As with last year, I’m gonna assume silence means you agree with the status quo. None of this “my friends already know what I think” bullshit. It’s time to tell them.

you could start by going on the record on this one, because it is not the mainstream political position right now:

regardless of innocence, if you shoot an unarmed 13 year old on camera, you should be in jail until your court date.

it’s such a cowardly fucking thing to say your friends know what you think. you get to hold the perfect political position in all cases, without ever having to stick your neck out. each friend gets to have their own mirage of you, because you won’t commit. My ire is not directed at people who occasionally speak up, but aren’t responding to every daily issue in the news cycle. I’m upset with those who never take a side at all.

Here are some things that are not mainstream political opinions, so you don’t have to worry about your friends “already knowing what you think”:

• abolish the police
• full equality for trans people. end bathroom bills, forced sex assault bills, school sports bills.
• regulate loot boxes as strictly as gambling. these prey on children and those with certain psychological characteristics, but are unregulated nightmares. Regardless of if you play games or not, they’re a multibillion dollar cancer that set people up for a lifetime of failure. Some compassion would be appreciated.
• regulate drugs solely based on harm and not racism
• allow immigrants into this country. do not cage them or send them to Biden’s Magical Mystery Spa.
• land value tax
• ban or heavily regulate uber/lyft
• aggressively open up copyright law
• make all COVID patents public domain
• remove tax exemptions for charities and churches
• stop subsidizing crappy businesses (airlines, cars…)
• standardize residential leases within each city/county

You might disagree with me on some of these. That’s okay! Tell me why! Because I believe everything I said will help people. And they’re not in the mainstream, so they need people like you advocating for them!

I’m not asking you to be pure. I’m not asking you to be a clone of me. I’m asking you to use the platform you have to fight for what you know is right. People who don’t take public stances– they aren’t virtuous. They aren’t wisely staying out of the fray. They aren’t avoiding “virtue signalling”. They’re cowards. They’re callous to the suffering that exists in the world. They can avoid calling out injustice all day long. Avoided virtue signalling does not make them righteous in the eyes of the oppressed, and turning away from the oppressed just shows how little they care. They shout from the rooftops: not “This is unjust!” but “Looking cool in front of my friends is more important than the blood of the dead!”. It is the ultimate virtue signal - the signal of the status quo, of the white majority, of the oppressor. “Don’t worry Officer. I won’t be a problem.”

Chances are, you have a vote. When people start threatening to vote a certain way, politicians get nervous. They start listening. “Nothing will change” is literally untrue, and I will not allow that bullshit. You could have said that about every social movement in history. All progress has its ups and downs, measured in impossibly tiny steps. You’re just as wrong today as you would have been if you saw a lynching in 1955 and thought “Nothing will change”. A slave whipped in 1855 and thought “Nothing will change”. You could have watched women fight for the vote in the US in 1848 and thought “Nothing will change”. You would have been right for 70 years - but eventually, they won. Are you confident that “Nothing will change”, or are you scared of the change itself?

It’s not a contest and it’s not pointless self-congratulation. Nobody has all the answers. But I see a burning wreckage, and most people can at least bring a bucket of water. It won’t hurt. And with enough buckets, we might put it out.