Those whiny cyclists are their own worst enemy

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This is what I have told many cycling enthusiasts

You may be right, but now you\’re dead

Cyclists should have more cycle lanes. Other road users should have better awareness, and give cyclists right of way. You avidly peddling, annoying, self-righteous twats have a very valid point. But how you go about highlighting this issue is by unnecessarily endangering other people on the road and flouting the law pointlessly.

The way to tackle your problem is to behave in an exemplary manner. Otherwise you have no high ground at all. Stop riding on the pavement. Stop riding in pedestrian areas. Stop riding against the flow of traffic and the highway code. Don\’t fuck-off the guy with the 1 tonne plus killing machine.

Stay safe. Stop endangering yourselves just because you feel you are morally correct. Waiting out for provisions and the law to catch up with you from a hospital bed, or a coffin, is just plain stupid.

Stop whining. Ride safely and legally. Encourage others to do the same. Campaign responsibly and with a positive thrust.

I don\’t understand (UK) politics and voting

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I have never really understood politics nor voting. Well, I understand the basic principles of politics and voting. But the nuances of it escape me. The two are naturally linked together, the aspects that join together to make up the democratic society that I live in. The more one delves into the details (of which their are oh-so many), the less it seems to really fulfil those basic principles that I understand. And thus I can\’t claim to understand it. Unless I\’m right and it is all a big farce.

One of my little pet hates, is when someone latches on to me when I say \”I\’m not interested in politics\”. They claim that if I take part in society (buy food from shops, drive a car on the road, work for money, or just plain sit around whining) then I am involved with politics. Ay interest I might have in those things (cheaper food, faster car, less tax, freedom of speech) means I am in turn interested in politics. Hah, they got me. I really am interested in it – it\’s all around me! Well, fuck them. That\’s like saying I\’m interested in physics because I want to move around. It is a pathetic argument. It reminds me of religious folk, because they use much the same argument.

I first became politically aware when I was a student. The poll tax was about to be introduced. I was too young to vote against it. I didn\’t like it. From around that time, I started keeping an eye on politicians, parties and their manifestos. I hadn\’t grasped that such things local elections took place. I still don\’t understand local elections. I digress. At this time in my life, it seemed to me that an election happened every four years, and it was all about voting for one of the main parties. Being a teenager, I figured there were years yet until I\’d get the chance to have my say. I set it aside as something to worry about later.

The next general elections came along, but I didn\’t have a vote card. Being a student, I moved every year or so. I was unaware the concept of being registered to vote, and all the prerequisites that that might have. It was at least ten years before I settled down anywhere long enough for the government to catch up with me, to get me on the electoral roll. I understand now that I could have made the effort myself. In the mean time, however, I witnessed what to me was a whole bunch of lying and cheating by politicians. Everything I learnt during this time of non-voting, lead me to believe that the whole thing was just one big fuck up. I was not motivated to vote. I thought it pointless.

If I voice even a hint of my de-motivated feeling of uselessness about voting any where near a pro-voter, out sprouts second most annoying thing I am told (second to the pet hate mentioned above). I am scathingly told \”The point of politics is for it to be shaped by the people. You can\’t change it without taking part\”. Pretty much always joined by \”It\’s the best thing we have, nobody has thought of anything better\”. Well, bollocks to that. I\’m supposed to accept that because something is supposedly the least shit tool in the box, it\’s the only tool I\’m allowed to use and I have to use it. No, I bloody well don\’t. What an utterly flawed argument. All that does, in my mind, is perpetuate the banal lip-service that politicians pay towards making this a better place. Apparently, because I can\’t think of something better I\’m doing everyone a dis-service. Again I am reminded of religion. The same old make believe, that if I don\’t join in will see me ostracised and sent to hell. Oh and I\’m infecting others with my non-participation.

I\’m not an advocate of proportional representation, but I remember one of the first perplexing facts I learnt about politics in the UK. A party could have more people voting for it than anyone else, and not win. Not just not win, but have less seats. Should I move to a small constituency so that my vote has more punch? Is voting, like the NHS, inflicted by the postcode lottery? I know there was an awful lot of press and diagrams about the voting referendum about changing our voting. Something as important as politics should be, and basic as voting is, should be trivial to understand. It should not be a complex beast to be spun by cheating, lying cunts and twats.

Why can\’t we admit that our current politics doesn\’t work. Set it aside, stop twatting about. Just elect some people who have the skills to continue the status quo. Don\’t have any more votes. Stop wasting money on elections. Run the country. Spend all the money that would be spent on continuing this voting farce, on the resources needed to find out what we are to replace this broken system with. Even if we don\’t know how to achieve it. Our politics is fundamentally broken. People that say \”but there is nothing better\” implicitly agree with me here. There is no meaningful difference between the major parties. They\’ve been in power for decades, they will be in power for decades to come. Just stick to one \’party\’ (in fact, merge them all together) and concentrate on finding the thing that should really replace our current political system.

I don\’t believe that politics is the answer to politics. So stop feeding me that self-indulgent money-grabbing opinion. Just fuck off and leave me alone. You\’re not going to improve it in my life-time, and in a few years nobody will give a flying shit who I voted for, or whether I voted.

I don\’t understand the details of the UK\’s political machine. I don\’t particularly want to. I don\’t think there is any point.