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Mat Broomfield
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Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Stop Guilt-Tripping Women" video.
Couldn't disagree more. Whenever someone is being urged to vote, it's not voting that they are being urged to do, but participation in the political process, and that necessarily means educating yourself at least nominally on the issues. Whenever I hear arguments of your type, I always harken to the line in the second Lord of the Rings movie when Aragorn notices Eowyn practicing sword fighting. He comments upon it and she replies words to the effect of "The women of Rohan learned long ago that women who do not wield a sword can still die upon them." A more modern reworking would be "pacifists can still be killed by the enemy." Just because you choose not to participate in democracy does not mean that you are safe from the effects of the thing you chose to abstain from. Your primary means of changing the system is participation. That means either entering politics yourself, or using your vote to control the players. No matter how much you find its players and policies repugnant, you accomplish NOTHING but being an NPC. You can stand on the sidelines and whine afterwards, but you accomplish virtually nothing. Brexit is a very unique situation because paradoxically (and showng unusual characater), two of the parties are actually standing on principle against the express wishes of the (fractional) majority, to the detriment of their own re-electabilibilty because they are doing what they were ACTUALLY elected to do; represent the best interests of the British people as they see it.
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@doms.6701 But she WAS wielding one. That's the whole point. She was saying "High-minded values count for nothing against an enemy who doesn't respect them so you'd BETTER arm yourself." So yes, the latter example.
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And so the world continues to get shittier, and just maybe, if people like you had voted, it MIGHT have made the difference.
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And so the world continues to get shittier, and just maybe, if people like you had voted, it MIGHT have made the difference.
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@OjoRojo40 Just because Rousseau said it it doesn't make it true, but even if it IS true, what's the alternative -- complete non-participation? Good luck with that. You still pay the same taxes, go to the same prisons for non-payment but you get to sit with your arms crossed congratulating yourself that you're going outside the system.
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ajs1031 Agree 100%. If you can't see the lesser of two evils, you're not paying attention.
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@wallpello_1534 "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Sometimes doing nothing is the same as making an active choice.
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@yosh6278 I'm quoting Charles Aked...
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