesting you to use discernment so you will at least be aware of when you are fueling exploitative systems, or even better avoidant of such participation.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

Dishonesty has nothing to do with political affiliation. It has to do with embodied practice, which is also different than moral values.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

It leads to change because it’s radically different from the approach we are conditioned to take. “taking action” is exactly what they want you to do because they know it won’t work because they know they are the ones who call the shots and have no intent to listen. They want us paralyzed and it’s working.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

Anyone political is no more honest than someone else who is political. Politicization is the crux of our problem. Think about queer right. Not even remotely political yet our existence has been put front and center as political fodder. Politics are the problem.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

*rights

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

Without politics queer rights would just be human rights. Do you understand?

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Anonymous OP 1d

I’m saying once you are aware of how unfair something like the electoral college is, what can you do to change your behavior? Government isn’t like some restaurant you can simply not go to if you don’t agree with their policies, it’s part of your life and voting is the only small (and very imperfect) way most people can affect it. Most people can’t afford to not vote yk?

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 1d

And to that end the Democratic Party is more honest and more supportive of queer rights than the Republican one is. At least to some degree. I mean queer rights would just be human rights if not from attacks from the right. Both parties are very far from ideal and have some shared goals but there are still significant differences.

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Anonymous OP 1d

what do you mean by “humans were not supposed to be overseen by other humans” I don’t think humans have any intrinsic purpose pre-programmed lol

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Anonymous OP 23h

But that’s assuming majority rule is automatically the fairest system. The entire structure of the Constitution was built around balancing population power with state sovereignty, not creating a pure national democracy. The Senate, Electoral College, and even the amendment process all reflect that idea. You can disagree with the design, but calling it a “distortion” just assumes your preferred system is the objectively correct one.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

And you're not hearing my answer. I've explained this multiple times. The government very much is something that WE can in fact COLLECTIVELY "not go to". Power does not arise from the State. The State arises from the power we give it via our collective legitimization. Our institutions are egregores that exist first as information. They do not become material until we act on them through repetition.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

This repeated conditioning is the framework for social control. The very first step towards focusing power is classification. Power cannot be concentrated without a class to assign it to. So we are subconsciously taught to divide ourselves up into boxes. This is the first lie.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

Quantum physics indicates that reality is not discrete, it is continuous. The separation of consciousness is an illusion of the ego. We are all the universe trying to know itself and such knowing cannot happen without forgetting coming first. Reality is a cycle of solve et coagula, yin and yang, death and life, dissolving and recombining, always growing towards balance. We are not separate. We merely appear to be.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

Politics exploit this illusion. It thrives off of division. We are taught that we are our ideas and that our moments of thought that we cling to are what define us eternally. This the classification I was talking about and it's harmful in practice. We are not walking policy positions, we are humans with trauma and feelings. This tension drives us into fear, which is crucial in getting us to believe the second lie: "policy protects". This is not unyielding either.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

It's become abundantly clear that policy is not materially ubiquitous the way our officials act like it is. It's only ubiquitous informationally, not behaviorally or structurally. Our policy is set and enforced by people who get to exempt themselves from it, but because they were explicitly granted but because the loophole is deliberately left open. That's not equality or representation. That's corruption, and it signals a contradiction between alleged intent and resulting outcomes.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

The idea that one person can rightfully hold more power than another, that ownership is a valid construct, lends itself to authoritarianism. It doesn't matter what social policies a party is claiming to support when their actual actions (or rather lack thereof) don't agree with their words. This is the epitome of the Democratic Party. They are not more truthful. They are more optically virtuous.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

If Democratic officials actually cared about the people, something would have been done by now. So why hasn't it? Why is Trump our president? It should be abundantly clear that if the Democrats give us what we want, it would take away the power they use to keep voters loyal. Saying they want to do something keeps people on their toes and donating longer than actually following through does.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

This is the third lie. They do not care. They merely pretend to care just enough to get your vote and your donations so they can go back to sitting fat and happy while doing nothing. Trump being elected is the greatest thing that could have happened to the Democratic Party, make no mistake. It's turned fear into immense loyalty exactly like the GOP does to its base. The job of a politician is not to help the people, the job is to get re-elected. And you are doing a stellar job of helping them.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

Our issues are deeper than political affiliation. They rest within the foundation of our government. Anyone who suggests one party is the problem is either a liar or a coward.

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Anonymous alphanerd 20h

That's not what the American "left" is.

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Anonymous #2 20h

Acknowledging design intent isn’t the same as endorsing the outcome. The Founders also enshrined slavery into that architecture. “This is how it was built” describes history, not justice. The question isn’t pure democracy vs. federalism, it’s whether a Wyoming vote should count 3x a California vote in a national election. That arithmetic doesn’t protect state sovereignty. It just advantages low-population states, which is a power imbalance dressed as principle.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

I cannot tell you how to act. You must decide for yourself. This is your entire problem. You are waiting for someone to tell you what to do when what really needs to happen is for you to take the reins of your own life and stop submitting to the government with every passing thought.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 20h

I am you, and you are me. The universe experiencing itself from different perspectives. To hate others is to hate yourself. To love others is to remember who you are. Divisive American politics are not compatible with this truth.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 19h

So to sum it up, the three lies controlling us are as follows: We are separate Our differences are dangerous Obedience and conformity bring peace None of these are inherently true.

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Anonymous #2 19h

I just wish more people could understand that most of our institutions are dressed up as things that they functionally are not.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 18h

The truth that our government refuses to say is that we are all one, that our diversity is what makes us broad and powerful, and that our natural urge to question everything and live authentically is what brings about change. Do you understand yet? There is no plan. And that's the entire point. The "plan" is to stop following plans that are not your own.

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Anonymous OP 17h

But that imbalance wasn’t an accident. The Constitution was intentionally designed to stop a few massive states from dominating the federal government by balancing population power with state representation. You can disagree with that system, but it wasn’t some hidden flaw.

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Anonymous #2 17h

Intentional doesn’t mean justified. Segregation was intentional. The design protected state interests in 1787 because states were functionally separate entities. That condition no longer exists. Americans don’t primarily identify as Virginians or Ohioans competing for federal dominance. Defending a 250-year-old power arrangement because it was deliberate confuses original intent with ongoing legitimacy.

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Anonymous #2 17h

The question is whether it serves equal citizenship now, not whether the Founders meant it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Anonymous OP 17h

Equal citizenship doesn’t necessarily mean identical political influence in every institution. The U.S. system was intentionally built around representing both people and states, not just raw national majority rule. And states still have competing interests on taxes, energy, regulation, immigration, water rights, and countless other issues. Federalism didn’t disappear just because people identify as “American” first.

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Anonymous #2 17h

State interests are represented in the Senate and through governors, legislatures, and state courts. The presidency is a singular national executive, not a federal body. There’s no coherent reason Wyoming’s state interests should get extra leverage in choosing one person who governs all Americans equally. The “representing states” argument applies cleanly to Congress. Importing it into the presidential election is unfounded.

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Anonymous OP 17h

Ngl I’m not a fan of the “youre not hearing my answer, I’ve explained this multiple times” type rhetoric. I don’t believe I’ve given you any reason to think that I’m uninterested in understanding you or that I haven’t read what you’ve written. If we misunderstand eachother than we can reframe our points so they make more sense, really doesn’t need to be any ill will here. I’m interested in conversation and understanding, not a gotcha moment. Hopefully you are too

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 17h

That being said I’ll try to respond to all this, it is a lot so give me a sec

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 17h

I think the main disagreement here is a separation between theory and reality. For example the idea that one person should hold more power than another. Would it be nice to never have that dynamic? Theoretically sure. But practically it is impossible to avoid. A bus has many passengers and one driver, it doesn’t really function any other way. You can’t have 20 drivers or zero drivers if you want the system to work. Humans have to elevate certain people into positions of responsibility and

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 17h

Therefore power. It is necessary for anything to get done if we want to live in societies that are larger than handfuls of people living in the woods. And even in those types of societies there are usually people with more or less power, more or less responsibility

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 17h

Which is also why I take issue with the idea that we can simply not engage with a system as terrible as the one we have. Because of its extreme corruption, which I agree is abhorrent. That being said there’s the theoretical side and the practical side. Theoretically pulling back from this system and refusing to give it power is fine but practically it is unworkable.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 16h

People will get elected and there will be significant differences between the people who run. I personally think it is indefensible to act like the difference between trump 2 and Kamala is negligible. Both are bad certainly, but it’s dishonest to act like a Kamala presidency would be just as bad as what we have now. Take your example of queer rights from above; those folks would certainly be safer today if more people had voted establishment democrat. I don’t like it either but that’s reality

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 16h

To address your three points; we are separate, that is true. The reasons we are different are complex but human nature varies wildly. Our differences aren’t inherently dangerous but some ideas are dangerous. For example the idea that attacking immigrants will solve issues. Some ideas are worse than others. And to the last one, I’m not sure obedience is the right word but thoughtful compromises do bring peace, they always have.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 16h

We have a system for making these compromises, handling these differences, but it is badly flawed as you say, and I agree. That being said, it will govern you whether you participate or not. Laws will get passed that hurt you whether you participate or not. Would a revolution and subsequent new system of government be a better solution? Absolutely. But that hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t happen tomorrow or next week. We can and should aim for that, but until the revolution happens harm

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 16h

Reduction does matter. Until we get that revolution going it absolutely does matter who you vote for. What policies you support…etc.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 16h

To be clear I don’t think the Democratic Party “cares about me” or anything like that. I’m not sitting around waiting for the Democratic Party to tell me what to do. But as it stands they are one of two parties that are in control of power and are obviously the least bad of the two. It is not silly to take steps towards harm reduction

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

The bus analogy proves too much. Drivers are accountable, removable, and serve the passengers. Politicians serve donors. That’s not a bus, that’s a hostage situation with elections as theater. “It governs you whether you vote or not” is exactly right, and it still doesn’t follow that voting legitimizes nothing. Participation signals consent. Withheld consent is also information.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

The harm reduction argument assumes the lesser evil stays lesser. Eight years of “hold your nose” voting produced the conditions for Trump twice. The strategy is not working by its own metrics. You are arguing from within the system’s logic while claiming to critique it. That’s the trap.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

If harm reduction voting has been the dominant progressive strategy for 40 years, and conditions have gotten measurably worse by your own admission, at what point does the strategy itself become the harm? What threshold of failure would cause you to question the method rather than just try harder at it? If that threshold doesn’t exist, you’re not doing political strategy. You’re practicing faith.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

The system doesn’t survive through force alone. It survives because we fund it daily without noticing. Every dollar spent at Amazon, every engagement with outrage media, every vote cast out of fear rather than conviction is a deposit into the machine we claim to oppose. That’s not a moral accusation, it’s a structural observation.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

What I’m suggesting isn’t inaction. It’s redirected action. Stop putting energy into institutions that have demonstrated they will not return it. Start building counter-structures: local mutual aid, cooperative economics, community trust. These already exist. They just lack the critical mass that fear-based loyalty to the Democratic Party keeps siphoning away.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

The revolution doesn’t require a moment. It requires a direction. And that direction starts with personal honesty about where your money, attention, and legitimacy are actually going, because most people are unknowingly bankrolling the exact systems they protest.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

Harm reduction as a ceiling keeps us permanently in triage. The question isn’t whether to reduce harm today. It’s whether your strategy for today is making tomorrow require less triage or more. Forty years of lesser-evil voting has produced more evil requiring reduction. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the function.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

Cooperation is the alternative. This earth provides enough. What it cannot provide is the will to trust each other across manufactured divisions. That will has to come from us withdrawing it from systems built on its absence.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

The revolution is already happening. You won’t see it on CNN. It looks like someone canceling their Amazon Prime and joining a food cooperative. It looks like a community land trust forming in a city nobody’s reporting on. It looks like people choosing to trust each other instead of waiting for an institution to tell them it’s safe to.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

You are clearly waiting for a revolution that looks like the ones in history books: a moment, a leader, a televised tipping point. That framing is itself a product of the same media ecosystem that benefits from you feeling powerless until something dramatic happens.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 9h

The revolution Gil Scott-Heron was describing wasn’t an absence of action. It was an absence of spectacle. It’s interior first, then relational, then structural. You don’t broadcast it. You live it, and living it is contagious in ways that op-eds and voting drives simply are not. The question isn’t when the revolution starts. It’s whether you’ll recognize it when it doesn’t look like what you were told to expect.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Anonymous OP 8h

I offered the bus analogy because you seemed to be claiming that there was some legitimacy to the idea that nobody should have power over anyone else, which I suppose we both agree isn’t the case

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

But also it’s not a black and white thing, governments serve people AND corporations (donors), the degree to which one or the other is prioritized changes. Politicians can be removed and are somewhat accountable, despite issues with those processes stemming from corruption.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

The lesser evil has absolutely remained the lesser evil. Left causes in America, and even their mostly centrist cousins in the modern Democratic Party, are unquestionably the lesser evil of the two establishment parties. The fact that republicans still get elected in between democratic admins is an artifact of a two party system and underperformance of both, not the fact that democrats have ever been a worse choice than republicans.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

I think the crux of this whole debate is how much energy we put into getting D or R candidates elected vs how much energy we put into creating a revolution or creating the conditions for a revolution. My original issue with the post is that you seemed to be saying that zero energy should be invested into getting one candidate elected versus another, thats something I strongly disagree with.

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

Cause honestly I think it’s a bit privileged to say that people shouldn’t vote out of fear and should only vote out of conviction. The shit trump is doing is scary. If I was an immigrant or trans or something I’d absolutely be justified in voting for anyone who’s not trump out of fear. It is a legitimate motivation for lots of people; simply not shopping at Amazon isn’t enough for someone who wants to prevent trump from terrorizing their families

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

Sorry this is a bit piecemeal; responding as I go. The divisions aren’t all manufactured tho, a massive country will have divisions on certain issues. For political reasons but also for cultural, historical, socioeconomcial, religious…etc reasons. We’re always going to need systems to compromise on these issues. Our government didnt create divides among people who would otherwise all come together and sing Kumbaya, it’s just a terrible system for making fair compromises. And yes it also

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

Manufactures some helpful artificial divisions to throw into the mix

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Anonymous fuuuckyikyak 8h

But back to my point a comment or two ago, I think the crux of the debate is how much energy to put into the current system vs into creating a new one. If you think both deserve more than 0% then I think we agree for the most part. We should all vote for harm reduction and stop shopping at Amazon, create strong local community groups…etc. I only really strongly take issue with folks who say to fully disengage from our current government, I don’t personally view that as a realistic option

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Anonymous OP 6h

Or perhaps it is possible to participate in both mutual aid groups and canvassing networks for politicians?

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