Why "Fuck the System?"

The motto of this blog is “Fuck the system.” Why? Because, frankly, I’m an extremely cynical person. Then again, who wouldn’t be in a world that’s burning around them? In this article, I’ll explain most of the issues I have with the world as a whole, why we live in a predystopian society, and why we will soon witness systemic collapse.

1. Education 🔗

If you’ve read my about page, you know how big of an issue this is for me. We are at a place now where we are using a system of education that was designed in the industrial revolution that has changed remarkably little compared to how much the rest of the world has changed since the industrial revolution. This is a system that takes in the beautiful, wonderful, bright, curious, creative individuals that children are, and crushes all creativity and uniqueness out of them.¹

On top of all that, no one is doing anything about it.

While we are seeing slow improvement, all politicians ever talk about in education is budgeting and funding. While there are severe issues with funding in education, there is also an issue of methodology. To reiterate: the current system does not allow children to explore their natural curiousities, instead choosing to force them into a one-size-fits-mold that simply does not work.¹

2. Basic Human Fucking Rights 🔗

The “inalienable” rights of queer people across the United States somehow remain uncertain.

The Equality Act 🔗

The Equality Act is a bill proposed by the House of Representatives in 2017. It would extend the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s protections to the LGBTQ+ community.² However, even with the most progressive congress and administration we’ve seen since the bill’s introduction, it still has not passed.³ This means that, in some situations, members of the LGBTQ+ community do not have the basic rights laid out by the Civil Rights Act. This cannot be allowed to remain this way.

The Gay/Trans Panic Defense 🔗

The Gay/Trans Panic Defense is a legal defense that remains accepted in most states where a defendent can claim that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity caused them to become violent towards the person, through means of insanity, provocation, or self-defence.⁴ This can and has meant that people have gotten away with fucking murder because they “panicked” because someone was queer. While it has been banned in a few states and would be banned at the federal level by the Equality Act,⁴ the fact that it remains legal in any sense is inexecusable.

3. MORE Basic Human Fucking Rights! 🔗

People of color across the United States regularly face extreme racism to this day.

Systemic Racism 🔗

As an overarching theme to all of this, systemic racism remains omnipresent in the United States. Systemic racism is “policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.”⁵ Many of the policies present in the United States are systemically racist. For example:

Systemic Inequality 🔗

Since even before the founding of the United States, people of color have been oppressed and forced into a lower economic status than white people—they were literally slaves. This was then built upon by segregation and Jim Crow laws—which, believe it or not, only ended just 60 short years ago.⁶ That racist legislation’s effect has lasted well into today, and people of color continue to live in extreme inequality as compared to whites. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2019, the poverty rate for Blacks was 18.8% and the poverty rate for Hispanics was 15.7%—both of these being an all-time low. Compared to whites’ fairly consistent poverty rate of around 7% (7.3% in 2019), this seems unreasonably high.⁷

White Supremacy 🔗

For the purposes of this example, we will define white supremacy as the disproportionate placement of whites in positions of authority, and the worldview that results. According to Pew Research, 77% of the 117th Congress is white, compared to 60% of the U.S. population.⁸ While diversity in Congress is increasing, this still shows a congress where whites are a disproportionate majority compared to people of color—by almost 20%. This is, of course, just one example. Whites also make up the vast majority of Fortune 500 CEOs.⁹ This ultimately causes authority figures to usually, if not always, see from the perspective of whites, thereby putting people of color at a disadvantage.⁶

Racist Ideology 🔗

Many people, almost always whites, think and act in ways that are racist on a day-to-day basis. This manifests in many different ways, such as stereotypes or prejudices. To put it bluntly, society assumes that white people are better than people of color.⁶

Police Brutality 🔗

People of color regularly face extreme racism from police officers. While only 13% of the U.S. population is Black, 26% of people shot and killed by police since 2015 have been Black, and 36% of unarmed people shot and killed by police since 2015 have been Black. Further, studies have found that African-Americans are stopped disproportionately more compared to whites, and police perform a disproportionate amount more searches on people of color during traffic stops.¹⁰ The police are racist, and we must do something about it.

Misuse of Military Force Against Protestors 🔗

This is not necessarily racist, but it relates to protests against racism in the United States. The Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 were met with military resistance, even when they were entirely peaceful. For example, when Former President Donald Trump wanted to take a picture in front of a church, police were ordered to use tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters that were in front of the white house.¹¹ There are reports of Border Patrol officers being used to violently suppress protests in Portland, Oregon.¹² Both of these are direct violations of Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.¹³ These are, of course, both only extreme examples. There were many, many other instances of human rights violations in the Black Lives Matter protests of the 2020. This is unacceptable.

4. Transportation 🔗

Transportation across the world is fucked, but it’s especially fucked in the United States. Nearly everywhere in the US uses what is known as car-centric design, meaning these spaces are designed entirely around cars, with other modes of transport—such as walking, cycling, or public transport—added as an afterthought.¹⁴ This results in many issues, including increased greenhouse gas emissions (which are HEAVILY contributed to by the transportation sector),¹⁵ detriments to the economy, and large detriments to public health and safety.¹⁶ This must change. Car dependency is not sustainable. It is too detrimental to the climate and causes too many issues with public health. We must change the way we design our cities to better accommodate people who don’t want or need to drive.

5. Economics 🔗

I am a leftist. I align myself with left-wing economic policies. This position deserves an article of its own, but I’ll put it simply here: it’s pretty fucking hard not to align with left-wing economics when the minimum wage is at least $12 below where where it needs to be in order to be a living wage,¹⁷ the richest people in our society are paying minuscule amounts of tax (on average, effectively a 3.4% income tax rate, compared to the average American’s of 14%),¹⁸ and more than 60% of Americans said they were living paycheck to paycheck in 2020.¹⁹ Our economy is fucked. Our very economic system is fucked, and has been for a very long time—I would say since around the time it began, during the Industrial Revolution. It at the very least needs much, much more support through the introduction of larger social programs—such as raising the minimum wage or Medicare for All—if not a complete overhaul of the entire system and the introduction of a socialist economy.

This may be the most critical part of all of this. Our economy balances on the brink of collapse. It is, ultimately, the root cause of many of the issues listed above. Our shitty education system was designed during and because of the Industrial Revolution, and serves the oligarchical capitalist system. Queerphobia, racism, and other forms of systemic bigotry are perpetuated by the income inequality caused by capitalism. Our transportation system is so car-centric primarily because of lobbying and propaganda by General Motors and other car manufacturers. If this goes on much longer, we will soon see systemic collapse into dystopia.

Conclusion 🔗

I am cynical of the current state of the world and the United States, primarily for the reasons listed above. I wish that we had a better education system. I wish that EVERYONE had basic human fucking rights. I wish that our transportation system wasn’t completely dysfunctional and on the verge of collapse. I wish that our economic system wasn’t also completely dysfunctional and on the verge of collapse. Ultimately, I wish the systems present in our world and our country weren’t so fucking broken—and that’s why I say “Fuck the System.” Because we live in a world where we are exploited by the oligarchical system that we live under on a daily basis.

I wish the world wasn’t so fucking broken, but that only gives me motivation to try and fix it. Will you try with me?

Comments are below citations. 🔗