free software resistance

 the cost of computing freedom is eternal vigilance

### the-elimination-of-conflict-is-anti-left *originally posted:* aug 2025 resting on its own definition, the word "elimination" could be interpreted one of two ways here. it would certainly help anyone trying to dismiss my point to interpret it the wrong way, but i could actually mean it in either context so lets start by clarifying: i COULD mean that conflict for its own sake is good, that ANY effort to avoid or end conflict is bad, but i certainly do NOT mean that. there are many situations where the LEAST required effort is good actually, because IF thats sufficient then you can use the same energy to do MORE THINGS. there are absolutely people who will maximise conflict to try to wear down those involved, and this is not only inefficient but its counterproductive. everything im going to say comes down to context and specific instances. the way i mean "the elimination of conflict" is an effort- granted, its never an honest effort or an honest proposal- to treat conflict as an inherently bad thing. that too is counterproductive, and is used to dismiss reasonable causes and understandable (even predictable) reactions by the public because they didnt follow the right process, or do the "right thing", or they didnt "try hard enough" to do things "some other way" instead. and im going to go so far as to say that anyone who treats the removal of conflict as a necessity or even a top priority, is most likely betraying the public. i mean, unless youre a diplomat because then its literally your job. lets talk about liberals, and how it took sarah mcbride less than a year to betray the most vulnerable group she could have represented. this is not only about sarah mcbride of course, but a clearer example of betrayal from an alleged progressive (liberals are never progressive) would be difficult to find. sarah mcbride has her own bathroom in her office. the openly discriminatory law intended to keep her from using the bathroom safely affects every trans person who enters the capitol building EXCEPT her. instead of representing TRANS RIGHTS as the first transgender representative in congress, she declared "im not here to fight about bathrooms". she said that it was an attempt to distract. i wonder if it would be an "attempt to distract" if they started to reinstitute jim crow laws, which black women have compared to anti-trans bathroom laws. or if a black congresswoman would say "im not here to fight about bathrooms" if they suddenly decided to segregate public toilets along racial lines again. on the one hand, i would like to say "probably not", a black congresswoman would have more political sense than that. it would probably (should probably) end her career to let down all americans that much. on the other hand, i dont think weve found the lowest depth the democratic (or labour) party can sink to, so im wary of saying anything based on an assumption i dont actually make. this discrimination has also led to harassment of cis women, with lesbians and indeed any cis woman simply perceived to not be feminine enough risking people cornering them in bathrooms or even being harassed or dragged out of the the bathroom by police. so really, youre not here to fight about that? and you call yourself a "representative"? as i once foolishly did with certain authors who have made a career pivot to attacking trans rights, i hoped that this was out of context, but this was the first time i noticed mcbride making news since she was first sworn into office. youre a representative, but youre not going to stand against blatant discrimination for the people in your state. well, fuck you very much. but did it end there? of course not. she went on to do an interview with ezra klein, where she defended her "right" to say that she doesnt want her cis daughters "run over" by "formerly male" athletes, but that "she cant say that" as if its a point that needs to be made or a point that helps her state in some way. i mean you cant say it because its fucking transphobic, so here sarah mcbride is literally defending transphobia. yes, thats a fucking problem! the democratic party uses people from marginalised groups to water down, steer away from and even defeat important efforts where people actually NEED a representative. but sarah mcbride does not really represent delaware, or the needs of americans, and least of all trans people. mcbride represents the same interests congress generally represents: lobbyists and capitalists. she is scarcely better than a congresswoman blaire white, or a congressman buck angel. i wish it ended there, but of course it doesnt. in the same interview, she BLAMED THE LEFT- you know, the only people who ACTUALLY fight for trans rights- for being "illiberal" and for challenging bullshit narratives like her own. if they stopped, they could get more done! just like her open COMMITMENT to do NOTHING about discrimination against people who need to use the bathroom. this lie is so unbelievable: the left should STOP fighting, so that they could do a BETTER job of- doing absolutely nothing. and that may be the sole principle the democratic party actually has. of course it goes without saying that the sort of disgusting betrayal by token members is something the republicans do all the time. i dont know when the democrats adopted the same practice, only that theyre supposed to be the "progressive" ones. the democratic party isnt a party of progress. THE PEOPLE fight for progress, and the party exploits and limits and moderates that fight, going as far as to call for people to stop seeking more rights. and yes, the republicans fight against those things openly, including by talking democratic "representatives" into shutting up, doing nothing, or even joining them in both rhetoric and bill signing that hurts civil liberties. if you want my opinion of the lesser evil, its the democrats whose job USED TO include sometimes bowing to the demands of the left. their entire scam is based on that premise- they dont really care about your rights or your needs, but someone has to pretend. republicans play the bad cop. democrats play the good cop. but theres no such thing as a good cop. none of these politicians work for the people. but that does not preclude a show to convince you. i wouldnt be the first, or even the hundredth, monkey to say that THE LEFT HAS NO PARTY. but since the point of parties (if they were honest) is representation and progress and defending rights, and these parties wont, some people think that the solution is ANOTHER party. hell, ive even said so. im not against the idea, but if we focus on another party within a system designed to sort every idea, every right into "the two genders" of opposition to human dignity and pretend representation of humanity, then we are focused on most likely doing nothing. thats the real point of the democratic party- limiting progress. im not against the idea because forming another party COULD actually help in the long run. i dont know it would, but i can conceive that it might, so im not against it. UNTIL THEN of course, the left needs another plan. just kidding. the left manages MOST of its progress WITHOUT a solid plan. im definitely not against having a plan! its simply overrated, in that progress can and often does happen without one. a plan might help a lot, so it isnt a bad thing to have. but when people are changing the world, they are often chided for not having a plan- more often they dont have a plan that is necessarily obvious. but the truth is that progress can happen without one as well. and while liberals seem to do most of their work based on an imaginary version of reality where all progress comes from working WITH the enemy or playing the neoliberal political game by the rule book (natalie fucking wynn, god i miss when she was smarter- i wouldnt pick on her if she didnt pull this same bullshit im complaining about regarding fucking genocide- hey natalie! you just plagiarised sarah mcbrides ezra klein interview- good job!) most progress actually comes from the left openly fighting against bullshit until both republicans and democrats are left without a choice but to cede to the masses. politicians do as little as they can, but their job is to PREVENT a revolution- to avoid progress. now, i cannot stress this enough! that there IS a place for diplomacy, but you can do that without openly betraying the public like the parties do. im not against bipartisan support when it actually serves the public, as it occasionally does. but just saying "bipartisan support" upholds an illusion of unanimity while marginalised groups get the short end of the stick. EVERYONES HAPPY! except those who are still getting shit on, but HEY! EVERYONES HAPPY! we can stop fighting now. i cannot stress enough that no leftist who ever picked up a book thinks that we can fight ALL THE TIME. im not here to chide people for burning out, for missing a protest for mental (or physical) health. with enough leftists, we dont actually need every single foot on the ground at the same time. sure, the more the better- within reason. im in favour of all people receiving healthcare, as im in favour of leftists maintaining their mental health. im pretty sure even trotsky, the architect of "permanent revolution", did not expect every person to fight every day until they collapsed. because holy shit, yes, revolution is PRIMARILY about ideas and sharing and promoting ideas. its not PRIMARILY about conflict for its own sake. when everyone is learning about, learning to give a shit about, the rights and plights and needs of workers and marginalised groups (trans rights are workers rights- do you support discrimination against workers?) THATS revolution. its not the whole thing, but its one of the most important parts. but people who stand in the way of progress, like people who stand in the way of revolution, want to avoid conflict only for the sake of avoiding it. and heres the thing- thats impossible. when sarah mcbride stupidly tells the left not to do so much conflict, what that GUARANTEES is that the conflict will come to them! if politicians refused to represent even the needs of people in their own state to use a fucking toilet, that doesnt AVOID the conflict about bathrooms- it guarantees that the conflict will happen at the EXPENSE of people just trying to live their lives. what mcbride does is put the "right" of people to fight against you having rights above the right for you to defend your rights. and thats as good a defintion of a traitor as any. perhaps not in any legal or state-sponsored sense, but absolutely in any sort of moral or principle sense. when you fight for the rights of everyday people, youre serving the left. when you advocate AGAINST that fight, youre serving the status quo and youre serving our oppressors. so yes, any time you can accomplish a necessary goal with LESS force, do it. EDUCATE, COMMUNICATE, ADVOCATE. discuss- when theres a point in doing so. but dont let some idiot tell you that confict IS THE PROBLEM, because they see conflict as a cure thats worse than the disease, but conflict is a symptom of the disease. and we all know that fighting symptoms while ignoring the cause is a way to lose. but with controlled opposition- one of the primary goals of all liberals whether they know it or admit it or not- losing (on your behalf) is the goal of the game. occasional wins only mean they get to keep playing, and losing. you may think thats cynical, and its even possible that youre right. but its a better explanation for the routine betrayal by liberals than simple incompetence. i mean, even incompetence should sometimes work out better than what these traitors keep doing. and yes, capitalism is the disease. but im not against fighting "symptoms" like bigotry and hate, as "symptoms" can kill you just as much as the causes of those symptoms can. many diseases do kill people via things that could be called "symptoms". we should be fighting root causes, such as capitalism, but i do not agree with the part of the left that says we should focus on that by itself- the part which actually dismisses injustice because we can get to that "after capitalism" is defeated. some symptoms are indeed more urgent than the overarching cause. where i agree most strongly of course, is that only defeating the overarching cause will eliminate the symptoms entirely. our primary goal is to defeat capitalism. but we are doing that for the people, who have many problems we should not ignore in the meantime. sanity- or the closest thing the human race actually has to sanity- is about balance. not balance between the needs of the public and the greed of politicians, but balance between the big picture and big causes, and the sometimes mundane horrors of everyday life. in theory, even in practice, you could certainly miss the forest for the trees and only go after symptoms. thats something to be wary of. but the trees still matter, and implying that "only the forest is the point"- against the well-being of the trees, is really sort of daft. i dont want miss the trees for the forest, as some leftists actually insist we do. and THAT is a balance that really matters. ultimately, society is about the people. not every self-proclaimed leftist cares about that, but even a liberal who believes they care about people, will ask us to rely on politicians whose job description is to pretend to give a shit. youre better off fighting (even when its by no other means than words and tactics well demonstrated by third wave feminists, who overlap nicely with the tactics of prison abolitionists and other REAL progressives) than wasting all your energy propping up the huge, own-goal-serving lies of fake representatives. a strategy that ultimately depends on politicians is like a meal plan based on sucking a pacifier ever harder. didnt russia already prove that, when stalin starved millions? license: 0-clause bsd ``` # 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 # # Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any # purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES # WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF # MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. 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