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I am powerless to prevent even my local county from voting to steal my income to fund nonsense welfare, so I can only imagine how much less hope you have for political change and in your ability to meaningfully enact any.

Good luck, and I hope you stay out of harm's way.




How do you think any political change was ever achieved then?


Anyone can attempt political change, but it all comes down to EV.

I live in the US. I can openly speak my mind with relative safety. And I mean relative. My physical safety will likely not be risked, nor the physical safety of my family. But we are very much at a stage where any dissent is accompanied by internet mobs and unemployment.

Do I think that I can convince > 50% of voters in my county to rescind a 1% tax on my household income over $200k? Unlikely. Near zero probability. And my guess is that that probability is certainly less than the probability I am called a racist, transphobe, white supremacist. And that may reduce my income to $0. The EV play doesn't make sense when I have children to raise.

I imagine the above weighted by an openly corrupt gov willing to imprision and kill further diminishes the EV for an individual.


But the voters in the US aren't voting for or against a 1% tax on household income over $200k, or anything complicated like that. They've voting for team vs the other. So even if you could convince people about this tax or whatever, you really still are just hoping that the tax aligns with one team or another. Just hope you don't have any other issues you care about.


At the federal level, yes.

But voting exists at all levels, and I've found that the more local, the more you're exposed to the tyranny of the majority.

My example is based off the very real Portland Metro Supportive Housing Tax. The process was: get measure on ballot => get > 50% of votes. There were no "better men" involved to declare gov welfare as beyond the scope of government. All it took were a bunch of people that wanted an outcome voting for a process to achieve that outcome without having to pay for it.

My point was that I'm effectively powerless to prevent that issue or to reverse it, yet it's likely much easier to change relative to Russian, state-level policies, and I'm not dealing with physical dangers. Hence my condolences to the Russian.




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