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Zach⚡️ | 4 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag +1 
 Politics clearly matters, your vote doesn’t. US politics are very disconnected from the grassroots will of the people. The 2016 and 2020 democratic primaries are a great demonstration of this, as well as the 2020 election.

There are ways to be involved with politics in your local community and make some change, even if it’s just by shifting the Overton window. But even locally, gerrymandering, family ties, funding disparities, and support from certain groups are immensely powerful systems of influence, much more so than your vote.

I view voting as a form of consent, which is why I will not longer be participating in that form of politics. But to each their own.
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SHSS | 4 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 I just gave you an example of voting leading to a major change. Marijuana became legal at the state level through voting. You can keep saying that voting doesn’t matter, but it won’t make it true. 

Local elections involve voting. Voting is not the only form of political action, but it is a major one. Most of the money and influence that goes into politics is to affect voting. What do you think all the hundreds of millions of dollars Zuck donates to the DNC goes towards? You guessed right, getting certain people elected by paying for advertising, etc. 

It all comes down to voting. Unelected officials are appointed by elected officials that got there because the people voted for them. This is why libertarians are immaterial in politics, they fall for the psyop that voting doesn’t matter so they are irrelevant in elections and political life
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Zach⚡️ | 4 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 ‘Voting’ broadly matters in the same way a hurricane matters. It is a very powerful force and can cause a lot of damage if it’s heading in the wrong direction, and you are completely powerless to it. I would never disregard the power of the majority, but I also don’t want to participate in it because it is not constructive or freedom oriented.

Unfortunately, most people are not freedom minded and subject themselves to systems which are not to their benefit. They are stuck in mental prisons where they see the world as something it is not.  

I’m not sure about your view of the past 25 years, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find an elected American official which you agree with on even half the important issues. Sure, weed is cool and Supreme Court rulings which give more autonomy to states are very nice, but nothing that actually matters at the foundation of society has changed in a long time.

Here is the crux of my argument:

1. Elections are decided by directing the minds of the majority onto candidates which are pre-approved by one of the major political parties

2. Government rarely (if ever) becomes more limited through elections. The majority who vote tend to lean more collectivist

3. Even your favorite rulers, or the “lesser of two evils” inevitably always do something which goes against your personal interests. Trump did operation warp speed + COVID bailouts + continued surveillance programs + continued deficit spending + embraced the swamp. Even if we spin it as optimistically as possible and say that those things are all bigger than the sitting president, it would still demonstrate how voting is no path to real change

I cannot understand why people like you and @rand0mguest2 insist that “politics doesn’t matter” is a psychological operation. Look around you! I spent almost 15 years in a public school being told how important my civic duty is and how crucial it is to our democracy that everyone participates. 

We are constantly bombarded with political messaging, news which enforces the status quo, and straight up propaganda about how every election is “the most important one in American history where if the other guy wins we all die!”. Clearly the psychological operation goes the other direction.

Politics doesn’t matter is not a psyop - it’s a viewpoint taken to an extreme by a small group of libertarians who happen to share internet circles with you. While I agree that politics does indeed matter (like a hurricane) it doesn’t mean that your vote does and spending any amount of time expecting it to is a waste.

We need to advance systems and strategies which circumvent the archaic and corrupt political structure we have in place. Bitcoin is obviously a great one when it comes to economics and personal sovereignty. The right to bear arms is another notable one. But I would never tell anyone who looks around at the current state of the world and is unhappy to head out to the ballot box, and I don’t think that you would either.