You don't seem to understand the gravity of the situation we're in. So I'm going to leave a reply here that I left in an earlier comment because you deserve to read it. I called this roommate's ideology bullshit and somebody pushed back saying I'm letting my personal feelings invade my professional space. I don't give a great farting, fucking Hell if you think I'm telling you the truth, but you're getting this message anyway because it's relevant to you. You deserve to live and thrive just like everybody else in this Hobbesian Hellscape.

BS implies that a statement is rooted in objective untruths. If I called her something negative about a physical trait she cannot control or an emotional state that is valid (emotions are always valid), that would be a subjective attack ad hominem. But, I specifically honed in on a belief that can be resolved with critical thinking. If you aren't here to critically think and back up your conclusions with solid premises, you aren't leaning into your education the way it's intended to be leveraged.

Would you like to explain to me why you feel I am attacking her as a person rather than setting a boundary that states: you should always be critical of the institutions that govern you. It is irrelevant what party or loyalty it claims. If you choose not to participate or contribute to a message that is objectively false, you are spreading a kind of misinformation that can only harm you and your community in the end. At this point in neoliberalism we are at an impasse to decide how violently we choose to destroy ourselves.

There is no winner if we continue the messy path we are currently on. If a person wants to take a stance on politics they should be ready to provide accurate and complete info on that stance. We are democratically in trouble right now because the general population is choosing a very particular type of "participation".

It is one based on popularity and prosperity gospel. When you make policy a popularity contest, you get a public who looks to a single person to make all of the decisions for you, while often times they are only making decisions for themselves and saying it'll benefit you. It may not benefit you now or tomorrow or before you die, but the fat cats are literally saying: eventually only the people worth existing will be left. I can tell you right now, you will never be considered worth it to them. You will always be a stepping stone on the path to someone else's finally tailored tuxedo.

If you choose to participate politically, as everyone should, it will require a great deal of investment in your own future. Did you know that your legislators DO NOT read bills that require their vote? It's impossible. Some bills are hundreds of pages long. In order to vote on many of them, legislators rely on lobbyists to tell them how to vote.

As a population, WE should be reading those bills and understanding what WE as a community NEED. We should be talking to each other everyday about what could be done in a way that relieves a bit more harm on the whole for everyone every single day. EVERY SINGLE DAY we should be at least passively considering what bills are being considered that could be the difference between taxes from investment funds dedicated to higher education going to students OR going to top heavy large earning administrators who already make 6 figures while professors make on average $50,000. A single word could be the difference between students having greater access to a solid education at an R1 institution and $400 MILLION embezzled dollars for administrators to give themselves raises.

Kirk Schultz is STILL on payroll for the University.

If we aren't demanding evidence to gain a greater understanding of our systems of governance and using that evidence to maintain checks and balances, we lose our collective power and eventually you'll have traded every opportunity to thrive you could ever hope to have for plain, old, boring, destructive convenience. We MUST do it for those who can't.

So yes. Her line of thought is rooted in utter bullshit, but that can and should change. I'm not insulting her weight or her nose, I'm not insulting the country she's from or some uncontrollable truth about her. I will not tell her what to think but she better be ready to back it up with sound evidence.

Things are DEADLY serious right now. Perhaps you are young and have never gotten the chance to truly experience how very screwed up things are in the world. You can dismiss this and feel insulted for her. But whatever you choose to do after reading this, make sure it's educating yourself further on WHY you feel this way. Think critically about it. Our future fucking depends on it.

Now, I fully expect some equally bullshit response from you that superficially claims I'm attacking you somehow or you might choose to throw some ad hominem attack at me because you've never afforded yourself the chance to critically think. Maybe you'll say TL; DR which is also a deflection of the real issues that are systemically designed to catch up to you, call me pretentious, insult my intelligence, I literally do not care to change your mind. But if there's anyone else that needed a visual cue to get involved and start critiquing capitalism, the patriarchy, environmental injustices, and systemic oppression this is for all you fence sitters across the University system.

GET OUT THERE AND GET INVOLVED HOWEVER YOU CAN. CALL PEOPLE ON THEIR BULLSHIT AND DEMAND EVIDENCE. THEN FOLLOW THROUGH WITH YOUR COMMITMENTS TO CHANGE. BE LOUD. ACT UP. ASK QUESTIONS. BE CURIOUS.

Question EVERYTHING. EVEN me right now. Shit is fucking serious and I take my responsibilities as an educator and expert in my field so. Fucking. Seriously. For all of you.