If you don't agree with society, you have no right to live in it and should go die.

That's exactly the problem. Many people are hideously stubborn. Life would be a lot easier if people were to shove their egos aside and admit their being wrong a tad more often.
Denying facts and influencing people with your own bullshit opinions may have bigger consequences than you initially assume.

 

I'm going to go ahead and necrobump this thread with something that came up in conversation today.
The thing is, I believe everyone should be able to have their own opinion about what society they live in, and if they don't like it, that's their own problem; they can either try to do something about it or just complain.
The thing I don't like is people who are really benefiting from society and still choose to hate it. Meaning anyone who is successful enough to go somewhere else, but still benefit off their success even though they hate their society.
I mean, look at the bands Anti-Flag and Green Day. Incredibly successful, and yet they flat out HATE America. The thing is, America produces their albums, America records their music, and Americans buy their CD's.
I have a problem with this. The very thing they want to whine about is what makes them so successful. They can obviously go somewhere else if they don't like it.

 

Good point. However, one could question the sincerity of this anti-establishment attitude. So many bands and songs out there are so over-the-top that I'm starting to think it's all just a ruse: a marketing strategy like any other.

 

That's very true.

People always want their opinions, but also want their comforts in life.
Bands, like you say, may have views that oppose their country, government, society, etc, but just because they oppse it doesn't mean they want to give it up. It's their own comfort and welfare they care about the most and don't really care how they do it, even if it means being hypocritical. Sad but true, we'd rather live the life of a king than change the direction of the world in the way we want it. It's almost as if passion for change is dead.

 

She lacks an understanding of how a democracy works. A democracy works on the basis of opinions. Different sides offer their ideals and views on what should be done with society, and the people vote on the ones they like. The one with the majority of vote wins and becomes the ruler of the country. In this way we keep the majority's opinions on top, but the minority can still garner power proportional to their number. That's the entire basis of democracy: every group is given power depending on how many supporters that group has in it. If there is a conservative party and a liberal party, if there are more conservative members of society than liberal, conservatives will get representation equal to the amount of society that conservatives make up. Likewise, so will the liberalists. This system allows a fair distribution of power. This means that if there are enough non-conformists, they can influence the country.

What happened to By the People, Of the People, For the People? Isn't that the founding idea of America's government? The government's very nature means that it cannot do as your friend wants. What your friend desires is a dictatorship, where everyone works for a common good, such as the holocaust or the industrialization of the motherland. These have continually shown to work out very well in history, producing fine leaders such as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe, who act for the good of the people. Dictatorships have never failed in their objectives or damaged the countries, and they have no potential for corruption. /sarcasm

Explain to your friend that democracy is a horrible, unfair and unjust way of deciding who should lead the country. Then tell her that unfortunately, it's the best idea humanity has managed to come up with.

 

If you do not agree with what the government is doing, by all means you should voice your opinion, write to a congressman, lobby or do something. This is a democracy, which was founded on the principles that 'we the people' have a voice in government and a responsibility to be a part of the government. It's supposed to be -ours-. That's the whole point of a democracy. It isn't perfect, but it's the best thing humans have come up with yet, as Pika said.

If you can question how a government process is going, say you don't like it and are adamantly against something, feel a law should be in place that is not, want a law from the 1800s abolished because it doesn't fit in society today, etc and not be penalized for responsible protests... If you actually live in a society that condones the right to free speech and being able to disapprove of how things go, you DO agree with the society. xD Tell her that one.

I love the wilderness.

Will she kill me or others instead? I would consider a person in a democracy to actually be more patriotic in a sense by questioning, participating and voicing things, than I would the person who is a totalitarian and just is willing to conform to what other people tell you is right. Totalitarians fit best in dictatorships where you can follow the word to the T or you could be threatened with imprisonment, expulsion or death.

By the rights of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, an American is being more of an American by knowing that we do have a responsibility to spot errors and misjudgments and to try to do what we can about it. In the end, she's in the wrong country if she expects that laws will be shaped to become so negative as she feels. However, she too is entitled to her opinions and that is the luxury of living in America, isn't it?

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Not only in America, but in any location, there are people who make changes and inspire us, even throughout history. To not question your government is to let them run a muck and do as they please. When we allow for such a thing to happen, as a silencing of the masses, we give permission for the government to do as it pleases and there is no checks and balances. The very point of a democracy is the attempt to have a checks and balances system in place to lower corruption and to prevent the creation of a monarchy, a single-minded religious tyranny, a dictatorship, etc, where the -majority- of people have no say in what goes on and are expected to be mere followers for the good of the leadership...which helps keep that leadership in power, regardless of the atrocities it commits.

Yes, some people are hopeless whiners and that's all they do is mill around and spread conspiracy theories and bash the government. However, there are people out there who are movers and bring about great change because they become active over some issue they view as wrong. Some changes will be good, others will be not so good. To me, it is not a 'bashing of the government system' to say I disagree with certain policies and to attempt to do something about it. If anything, by what America is supposed to stand for, or any democracy for that matter, I am actually doing my civic duty as a citizen to do so and I am -supporting- the government system.

Though I disagree heavily with your friend's opinion, those who say you should not talk to her, I think they are being overly harsh. You certainly do not have to agree with this opinion of hers, but if she is a friend, I am sure you find other opinions of hers to be more agreeable with your nature. In time, she may even come to see things differently if she does continue to be your friend, if you did voice your own opinion that you do not follow the same train of thought on this issue. If she accepts your friendship still, it shows that though she's bent a certain way most people in a democracy would shun, she's still in some way accepting you as a friend despite your different viewpoints. That in itself shows perhaps she's not so beyond reach of expanding her horizons someday and seeing the bigger picture. However, if she stopped liking you because of your different views, then you'd know it's probably time to move on. People -can- be friends despite having alternate opinions about what's going on around them. To suddenly just drop a friendship over such a thing basically would say that you yourself would feel something so strongly against another person's thoughts that you no longer respect the person for other thoughts. There's another checks and balances people must do, besides doing so with government...which is checking yourself and ego.

 

-insert bleep here- even though my mind nearly exploded reading this i have to agree. this is i believe most applicable in America. but, to be honest i could not add any more to this post because this post causes 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th degree brain burns. truly any country that is failing(AMERICA) could probably only be turned around by someone who had absolute authority because then no bickering to stop efforts could be made