[Liverpool] Open Rights Group : Digital Economy Bill - Manchester, 23rd Jan

[Bob Ham]

On Mon, 2010-01-11 at 10:22 +0000, aidan mcguire wrote:

> re the point ..."it makes no difference"  -if this view is strongly
> held then suggest people get active in the coming election and do
> something about improving matters.

It depends on what you want to make a difference *to*.  The things that
*can* be influenced through the narrow bounds of British politics are of
little real significance.  If I thought they were significant, I would
no doubt "get active."

I believe we need to change the way we live as a species.  You can't
vote for that; it's every individual's responsibility to change.  We
have the power to change ourselves but it's difficult to do that.  It's
a lot easier to give that power and the responsibility for changing
things, to another person; a politician.  Unfortunately, this isn't
going to help solve the extraordinary problems we have, either as a
city, a nation or a species.  We have to take responsibility as
individuals.

I look around the world and most of the problems I see do not have
solutions that can be dealt with by spending public money or even by
replacing the current national political system with a different one
(such as communism, socialism, fascism, etc.)  Indeed, most of the
problems I see are caused by this idea that there must be some "system".

This thread started off about a campaign to try to dissuade the
government from enacting legislation that will cut people off of the
Internet.  The issue here, is not the legislation but the fact that
there is some institution, some group of people that have the power to
dictate such a state of affairs.

By engaging with this institution on its terms, you validate its
position and enable it to cut you off of the Internet.  Similarly with
voting.  Every time you vote, not only are you declaring your support
for a particular group of people to wield power, you're also declaring
support for the idea that there should be a group of people wielding
power over you.

If you really want to change things for the better, disengage from these
institutions and the system they work within.  They'll soon shrivel up
and die.  And not a moment too soon, IMHO.

-- 
Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
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