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Comment by MarkusQ | Hacker News Reader

We have got to stop acting like politics matters more than anything else. Yeah, it's kind of important. But so is having friends and family that you can talk to, and recognizing that they may not agree with you but...so what. People are allowed to have different thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and overall that's a good thing. Which pompous air bag gets to pretend like they're running the country for a few years isn't really a hill worth dying on, no matter how much their breathless funding messages tell you it is.

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Much of what you cite, being able to have and share opinions, etc., has been illegal in much of the world for at least parts of the twentieth century, e.g., Germany from sometime in the late twenties or early thirties, and definitely from the mid thirties on, until 1945; the Soviet Union for much of its existence; Mao's China; Khmer Cambodia; etc.

Democratic politics with free association and free elections with secret ballots are what it possible for you to hold and share your opinions, especially the unpopular ones.

100% agree.

Which is why it's sad to see all that trivialized in the hyperbole surrounding the present election. Both sides would have you believe that the other side's pompous windbag is a threat to western civilization, and only their pompous windbag can save it. And very few have the guts to say that the emperor is naked, they're both mostly worthless, the president doesn't matter all that much, and the real issue is this: can we maintain a civil society where we listen to and respect each other, even when we disagree? Because that's what really matters, and that's a hill worth standing on and fighting to defend.

I may not agree with a word you say, etc.

It's a hill that millions of people have died on. It's an incredible privilege to be in a position not to care.

No. At most a dozen people have died over Trump v. Harris, and possible no one has.

That's exactly the hyperbolic conflation of the present petty squabble with the grand march of civilization, as if they were the same or even closely related, that I'm objecting to.

With that attitude, the old man ruling the country would be King Charles of Windsor.

Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to treat it like sports teams. You can't be friends with someone who disagrees about whether you should exist. It's hard to have a member of your family who thinks having a family like yours should be a crime.

Healthcare policy for example is life or death. You don't always choose the hill you die on. Sometimes you need lifesaving medical care that is considered illegal abortion now. This is politics too and exposure to its risks is not evenly distributed. I'm glad they're not particularly distributed to you right now but some of us experience it differently.

An example was posted here a couple days ago: https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-mis...

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