This post is kinda old now but I spent the last few weeks trying to decide whether I was replying or not. Part of me wanted to just leave it, but… what can I say? Arguments, even when I don’t enjoy them, are my forte.
I won’t tag you, because this isn’t me targeting you. I’m not going to attack you, because that is unfair, and exactly what everyone thinks politics are. I don’t expect to change your mind, but I hope this is informative for someone out there. This isn’t me seeking out some kind of sick keyboard warrior debate. I’m backing up my post with facts, because politics too often lacks them. Politics isn’t just a popularity contest, or a conversation to avoid at family reunions. It’s not just state lines or parties or candidates. I’m not going to tell you that the difference between Hillary and Obama is life or death, or the difference between Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison, or Theresa May and Boris Johnson.
But anyway, here’s me getting a grip.
Major political issue: immigration, refugees, asylum seekers, “boat people”, “illegals” (or “animals”, if we’re quoting Trump)
Evidence: Since 2000, over 2021 deaths have been associated with Australia’s border control policies, most in detention centres. (x, x, or a simple google search).
In the Trump administration alone, 24 people have died in ICE custody. At least 7 kids have died.
See also abuse, neglect, and mistreatment resulting in miscarriages, psychological and physical trauma, preventable injuries and deaths.
Is it life or death? Yes.
Major political issue: police brutality
Evidence: Abuse of power in fighting riots in Hong Kong, leading to a fears of reliving Tiananmen Square as paramilitary forces are assembled (x)
Police brutality is killing people (x). Black people in particular are killed, especially in the USA, at an alarmingly high rate. Often by police. Many of them are unarmed and innocent civilians, such as Tamir Rice (12), Elijah Al-Amin (17), Jordan Davis (17). (x, x) NB that if a white person kills a black person, they often get away with it.
Is it life or death? Yes.
Major political issue: LGBTQ+ rights
Evidence: LGBTQ+ youth are 120% more likely to be homeless (x). LGBTQ+ people are more likely to commit suicide (1 in 4 preteen suicides may be associated with LGBTQ+ identity). It’s also currently not technically illegal in the US to discriminate against LBGTQ+ people: federal law, housing (although a ban has passed the House of Reps), state discrimination.
Conversion therapy. It’s still legal. (x, x, x, x)
Homosexuality is illegal in over 70 countries, including Dubai, Uganda, and Brunei, where it is punishable by death.
Justice for Leelah Alcorn.
Is it life or death? Yes.
Please note that most of this information is regarding Australia and the USA, two first world countries. They are, one could say, “first world problems”. Politics is much more visibly a life and death issue in places such as Burundi, Libya (literal slave trade?), Syria, China (Tiananmen Square), North Korea, and Afghanistan.
I’ve gone through 3 major political issues. Just three. And already there’s over 2000 people dead in two first world countries.
Other options include: racism (Charlottesville, David Irving, the literal Holocaust), war (Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Partition, Lebanon, WWI, WWII), terrorism and hate crimes (9/11 and all following action, mass shootings (e.g. NZ mosque shooting)), war on women (FGM, domestic violence, sexual assault, abuse, and harassment, homicide rate, healthcare: new laws and bias in medicine), accessibility (physical and actionable steps that can be taken to make the world less difficult), colonialism (including the genocide of and ongoing discrimination against Indigenous peoples) and more.
But (let me be immature for a second) obviously I’m just a special snowflake and politics isn’t life or death… I hope this counts as getting a fucking grip.
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