I'm rambling again, so if that's your thing, you're in for a treat! It'll probably get a little offensive to, well, just about everybody at some point or another along the way, so if you can't take that, turn back now. Ye have been warned!
That'll bring me straight to the first point I'd like to make about why I'm loving it here in the Hive environment. If I don't want to see something, I don't have to. A big part of why I left Facebook has a lot to do with what I like to call 'Screaming Culture'. Let me back up a little.
This morning, while I'm drinking my homemade high-test cappuccino, I came across this post from 
Now, however you feel about the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (I personally support), there is nothing wrong with that post, except of course for some spelling and grammar errors (sorry fella). It's not what I fill my feed with on this platform (I use Twitter for that), but it was a nice succinct post that I could read quickly and move past. I learned a bit more about Toby, and my day moves along without a bump. Here on Hive.
Bless you, Hive.
See, on Facebook, every time two or three of my 'friends' hits 'like' on Toby's post, they'll put it back in my feed. So, out of about 250 friends, 200 of which engage fairly regularly, half of them may give Toby a like, I'll see that post 20-30 times over the course of 3 days. Now, because that post keeps coming up in my feed, every five posts and my sidebars are starting to fill up with political ads for right wing candidates in states where I can't vote, and ads for guns that I can't even buy legally in NY. Since about 1 in 5 things I see on FB are ads, that's 20% of my time on FB being wasted on things that I can't consume (legally), even if I wanted, just because I wanted to see what fun things Toby was building, and half my friends get worked up about gun legislation.
I do not get worked up about gun legislation. These days, people of average intelligence can make fully automatic, reasonably accurate short rifles in their garage with tools that cost less than the price of a mid-grade shotgun. The 2nd Amendment has already done what it needed to do for the people of this country. At this point, if they come confiscating guns, we've already quit worrying about the Constitution and elections probably won't fix our problems.
Don't get me wrong, I believe politics and government are important, just not worth getting worked up over, usually. I believe people should be informed voters, and make use of the privilege. I say privilege, and not right, because I don't believe rights are given by god or government. The only things you have a right to are the things that other people can't take from you. If someone comes to take something from you, your rights don't mean shit, the only thing that matters is whether or not you can stop them.
A lot of where we're at in the U.S. right now, politically, is because people have forgotten that. Both sides think that their lives are supposed to be determined by government. The left sound like sullen teenagers screaming 'You can't do that, man, it's STUPID' and the right sound like spoiled toddlers screaming 'Stop doing that, it's SCARY', and we're treating all these screaming children like they're in charge of the country. Let's not forget that the ACTUAL majority of us simply don't. fucking. care.
Maybe that's not accurate. It seems like more people are starting to care. Is that a good thing? I'm just not sure. These extra people that are caring these days don't seem very educated about the things they seem to care about. Take, for example, the second amendment, and my earlier thoughts. People advocating for 2nd Amendment rights seem oblivious to the fact that they can't legislate your guns away, they'll have to take them. And they don't need legislation to come take them, all they need are orders. If they really wanted to protect 2nd Amendment 'rights', it seems like they would take a keener interest in limiting the power of the people who come and take their guns when ordered. The truth, though, as you may have noticed, is that most people who support the 2nd Amendment frequently also support things like military training for police, and clandestine operations for the military, both of which help make 'them' much more prepared to take things from 'us'.
I don't want to just pick on the right. Let's take a swipe at the left, and one of their slogans that really puzzles me: Healthcare is a Right. Now, certainly, you have the right to take care of your own health to the best of your ability, but do you have the right to force a specialist to examine your heart? How would you do that, exactly? When you say that 'Healthcare is a Right', you're saying that you have the 'right' to force people to learn the skills to tend to your health problems, and then to force people to use those skills to keep you healthy. They're also completely ignoring the fact that government interference in health care is what has driven up costs, encouraged hospitals to consolidate, and has been slowly pricing out and reducing access to health care for poor communities. They're DEMANDING that we put the system entirely in the hands of the people who keep ruining the system.
Both sides argue about Socialism, and neither of them really have any understanding of what it means, or how deeply into it we've been in this country for over a century now. Both sides argue about free markets, neither side acknowledges that we've NEVER really had free markets in this country, we simply changed from the King's regulations to our own, socially selected regulations. Both sides agree that America good, China bad, despite the fact that the Chinese have outpaced us in every favorable measure for decades. Both sides ignore the fact that the Chinese have outpaced us because both sides are stifling innovation and development in this country.
I try not to point out these kinds of logical disparities as much as I used to. It just seems to make the screamers get louder.
What does all this have to do with a photo of 6 hens in a cage outdoors, you ask? They remind me of Americans, sitting in a cage they're not sure exists or not, looking slightly bored, slightly annoyed, and ready to absolutely freak out the second something changes. Not to pick on Americans exclusively, I'm sure plenty of you other countries have unhealthy codependence with your government as well, I just don't have any experience in your country. Perhaps someday the desire to watch things fail in a different country will prompt me to move.
Take heart, ye readers of level temperament. This madness must surely pass in time.