@eliotberriot I wish I had the distance to talk strictly at a brains and policy level here, but the current administration has declared that I can be denied healthcare or government services if an individual decides that God doesn't like me, so yeah, this is a bit emotional for me. "Trump and Clinton are the same, so why bother" got tossed around a lot last year, and is so far from true it's insulting that anyone believed it.

@eliotberriot When I and everyone I love are under attack, it's hard to hold blameless the people who could have stopped it and didn't. I don't necessarily *like* laying on the guilt here, but I don't have the privilege of playing nice.

Even if they are the same on all the issues that affect you, you're telling everyone they do affect that they're not your problem.

@eliotberriot I realize that there may be things going on that I'm not aware of from six thousand miles away, so I'll note that we disagree, and go to bed. But I'll also hope that the European Union survives the next decade.

@memnus sorry, I've forgot some mentions, my messages are:

https://mastodon.eliotberriot.com/@eliotberriot/51263
https://mastodon.eliotberriot.com/@eliotberriot/51264
https://mastodon.eliotberriot.com/@eliotberriot/51265
https://mastodon.eliotberriot.com/@eliotberriot/51266
https://mastodon.eliotberriot.com/@eliotberriot/51267

@eliotberriot thank you for the details. Still, when you are tied down and someone asks if you should be stabbed in the chest or the arm, and your only response is "isn't stabbing bad?", you're gonna get stabbed in the chest.

At least on this side of the ocean, I have never seen evidence that refusing to participate has had any effect on the system.

@memnus if the only comparison we can find with our democracies is being tied up and stabbed by someone, something is really wrong. This metaphor is biased: you are not really tied. You can leave or fight back at any time.

Systems *need* people adhesion (it can be a vote, a purchase or something else) to function. Once enough people leave a system, it looses its traction and start to decline.

@eliotberriot Leave how? Go where? In most elections the US is getting something less than 40% participation and it sure as shit isn't breaking down. It's just getting taken over by monsters that con keep their people interested.

As far as elections are concerned, abstention isn't protest, it's resignation. (At least here. If yours are set up such that it means literally anything, congratulations.)