We're Done Talking

We're Done Talking

This is an issue I've been mad about for a very long time.

We live in a world where people are still marching for the most obvious truths imaginable.

Every day, we see protest signs and slogans that say:

• "Black Lives Matter"

• "Love is Love"

• "No Means No"

• "My Body, My Choice."

The energy is great. The passion for justice is real.

But the approach is flawed—and that approach is what's holding us back from winning.

The Problem with the Current Approach

Playing To Win vs. Playing Not To Lose:

Tim Han's LMA Course was full of stunning insights about the connection between mindset and victory. One of the most powerful lessons he shared was this:

"Are you playing to win—or are you playing not to lose?"

He explained this through a brilliant football analogy.

In football, you have players on the offense and players on the defence. The defence can prevent the other team's goals—but only the offense can actually score goals.

Without offense, every match would end in a tie—no victory, no progress. Just stagnation.

Defence can only prevent loss—it cannot create victory.

Nobody can win if they are playing not to lose.

This is where so many justice movements get stuck.

Slogans like "Black Lives Matter" and "My Body, My Choice"—while well-intentioned—are not playing to win. They're playing not to lose.

They're worded from the mindset of defending rights, not getting rights.

Raising awareness is essential—it's the first step toward change. But you can't stop there. Once awareness is achieved, the mission has to evolve.

Because as Tim Han wisely said:

"The mentality that got you here is the same mentality that will keep you here. If you want to keep winning, you need a new mindset for every new battle."

Raising awareness got us here. But it's also been keeping us here.

And we're not here to tie the game. We're here to win it.

It States the Obvious:

I've always hated the slogan "Black Lives Matter".

Because that shouldn't even need to be said.

For a long time, I thought the slogan should be "All Lives Matter"—because it's more unifying. It treats black lives as what they are: lives. It better illustrates how idiotic racism is, because racism creates a division where there isn't one. All lives matter—not just white lives.

But now I've realized: even that isn't good enough.

Because while "All Lives Matter" is better, it's still stating the obvious.

Slogans like "All Lives Matter", "Love Is Love" and "My Body, My Choice" don't sound powerful—they sound DESPERATE. And the establishment can smell desperation a mile away. They know it isn't a threat to them—because people playing not to lose cannot win.

But if the establishment saw people rallying under confident, proactive slogans like:

• "EQUAL RIGHTS NOW."

• "LEGALIZE ABORTION."

• "BAN CONVERSION THERAPY."

• "RACIAL EQUALITY."

• "FREE HEALTHCARE NOW."

• "ARREST DIRTY COPS."

• "ABOLISH HOSTILE IMMIGRATION POLICY."

• "MANDATE EQUAL SALARY."

THAT would scare them.

Because those slogans aren't asking for permission or begging to be understood. They're demanding action. They're playing to win—not trying not to lose.

Oppressors don't change because they’re persuaded. They only change when they're forced to.

All of these slogans fail the same basic test:

• "Rape is bad."

• "Bigotry is wrong."

• "Healthcare is a right."

• "People are people."

• "Love is love."

If anyone needs these things explained, they're not persuadable. And if they don't need them explained, you aren't changing anything by explaining them again.

These are defensive slogans.

And defence cannot win a fight.

Identity-Based Framing:

If you've read my Normalize Identity essay, you know my position on relativism.

Take "feminism", for example. I've always hated that word.

The way it's named after the victim instead of the point—which makes it relativistic. And because of that, it's endlessly misunderstood, overcompensated and twisted.

That's not because the idea is flawed; it's because the label is.

"But it's called feminism because the oppression of women needs to be addressed directly."

Yes, but the oppression of women isn't about women. It's about oppression.

Identity-based framing not only creates a double standard, but misdirects the focus onto the identity of the people affected instead of the injustice affecting them.

For starters, breaking humanity into sub-categories like: "Black lives, white lives, this community, that community" encourages othering. It risks locking everyone into thinking of humanity as a set of competing factions—instead of a single, shared species.

Secondly, relativism often leads to overcompensation. Like how people now have this ridiculous idea that it's sexist for a woman to cook, clean, fall in love or need help from a man. Nobody would have a problem with the reverse. Relativism doesn't fix inequality; it breeds more of it.

Thirdly, terms like "feminism" have cracks that conservatives will exploit to divide and conquer. They can easily frame it as reverse sexism. As man-hating. As female supremacy. They can pretend men are under attack, and turn good, rational people against each other.

"Equality" is objective. It's impossible to misunderstand, impossible to reverse, and impossible to argue with without exposing yourself as a lunatic.

Besides, shouldn't we always, no matter what, treat everyone and everything like what they are? Just call it "equality".

Consistency is power.

Just because the world is full of double standards, that doesn't mean we should follow its example. If there's one thing I've learned about dealing with toxic people, it's this:

Do not change your words to adapt to theirs.

If you respond to every bad-faith argument with a tailored response, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Toxic people have a Ph.D in gaslighting. They will ALWAYS find another excuse. But if you hold an unwavering position of your own—and refuse to engage with their nonsense—you strip them of their power.

A strong position sounds like talking to a brick wall. A weak position sounds like a long, detailed explanation that keeps adjusting to fit.

You cannot defeat toxic people by playing their game. You can only defeat them by playing YOUR game.

The "House-on-Fire" Fallacy

An analogy that I see everywhere used to defend the slogan "Black Lives Matter" is the one about the house on fire. This analogy completely misses the point.

This comic is a strawman.

Notice the mismatch between what the character is doing and what he's saying.

He's not saying that all houses NEED WATER—he's saying that all houses MATTER. But he's putting water on a house that doesn't need water and neglecting the one that does.

That's not treating all the houses like they matter equally. He's giving one house something it doesn't need, and withholding what another house needs.

The comic is attacking the absurd strawman that "all houses need water"—which was never the argument being made. The ALM argument was about equal value, not that every situation warrants the same action. Value and action are two completely different things.

Believing all houses matter equally explicitly means the one that's on fire needs water. The house deserves to not be on fire, because it matters just as much as the other houses.

This is why I preferred the slogan "All Lives Matter" to "Black Lives Matter"—before I realized it was still stating the obvious, so it needed another upgrade.

• When a house is on fire, you don't yell: "THIS HOUSE MATTERS!"

• You don't yell: "ALL HOUSES MATTER!" either.

• You yell: "CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE!"

That is why the house-on-fire fallacy is nonsense.

Focus on the problem (arsonists, fire = racism, injustice, violence), not on trying to convince people the victims matter—because duh, of course they matter.

• Anti-rape activism isn't called "womanism." The fact most victims are women is irrelevant. The goal is to stop rape. For women, men, children—anyone.

• Anti-pedophilia protests aren't about chanting: "Children are not dildos." It's about slapping handcuffs on child molesters.

• Solving homelessness isn't about saying: "Homeless lives matter." It’s about ending homelessness.

This is real equality thinking:

• Not: "Help them because they're X."

• But: "Help them because no one deserves to be treated this way.”

This is the slogan energy we want:

• "Stamp Out Racism."

• "Say No to Racists."

• "Racists Aren't Welcome Here."

• "Together Against Racism."

Not: "Hey…did you know black people are human?" No shit. The idea that it even needs to be said is offensive in itself.

We don't need to explain that injustice is wrong. We need to target it, dismantle it, and move forward—whether the worst people in the room like it or not.

The Point of the Battle

This battle was never about persuading them. It was about uniting us.

More Labels, More Problems:

I've always hated excessive labelling—which is another reason I reject relativism.

Take the word "atheist."

There's no word for "people who don't believe in unicorns" or "people who don't believe Earth is flat". Not believing in fairy tales doesn't need a label—it's the default. I have the same problem with the terms "nonconformist", "feminist", "left-wing" and "liberal".

There are a million different kinds of bad guy. There is only one kind of good guy.

• Someone can be homophobic but not racist.

• Someone can be racist but not sexist.

• Someone can be a serial human trafficker who respects people's pronouns.

The bad guys need singling out, labelling and categorizing—not the good guys. Labelling both sides makes this sound like a two-sided debate. It isn't. It's a battle between good and evil.

The truth nobody wants to admit:

• Dividing people into identity groups serves the problem.

• Uniting people against the problem defeats it.

So label the problem.
Keep the people united.

We're not here to remind racists that black lives matter. We're here to remind each other to stand together against them.

They Know—They Just Don't Care:

Do you really think anybody on Earth doesn't understand why it's wrong to hate someone for being different? Or why it's wrong to violate someone else's body?

Nobody is confused about this.

Predators and bigots don't act the way they do because they don't UNDERSTAND. They do it because they don't CARE. You cannot—and should not—reason with someone like that.

• Saying "Houses matter" to an arsonist does nothing.

• Saying "Please don't hate me for being black/gay/female" to a bigot does nothing.

The world doesn't need another workshop titled:

• "Let's All Understand Why Discrimination Is Bad."

• "Why "Conversion Therapy" is Child Abuse: A Beginner's Guide."

• "10 Reasons Rape is Wrong: Number 5 Will Surprise You!"

Are you kidding? Everyone already knows.

The people doing it know exactly what they're doing. They just don't care. They do it because they think they can get away with it.

We're here to show them that they can't.

Stop Playing Their Game:

If there's one thing we can learn from conservatives, it's that people hide behind snarky comebacks, clever wordplay and catchy slogans when they've got no real bullets.

And unlike them, we do have bullets. We're just not using them.

Good is more powerful than evil. Evil is better at gaining power quickly—but good always wins in the long run. Hope is stronger than fear, and lies are unsustainable by nature. One person who does the right thing can make up for millions who didn't.

There are more good people in the world than evil people. Evil people are just louder—so they seem scarier. Under the mask, they're terrified of us—that's why they work so hard to keep us divided. They know if we worked together and combined our differences, we'd be unstoppable—and that we'd take down the establishment and build a good world.

History isn't made by people with money, status or institutional power. It's made by stubborn bitches who refuse to give up. The only reason it's taken this long to win is because the establishment deliberately taught us to forget that. So let's remember it.

We have the truth on our side. We have the numbers. We have the power of combined differences, which they will never understand. We can disengage without consequence—they can't. We have power they cannot match no matter how hard they try.

So let's stop fighting like them, and start fighting like US.

Let's use those bullets—and win.

We are not doing this to educate conservatives or convince them to change their ways. We're doing it to inspire the rest of us to band together and take those fuckers down.

Oppressors don’t need persuasion. They need consequences. They need to lose.

We are not here to hold hands and sing kumbaya until the racists, the homophobes, the sexists and the abusers have a moral awakening.

Protest isn't about sending love letters to the enemy.

It’s about sending a message to everyone else:

"You are not alone.
We are the majority.
And together, we can win."

It's about rallying the good guys to shut down the enemy.

In Conclusion:

We're done talking.

If you don't already know that people deserve dignity, respect and rights, you are not our audience. You are our obstacle.

This is not a debate.
This is not a discussion.
This is not a seminar.

This is a war on injustice. This is the decent majority standing up and shutting you down.

WE'RE DONE TALKING. WE'RE DONE EXPLAINING.

WE'RE HERE TO PUT THE DAMN FIRE OUT.