Don't base your life on politicians

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for November 9, 2022)

Why would anyone bother confronting politicians? Do they really believe politicians matter in their daily life?

You protect your rights by exercising them-- by putting them into practice-- not by begging others to respect them.

I'm not going to a politician's office to try to convince them of anything. Not to beg them to stop violating my rights nor to ask them to violate someone else on my behalf.

You won't find me at a protest, a political rally, or in a voting booth for the same reason I'm not going to go to an inner city to beg the violent criminals there to stop hurting innocent people. It's a waste of time and, as shown by January 6, 2021, can be pointlessly dangerous.

Both groups, freelance criminals and politicians-- which I see as clones of each other-- are inconsequential to my life. They don't matter except when they do something to violate me or someone around me, and in that case, they aren't likely to stop simply because I asked nicely. Especially not if I ask them according to the rules and procedures they say must be followed.

The worst type of political action is to ask for the rights of others to be violated through more laws.  It's not smart or ethical and only gives them justification for violating you later. Playing political "an eye for an eye" is how liberty dies.

Politicians and other criminals will only stop violating people if they have no choice. When you ask politely, they have the choice to say "no".

Exercising your rights can be dangerous when there are people out there who mean to stop you. Most worthwhile things carry some risk, and living your life outside political permission is no different. I believe it's worth the risk.

Anyone who attacks you for exercising your rights is the bad guy. It doesn't matter what justification is used or what law they say gives them this power or imaginary political authority. It doesn't matter if they got enough votes to get away with it. They are bad guys with delusions of legitimacy.

Don't base how you live your life on the opinions of those who win elections. Not even if they have the power to hurt you-- this is something any bad guy has the power to do. Don't live your life to appease them. Treat them as though they don't matter, and soon you'll discover they don't.

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Blogger, are you drunk?

Blogger-- the site, not the person-- has developed an odd quirk.

It is suddenly marking comments from years ago as spam. These are comments that were previously published-- I know because when I go to the post, some of them have replies from me. But, now they are awaiting deletion as spam.

I just had a batch of them from 2014 that I had to approve or mark as "not spam".

I don't know what's going on there.

Added: They just keep on coming. Since I started paying attention to the dates, they've all been from 2014. I've been approving all of them. Including those I strongly disagree with.
Oddly, I discovered I was unable to post this as a comment, so maybe their comment code is broken.

.

Judge the words, not the source.

After my post in support of online anonymity, I heard someone make what seems to me one of the dumbest statements against online anonymity I can imagine.

This person was saying that he automatically discounts everything which comes from anonymous accounts.

Really? Their anonymity renders him incapable of weighing the truth of a statement? That's incredibly dumb and pathetic.

I've said in the past, and I stand by it to this day: it doesn't matter who said something, truth is truth. It's why I don't really care if a supposedly historical quote wasn't really said by the person it is attributed to. If it's true, I'll gladly claim the orphaned quote as my own.

Everyone is capable of saying true, and smart, things. Just give them time.

Hitler said some true things that anyone would agree with if they didn't know the source-- I don't know of any off-hand, and I don't feel like digging for a quote, but I guarantee you it's a fact. Even if it was just "Die meisten Menschen mögen Hunde als Gesellschaft" or "Most people like dogs for companionship" (according to Google translate anyway). 

As hard as it may be to believe, every politician occasionally says something true. Yes, even Maxine Waters must have done so at some point.

Sure, anonymous accounts are as likely to spew nonsense as "real journalists". Don't automatically write them off just because you dislike their anonymity, though. Judge the words, not the source.

If you discount truth because of the source-- because it's one you don't like or because the source prefers to remain anonymous for reasons that are none of your business-- you are shooting yourself in the foot. Or brain. You are handicapping yourself for no good reason-- for your feelings.

That's your choice, of course, but it's not smart.

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