Username checks out.

See, there it is! You still care enough that when your pride is poked you’ll take action and defend yourself. You’re not entirely apathetic. Dare I say… there’s hope for you yet?

IDK. You did seem to recognize that you were getting shamed, so either you took a shot in the dark and were right or you read it. But, I’d rather type bullshit than sit at home like a chickenshit.

No, you’re apathetic, I assume you can’t be troubled to read.

Single use and flushable.

I down to see the mutants, the zombies, the hot rod racing war bands, the increasingly intelligent apes. But if it just ends up being cancer and eating rats… meh, I’ll bail.

The shaming is for the self-awareness that you are know of the problem, have the ability to act, but chose not to care and do nothing. Nature doesn’t care about hope. As far as we know humans are the only animals with a concept of “hope” because we deeply understand that our actions have consequences, good and bad/short term and long term, excel at pattern recognition, keep detailed histories, can plan for the future, and can build or destroy to such an extreme we’ve changed the climate of the planet itself. We know our personal nature has a very ugly side like selfishness, hate, greed, lust, and that we often treat each other like commodities or barriers to our own success. Hope is the mentality that comes from being self-aware of our own limitations and is how we convince ourselves we can do something, personally or collectively, when everything says “it’s not possible”. There’s a fine line between that and bashing one’s head against a wall trying to get a different result out of the same wrong method, but innovation is what made us succeed. Hope isn’t a bad thing, but you don’t need it to attempt to do anything since hope does nothing but make yourself feel better about your odds of success when the struggle is real. Lacking hope doesn’t make you helpless, just unhelpful.

A better chance is relative to the action taken and the ability of the person taking it. If I watch a house burn from across the street I have a better chance of not getting burned than if I go in to try and help someone escape. If I go in to help someone escape I have a better chance of helping them than if I stood outside and watched. Now the best chance they have is if the fire department is there, as they have the skill and equipment to do it the safest, but sometimes you have to make a choice and do the best with what you’ve got.

In Trump’s America, I have a great chance of avoiding the worst of his policies because I’m a cis white dude. If I embraced it there’s a good chance I can get ahead. If I continue to loudly express my opposition to it there’s a good chance I’ll get arrested/assaulted/killed.

Not every action needs to be monumental, nor does it all require risk. It takes next to no effort and poses minimal risk for me to pick a worm up off the concrete and toss it into the dirt. The worm’s got a better chance at living, even though whether it does or does not has no affect on affect me, the world, or the universe in any meaningful way. Nobody will ever know what I did, the worm doesn’t understand, and if I didn’t do something the only consequence would be pondering “why didn’t I help when doing so cost me nothing?”

I ain’t here to convince you because apathy is a choice of selfish convenience. You’d take action (or I guess if you’re really invested in apathy, die) if outside forces threatened you, but you’ve got to will yourself to do it on behalf of others.

America is only in a decline because you choose to see it as declining. Conservatives saw the progress that was being made as the decline of their version of “how it should be”, proposed an entire Project book of solutions, and have rapidly stopped the decline of their way of life at the expense of everyone not in their camp (well, a lot of them are fucked by it but they never thought it would happen to them).

Sometimes progress is revolutionary and rapid, sometimes it’s tunneling through bedrock with your fingernails. You might not see the other side in your lifetime, but what you achieved makes the job of the person who comes after you that much easier. Right now conservatives are filling every hole we’ve ever started tunneling- from women’s right, to minority rights, to civil rights regardless of what race/gender/or orientation you are- with concrete and they’re not going to stop until they erase what we have done.

There’s a lot of things that happen in the world that neither you or I have the power to change. But every day you chose to let something you could affect be trampled unchallenged, your apathy is their gain. Conservatives banded together despite their differences and showed they were willing to commit violence to get their change, and they empowered the most selfish among them to be their figurehead. I really don’t know what left-wing Americans want, their own super-lib version of Trump that will use authority to make all their dreams come true, or to sit around and be well-meaning victims who blame a decline on the inability to find a dictator of their own. You have agency, go use it even if it’s not going stop every wrong currently happening.

This encapsulates why it’s so hard to get the majority of Americans to care. The cycle of war, price increases, dwindling quality of life, crumbling infrastructure, growing wealth inequality, racism, misogyny, bigotry; it’s all normalized over decades. Americans don’t get shocked by anything unless it happens directly to them. And not “oh gas prices are up again, that sucks”, but “a cop gunned down my child”. Without having to suffer personally a lot of us will continue to abide the suffering of others and act like being made aware of it is an affront to our right to blissful ignorance.

Haywire. Musically they might not hit me as deep and profound as say, Bad Religion. But for live show intensity… Fuck, it’s like the 90s again. A sweaty crush of humanity getting their eardrums blown while someone back-flipping off the balcony knocks their teeth out. Fun for all ages!

Trump has never been much for requiring consent, especially when spreading herpes.

I mean, when I saw them the singer had a strap-on flamethrower and later spanked the keyboardist’s bare ass with a jizzing dildo. I don’t think they’re unaware they have a gooner theme.

The spring mix I purchase and forget about in the bottom drawer, only to be found again when it’s a bag of black goo is a sacrifice to the fridge god.

Star Trek IV: The One With the Whales

A go to for sick days in bed for years.

I know it’s older, but here’s how they fought in the analog age.

We’re really all over with Spinosaurus.

Political divide is things like budget, use of public lands, roads & infrastructure. We’re split on morality, ethics, bigotry, and child rape. A good number of us don’t even bother talking to family members anymore, why would I waste my time trying to converse with the dude who lives up the street from me that has a t-shirt of Donnie surrounded by bikini clad girls and “Chillin’ like a felon”?

Trump is the poster child of chauvinism, bigotry, bravado, greed, deceit, swindle, and zero self-control. His ability to get away with it has emboldened his supports to embrace their worst inclinations and treat their neighbors like Trump does. Granted, they are not Trump, so the average thief, wife beater, or kid diddler still gets arrested, but a lot have figured out they can be blatantly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or a plain old dick in public and love that there’s no consequences anymore.

I have no interest in winning over people who have no shame, no remorse, and no empathy. Some will come crawling over when the suffering trickles down and finally affects them, but without any self-reflection or moral awakening, they’ll go right back to their old ways as soon as the burden is lifted. Fuck ‘em.