What about responsibility?

Posted by Cptawesome23@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 85 comments

Somewhere along the way here in America, we all collectively decided that the individuals rights supersede the individuals responsibilities.

It’s ok to hoard wealth as long as you do it legally.
It’s ok to exploit workers if you do it legally.
It’s ok to not pay taxes as long as you itemize your deductions.
It’s ok to be a horrible person as long as you don’t hurt someone.
Liability can be bought and sold through insurance and lawyers.

What if…..

We decide to ensure that rights, are protected, for those individuals who take responsibility.

1: We can define societal goals and standards for our ultra wealthy to achieve in terms of fair contribution.

2: We can pass legislation that requires certain actions to be undertaken to qualify for tax deductions.

We can require certain professions that make up less than 1% of the population to provide first to their employees.
We can require a portion/percentage of all dividends issued to shareholders to be distributed equally to employees.
We can tax year over year growth as a percentage not to be affected by tax deductions.

These are just ideas, but we can elect leaders that will enact these changes.

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Used_Addendum_2724@reddit

"The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house."

It is naive to believe that centralized hierarchies exist for the greater good. They never have. And the more you empower the system with the apparatus of control, the more that control is usurped for the benefit of the ruling class.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

You’re making broad generalizations that sound like you learned from a fantasy novel.

We have the organizational know how as a society to build a new system that doesn’t allow abuse of power. We have been learning from our own failure as a society for 200 years now. It’s naive to think we can’t improve upon what was built. Not just Naive, but it sounds like you don’t really want it either.

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Used_Addendum_2724@reddit

I get it, you want to feel powerful. You want to feel like your system is the One True System. But they're all a prison where the greatest deviants worm their way into warden. The only thing that ever worked, and it did for 300,000 years, are reverse dominance hierarchies.

But your VOTE HARDER silliness just perpetuates your own exploitation, doinkus.

https://dungherder.wordpress.com/2022/08/23/a-critical-examination-of-us-democracy/

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

lol c’mon man. I’m not gonna read your favorite poop time material. Bring me something you wrote.

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Used_Addendum_2724@reddit

I wrote that.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

I’m not gonna read it. But I’m proud of you.

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Used_Addendum_2724@reddit

Of course you're not. Why let information and reason disrupt a perfectly good delusion!

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Bugscuttle999@reddit

The responsibility lies with capitalism and those who prop it up. There can be no progress, no halting or reversing our doom under capitalism.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

We are NOT entirely capitalist you know. We have a strange mixture of both capitalism and socialism in this country. Some means of production are owned by the capitalist, others are owned by the worker class. Then we have means of production owned by the public a la the stock market. Our economic system isn’t as solid and infallible as you are implying.

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Bugscuttle999@reddit

What country are you in?

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

lol. Did you forget the actual definition of capitalism and socialism?

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

What about responsibility?

We evolved a brain that enabled us to create our current high-tech society.

Unfortunately, we didn't evolve the responsibility you speak of. Without our genes to guide and/or restrain us...well, you can look around and see the results.

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Urshilikai@reddit

Disagree. We do have that responsibility, the rich have constructed rules to exploit those boundaries. Direct murder is bad, but social murder is pretty much free game. Direct robbery is bad, but distributed robbery is fine (wage theft is larger than every other kind of theft combined). The median person has an awfully good understanding of responsibility, we just don't have the legal means to enforce it systemically.

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

Disagree. We do have that responsibility,

We should take the responsibility...but we don't. .

the rich have constructed rules to exploit those boundaries.

Ah, yes. Here we go again. The Blame Game. It's the rich! It's Capitalism! It's money! Isn't money the root of all evil?!? It's this! It's that! Or, it's some other damn thing!

There's just one problem with The Blame Game. People inevitably BLAME the wrong thing! Without fail!

Until you get it right--and, pardon me if I don't hold my breath for THAT long shot to boot home--the only one who benefits from playing The Blame Game is the holier-than-thou, "I'm better than you _" (fill in the blank to designate who you feel superior to) feeling the Gamer gets when he or she plays The Blame Game. (You can see why The Blame Game has always been such an easy sell.)

Throughout history, people have been dividing themselves into groups. Then, one group has someone to blame...and, a way to make themselves feel superior... to that other group. This has gone on since the dawn of bloody time.

And, throughout human history, civilizations have come and gone and humanity has never figured out what the bloody problem REALLY is!!!

Please, don't respond to my posts with the Blame Game. You're only massaging your own ego. (That's the real social-media addiction....a place to go for an orgy of ego masturbation. No wonder those computer geeks got so rich! And, that's what the Blame Gamers paid for and it MADE those geeks very, very rich indeed!)

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

So I take it your against a new constitutional convention?

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

So I take it your against a new constitutional convention?

Don't be silly. This isn't about me. It's about you!

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Don’t be pedantic!

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

Don’t be pedantic!

You're a perfect example. You can always tell when someone is ego-food needy. (The difference between wanting something and needing something.)

Well, I shall leave to your feast. But, to me, you're just part of the problem because, sadly, you are only able to perceive a symptom but your own ego blinds you to the underlying cause of humankind's problem.

Enjoy your Blame Gaming right to the end!

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genomixx-redux@reddit

what

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

I love the phrase “eat the rich” but I think it’s important to remember, that the people who live in castles don’t know how to build the castle.

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SonicTemp1e@reddit

Somewhere along the way here in America, we all collectively decided that the individuals rights supersede the individuals responsibilities.

No we all didn't. This overly emotional attempt at language diminishes the point you're trying to make.

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Future-Bunch3478@reddit

Great ideas usually die due to those in power choosing not to adapt them.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Why are we allowing companies to have rights? Shouldn’t they have responsibilities?

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Future-Bunch3478@reddit

They should be held to a higher standard, yeah. But we have already killed the world and the ship has sailed. People with power tend to just self enrich, rather than optimize

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

We can control the people with power. Remember. We out number them.

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Future-Bunch3478@reddit

It doesn’t seem like anyone is actually in control. Feels like the wild west still

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Did you know? Guns were actually very rare in the Wild West. It wasn’t until around the early 1900s that gun manufacturers started mass producing them in assembly lines. Even then, most guns were military.

The explosion in the gun market was largely caused by improvements in marketing strategy. Before then, selling large amounts of anything was confined to government level efforts.

It only seems like lots of people were getting their stage coach held up by robbers and bandits because those storylines are pop culture. In actuality, today’s crime rates are probably much higher.

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Future-Bunch3478@reddit

Same for the era of piracy. Short bursts of power vacuums and everything stabilizes. Same concept though.

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itsatoe@reddit

Your WhatIf starts with a reference to "our ultra wealthy."

We can't really have anything you describe after that if we have a system where one percent of the people control half of all the resources on the planet.

So then if you look at that a bit more closely, it starts to become questionable why any individual should control more resources than any other. But going down that road means moving past money. So... it's a long road from the status quo to there.

And as for electing leaders that will fix things for us... the problem is that leaders get access to the privileges afforded to those richest people, and they thus work to maintain the status quo.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

The January 6 insurrection showed us that just a small group of people can enact change by force and our government what would happen if we had 200,000

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itsatoe@reddit

My take is that most non-rich/non-politicians also want the status quo to continue exactly as it is too. Because that's what pays their rent and grocery bills.

It's the crushing weight of weekly/monthly bills that are higher than one's meager wages... even though those meager wages take 150% of one's internal resources. Trying to break away from that system leads to homelessness and hunger.

What's lacking is not the will to change. And we're not lacking in ideas about what to fix. What is missing is a way out of the cycles of work and debt. How do people stop participating in the system today and still eat tomorrow?

.
N.b.: The answer is permaculture. And here's a permaculture pathway out of those cycles: https://integrationcenter.org/plan/

"Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”
— Bill Mollison, founder of Permaculture

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Decent-Box-1859@reddit

"We can pass legislation"-- no, "we" cannot. We can vote for representatives. And corporations will influence whoever we vote for to do their bidding. 1) Blackmail: real or fabricated scandals. 2) Insider trading tips 3) "Donations" to scam charity foundations that funnel back to politicians (bribes) 4) Controlling the talking points on major news networks, newspapers, etc. because these groups need corporate advertisements: "We'll advertise with you if you say what we want." 5) Book/ TV show deals and/or speaking tour gigs-- very lucrative incentives. 6) Threats to suicide a politician or their loved ones. This is rare and a last resort. "Take the carrot so we don't have to use the stick".

The average Westerner can't understand how democracy is a farce, because voting is their patriotic duty. If voting doesn't work, then what? Revolt? Too much effort. Got bills, job, kids, and chores to worry about. Voting soothes one's conscience that we "did something". Problems are the other party's fault. Simplistic, black and white thinking.

Political corruption has been a problem for over 100 years; and nothing has been done. Since Woodrow Wilson's Presidency; possibly earlier. Eisenhower warned about the "Military Industrial Complex"-- he couldn't fight this group back then. It's worse today. Unlikely we'll be able to fix this.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

You’re against the idea of a new constitutional convention then? Because that’s what this post is implying. We literally just revolt. Revolt. Take up arms against the government and write a new set of rules. One that isn’t 200 years old and steeped in myth and legend. One that doesn’t mention bear arms. One that ensures science is a foundation of our decision making ability. You would pass the chance to change into something new because…. You like the current system?

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Decent-Box-1859@reddit

"Just Revolt" sounds like "Just Stop Oil". Naive.

Americans can't peacefully cooperate to remove Daylight Savings Time, and we all agree that we hate changing clocks twice a year. It's actually really hard to get the multiple factions in the US to agree to do anything... unless you force them with violence. Or unless it already benefits those in power.

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Urshilikai@reddit

you sound kinda defeatist

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Decent-Box-1859@reddit

I've been studying the issues longer than you have.

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Bandits101@reddit

It appears that people that become aware of the dire issues facing the Earth, look for a scapegoat….they demand to know who is to blame, who’s at fault, what societal group or country.

There is never any introspection. If they blame the rich and they are rich, I bet they think it’s not themselves personally.

The same applies to Boomers, Billionaires, highly populated poor countries, oil producers, capitalists, corporations.

A person could be a member or part of every one of those groups and still insist that it doesn’t include them.

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Enkmarl@reddit

setting aside the "LLM"ness of your post, the heart of what you are complaining about is a concept called liberalism. and no simply deciding to elect the right person is not the answer, a movement must be built first and foremost

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Dude… we can elect leaders with the intent to build a new constitution. We can call it the “constitutional convention” make a whole new constitution. That’s how we did it the last time.

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theCaitiff@reddit

We can call it the “constitutional convention” make a whole new constitution. That’s how we did it the last time.

We even have a method to do it written into our current constitution!

Oh.... Wait..... Yeah, no.

You may want to read how that works because if the state legislatures decide who to send, and more than half of the states have republican controlled legislatures, and the current republican party is openly fascist, and only a third of state legislatures are safely democratic, and the rules of order inside the convention are decided by a majority vote...

Hold on. I think I'm getting close to figuring our what our new constitution looks like.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

We have the technology to hold a popular vote to elect constitutional representatives to work towards a new constitutions. Every state has the ability to enact public referendum.

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theCaitiff@reddit

But they wont.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Why does it have to be the state legislative branch who decides? Let’s make it a popular vote at the community level then!

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Mechbear2000@reddit

Half the population would rather see the US burn to the ground than change.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

That’s a fallacy most people don’t really like fire that much

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Enkmarl@reddit

honestly it just seems like the capital class that was present in the colonies of north america seized an opportunity to cement their power. It doesn't at all feel anything like a movement towards democracy or something like that

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

I’m talking: a whole new country, we merge some of the poorer states, give statehood to some of the territories large enough. Maybe invite a few smaller local international economies. We won’t even be called the United States of America anymore. We will have a new name, and a new national identity. Our founding constitution need only bind us as long as we wish it to. We can make a better one.

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CarbonRod12@reddit

I appreciate your idealism, but the power imbalance between what the elites allow people to participate in and restrict people with the surveillance and police state, is too far gone.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

The January 6 insurrection showed us that just a small group of people is enough to completely overthrow the government

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Enkmarl@reddit

I'd say start by focusing on the kinds of people you want in your movement and what it will take to get them on board. Starting out with a focus on what the structure will look like after you've entirely succeeded is putting the cart before the horse.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

The end goal is peaceful revolution. I want to gather a large enough group of people to storm the capital, walk out the current leaders, and instal a new government. New constitution and all.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

lol also it’s a list. You don’t need AI to write down a list. I was gonna do more but I decided that 5 negatives and 5 positives was just about the most that I would read if I was doom scrolling Reddit.

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genomixx-redux@reddit

My question is, why are you starting from scratch with this proposal instead of working as part of orgs like DSA?

You can have all the ideas in the world but it doesn't mean scrap if you aren't actively organizing with the people around you to unite theory and practice.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

What makes you think I’m not part of an organization like DSA?

Do you really think in today’s age of social media, a popular idea can’t spread?

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genomixx-redux@reddit

There is a naivete in your theory of change, your organizing approach, and a lack of opsec considerations in your reddit commenting -- which suggests a lack of experience in working within orgs like DSA and on-the-ground counterinsurgency.

I could be wrong tho and by all means feel free to share more.

None of this, by the way, is a personal dig at you. We learn by making mistakes and nobody's perfect, nobody has all the answers. This is just a gentle nudge toward another direction; if you are against the fash trash and for the wretched of the earth then you are a comrade of mine 🤙

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Urshilikai@reddit

throwing my weight behind this comment. I'm not against OP sharing their political leftward awakening, but this sub as a whole needs a better connection to praxis. We have all these ideas, we know how bad the future timelines could be if little or nothing is done, so where is the action? That last bit is the real problem with this sub.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

The action hinges on general support. The goal here is to not only spread a message, but make the message popular among a large enough group of people that an organization like DSA or any organization can use it as a rallying force to enact change. You need to support messaging at the grassroots roots level to grow change. Christianity didn’t start the day Jesus died ya know. It took like 200 years for it to form.

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NyriasNeo@reddit

"These are just ideas, but we can elect leaders that will enact these changes."

We can but we won't. I bet you know how politics work. Saying a bunch of "we can ...." on reddit is not a plan or a movement.

Don't tell me you think that a bunch of off-the-top-of-your-hat ideas posted on reddit can go anywhere in a world where "drill baby drill" and "mass deportation" won.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

There is some sense in pessimism, but it’s not the only ideology that moves society forward. Can you convince everyone to be as pessimistic as you are? If not, then Is what you say correct in a republic? How long has pessimism been an ideology antithesis to progress not only in America, but the world? Did the slaves not Experiance pessimism?

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NyriasNeo@reddit

" Can you convince everyone to be as pessimistic as you are? "

Why would I bother to try? If what I say is just what I think is going on. No ideology requires. Whether what say is correct is an empirical question. It does not requires me to do anything.

If you think you can convince a world where "drill baby drill" and "mass deportation" won with reddit posts, you are free to try. I think it is gullible but I will still root for you.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Thanks man.

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Routine_Slice_4194@reddit

If we can blame it all on billionaires and politicians then we don't need to take any responsibility ourselves.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Not just billionaires and politicians, everyone. We have the organizational know how to ensure as a collective we aren’t making decisions that don’t benefit the community. We don’t even need billionaires. Let’s just get rid of them. Make it so approaching that kind of wealth is essentially a money drain. It goes right back into the economy instead of being used to invest in housing speculation.

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Routine_Slice_4194@reddit

I'm happy to get rid of billionaires, can we also get rid of beef?

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Nope I like it. I’m keeping beef.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

But we can certainly have much less of it overall. I’d be fine if it was like super expensive and only on holidays or something.

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gomihako_@reddit

So what if America was like east Asia? Then it would be a different dystopia

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Or what if it was like west Africa?

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ChromaticStrike@reddit

"what if every societal problem is solved and we enact fair changes" is a bit pointless of topic. You guys are stuck because you can't do that.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Which position exactly are you thinking of? Senator? Mayor? Show cobbler? Instagram model? Are you insinuating that only certain peoples opinions are admissible in the court of public opinion?

I’d say it’s more accurate to state that a popular idea will take flight if enough people want it to. Do you want it to? Or do you want it to remain the same?

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ChromaticStrike@reddit

Sorry, I thought you were talking about actually making change.

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Less_Subtle_Approach@reddit

Sounds great OP. Go make it happen.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

My plan is insurrection. The January 6 interaction showed us that just a small group of people can connect change I think with a larger group of people we can do so peacefully we’ll just walk into the Capital and then walk them out.

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AreaAccomplished2896@reddit

Should this go is collapse support?

People elect leaders based upon the information available to them. That is why the media is owned by billionaires and education is under attack here in the United States. That prevents meaningful results from peaceful transitions in power.

Some on the Internet seem to hope that the damage done by the current U.S. administration will change people's minds but the knowledge of what is causing all the damage is mediated by companies owned by the rich. You can still find people blaming their problems on Biden, despite him not being in power. Still, if you want to make a peaceful change, the coming elections likely will represent our last chance if we ignore the possibility of vote tampering or no elections ever happening again.

As for other means of approaching the matter, law enforcement is paid well to enforce (not maintain) order. Until you are willing to risk your existence with likely retaliation, that's not an option. I would note, however, this administration is known for it's incompetence regardless of its aggression.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

I’m not talking about electing leaders in the US government. I’m talking about electing new leaders to lead a new government. The January 6 insurrection showed us that just a small group of people can change on the government what would happen if we had 200,000 or 500,000.

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Wave_of_Anal_Fury@reddit

These are just ideas, but we can elect leaders that will enact these changes.

People in the US just voted for Trump through a combination of "sticking it to the libs" and because they were unhappy with the price of eggs.

I appreciate your idealism, but people don't really work that way.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

I think you’re misunderstanding the post here. This is a call for revolution. Electing leader outside our current government with the intent to have a new constitutional convention.

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earthkincollective@reddit

Freedom without responsibility is a child's idea of freedom. We're a country of children in adult bodies, unfortunately.

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

Pessimism doesn’t spread ideas and bring change. It only stifles it. It’s great if you’re a detective though.

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Khazar420@reddit

Imagine a social contract existing

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Cptawesome23@reddit (OP)

We already have a social contract. It’s just not on paper. This would be better alluded to as the concept that Japanese people work harder than Americans do. Or that people from the Caribbean are on “island time”. These are their social contracts.

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