Idealist scum

[Toots]

Remember growing up?
Maybe you're still doing it now.

I remember talking to my parents whilst growing up. Jaded people who had battled, tripped, saved people from drug addictions, resisted a communist governement, left family behind and then settled into a cozy middle class existance. I remember hearing their proclamation of what was to come for me:

"You can cling on to your ideals when you're young, but when real life and responsibility come around you'll forget them, everybody does."

Well I refuse.

I refuse to put on a suit, paint my face on and shut my brain off.

And I refuse to accept that the people snearing at "idealists" as being just, well "idealists" know what they're talking about. Where would the world be without idealists? Where would we all be if some of us weren't willing to go mad fighting for the truth, for good, for empathy, for humanity, for the planet that makes our existance even possible.

Even if it is a Don Quixote run at the windmills, I'd rather know I fought than wake up one day to the realization that when you put your head in the sand you cut off your own air supply.

[Cain]

Sorry, I am too jaded and you cannot save or persuade me otherwise.  Good rant though, even though I disagree.

[Toots]

I don't know Cain, I think if there was no idealist in you at all you won't give a shit what happened to the UK political scene.

[Cain]

I do it because it gives me great pleasure to fuck shit up.  And I like to be able to do what I want.  Thats not really political.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I refuse to put on a suit, paint my face on and shut my brain off.

Give it time.  EVERYBODY has their price.

[Toots]

I do it because it gives me great pleasure to fuck shit up.  And I like to be able to do what I want.  Thats not really political.

Fair enough.

As long as the outcome is the same I guess it doesn't matter much why you do it.

I like to fuck shit up too. My motivation is just slightly different I guess. I just get pissed off and refuse to listen to reason. Why should I?

Reason says I should just sit down and be quiet because nothing we do matters anyway. That's a boring and depressing way to live and the world is depressing enough as it is.

It makes me feel better to know that I'll at least be fighting on the right side, even though it may be the losing side. And I refuse to admitt defeat until the very last trace of the fight goes out of the great beast that is homo sapiens.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I do it because it gives me great pleasure to fuck shit up.  And I like to be able to do what I want.  Thats not really political.

Troof.  I just like to knock stuff over.

[Toots]

I refuse to put on a suit, paint my face on and shut my brain off.

Give it time.  EVERYBODY has their price.

Not me. For realz.
I am now on an active track to give up a very lucrative job to work for peanuts doing what I believe in.

Fuck that noise. My happiness is worth more to me than my kids being able to spend my money after I die.

[Toots]

I do it because it gives me great pleasure to fuck shit up.  And I like to be able to do what I want.  Thats not really political.

Troof.  I just like to knock stuff over.

As long as you're knocking the right stuff over who cares what the motivation is anyway?

I think this is essentially the biggest problem with people who are idealistic. They get hung up on one idea and spend all of their energy trying to convince everyone else to think just like them.

IMO as long as we're working towards the same end what drives us to do it is unimportant.

<--is an idealist but not a militant fool

[Cain]

I'm finding it increasingly hard to care which side its for too, though.  All actions currently will aid and abet a backlash, or just an ever greater crackdown.  Imposition of order = escalation of disorder etc...

[East Coast Hustle]

you're making bold assumption there, Toots.

how do you know that your "side" is the "right" one?

[Toots]

you're making bold assumption there, Toots.

how do you know that your "side" is the "right" one?

I don't see this as a hard thing to figure out in most instances.

Big corporations poisoning the planet, running sweat shops, supporting dictatorships = wrong IMO.

Government killing millions of people because they refuse to subscribe to the current establishment = same.

I don't buy that "nothing is true and everything is permissable" btw. Some things are true. Some things are not permissable.

Common sense helps pick them out most of the time.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just wanted to know how YOU make those sorts of value judgements.

ECH,
thinks that total altruism is total bullshit even if your heart is in the right place

[East Coast Hustle]

ECH,
aslo thinks that's a rather unfortunate thing, but probably irreversible on a large scale

[Toots]

ECH I hope my answer didn't come off snarky cause that's not how it was meant.

I really have been thinking a lot about this lately though. I think our problem is that whatever shit is going on in the world that's wrong seems totally huge and we seem pretty tiny in comparison. Then most of us throw in the question of how do I know if what I think is right is right. And I think that's how people who think some things should not be happening get stuck doing nothing.

That plus laziness.

And I totally accept that some of us, most of us actually, are content doing nothing and thinking about nothing but their own comfort. But I find so many people who know better, who are aware and still don't do anything because a) they are too jaded by now to try b) they'd rather talk than have to do.  

But I think we all know that the "wrong" things/people/ideas are so. Just like the CEO of a farm concern dumping pig piss and shit into the river and poisoning it knows that it's wrong to do it. They might still do it anyway, but I'm pretty sure they know.

Know what I mean?