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Comment by notdrunkatall | Hacker News Reader

The withering of mechanisms to effect change follows directly from apathy. Conversely, those mechanisms flourish with the existence of an engaged, informed citizenry.

We have no one to blame for the current state of affairs but ourselves. To attempt to pin the blame on anything else is to fail to accept that responsibility, which is tantamount to failing to recognizing the problem. And of course, if we fail to recognize the problem, nothing will ever change.

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Conversely, those mechanisms flourish with the existence of an engaged, informed citizenry.

Which is quite impossible to build if you have to struggle for your daily bread or pay your mortgage. Even when you're idle, you're most likely arguing against or for abortion and other bikeshedding issue instead of focusing on important issues.

Excuses. Everyone has nothing but excuses.

What could possibly do more to convince people that they should engage in the process of government than to be nastily judgmental of their reasons for not so doing heretofore?

I understand and largely agree with your comment but please don't refer to reproductive rights as bike shedding.

It is bike shedding. The state of the law on reproductive rights hasn't changed meaningfully since Roe v. Wade in 1973. It stays in the news because there exists an inflammatory minority willing to make extremist claims that whip everyone into a frenzy and the media eats it up because it gets ratings. The probability of abortion being banned in the United States is in the low single digits. It's a distraction, not because it doesn't matter but because it doesn't change, and there is nothing more to be said about it that hasn't already been said a thousand times.

Compared to the other issues we face? We live in an age where teams of soldiers are sent in to execute routine search-and-arrest warrants. Most prisoners were never convicted by a jury, and we are now at a point where if every accused criminal were to exercise their right to a trial the court system would be unable to handle the case load -- we literally cannot afford to have people exercise one of their most fundamental rights. We have a military intelligence agency giving information to local law enforcement agencies, and then demanding that those agencies lie to judges and even to prosecutors about where their evidence originated.

We can talk about reproductive rights once we have restored basic civil rights and reined in the executive branch of government.

On the flip side, people overvalue their comfort, and are often unwilling to sacrifice extravagancies they have come to see as necessities.

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