Biden Announces Reelection Campaign

[MGuy]

Ok. So your claim here is then that you just so happen to talk about whether or not Biden/the dems 'actually' supports unions or labor in some way in response to a thing I said where his material support of unions was not the subject matter 'just because' and not as a direct attack on the thing I said? Man that sure would be believable if you didn't do the same exact thing in every following post while ignoring every other thing I talked about. Cool.

This backflip along with the Sashi thing has broke my stupid meter. I'm done with this.

[PseudoStupidity]

Ok. So your claim here is then that you just so happen to talk about whether or not Biden/the dems 'actually' supports unions or labor in some way in response to a thing I said where his material support of unions was not the subject matter 'just because' and not as a direct attack on the thing I said? Man that sure would be believable if you didn't do the same exact thing in every following post while ignoring every other thing I talked about. Cool.

This backflip along with the Sashi thing has broke my stupid meter. I'm done with this.

Bolding mine.

Oh my god you are the dumbest motherfucker on the planet. It's almost like you posted something after my initial post that did literally credit Biden with things, so I started responding to the new things you were saying.

Apparently Biden did something more for the railway workers after he shut down their attempt at a strike and from what little I've heard it has been in their interest. It was done quietly and the only reason I know that something happened is because of the media I consumed but it was something.

What I'm in support of is workers. Labor power. That Biden happened to be the Dem who showed up is incidental. It could have been any Democrat. The important bit is that it's a sign that the cynical calculation they made to publicly support the workers is itself a good thing for workers. It's the same as how I feel about corporations and their faux support of minorities. I don't personally care about it, and it doesn't change how I feel about them. But that they feel that they should pretend to care is a good sign.

Bolding mine.

So the bolded isn't wrong it is just not good enough for you. Just say that instead of being wrong on purpose. The White House claim isn't why I gave credit to Biden. The union gave Biden credit. It's in the article. If I were to guess it would be in every article I would look up over this specific subject. It is very possible to continue to say Biden bad without choosing to ignore what the unions get and what they are saying. Unions negotiating and striking means that they are negotiating. They aren't guaranteed to get better anything. I'm not in the railroad industry or their union so if the union is saying positive things about something they got I'm in no position to argue with them and there is no reason for me to do so.

Bolding mine.

What you would have to argue, if you wanted to move me, is that there are not some significant number of people who are swayed by the posturing and acts that are taken by the government. Repeatedly telling me that they are bad (something I've said myself), that it's not enough (something I've said myself), and that stopping the rail worker's strike is bad (another thing we agree on) is not engaging with a point I've made. The thing you did choose to engage with you are just wrong about, again because it isn't good enough for you and your need to reaffirm Biden bad. Biden is bad sure, but the Unions said he did a good. That's not up for argument.

Bolding mine.

So that's a dead end thing you're presenting here and I encourage you to reread the post where I told you I don't know why you think an article about event A is a contradiction to event B occurring. You clearly understand these are two separate events given the intimate partner dynamic you keep bringing up. All that means is you don't care that B happened because of A and that's fine but didn't contradict a thing I've said.

That's before pointing out that you still haven't engaged with the point I made about how it's a good sign that politicians show even faux support for unions.

Bolding mine.

You are such a fucking weasel, but fortunately the words you wrote remain. Own up to how much of a dipshit you were or fuck off, but I am too much of a pedant to stop posting so long as you keep saying things that are provably wrong.

[MGuy]

So you are doubling down on the stance that you just randomly chose to talk about if Biden was genuinely pro union despite the original post that kicked this off not making that claim. Reason? No explanation. That was a post I made and definitely didn't understand the meaning of but you definitely did.

Your evidence that I've done something wrong is that after you personally decided not to engage with the thing I said but decided to pursue a tangent because you just didn't want to talk about anything else. So confirmation that this entire pursuit was basically not made in good faith.

Alright. I'll rest easier with my decision.

[PseudoStupidity]

It's not my fault you can't read, write, or follow a conversation. I've spelled it out for you and yet you still don't understand how a person could witness you saying Joe Biden showing up to a picket line is a good sign for labor power and decide to post about how they disagree and think it's not a good sign for labor power. You continue to insist that something else happened, and those explanations have become more and more detached from reality. No way you can back down from it either, you will just insist you are correct.

You are literally claiming that responding to the quote below with a response about how that's basic campaigning and that Biden still hates labor is somehow a non sequitur.

Biden has decided to show up at the picket line for auto workers. While I don't believe this means much to the effort overall I think it's a good sign that the office believes it is good to actually visibly side with workers. From what I understand the act of even showing up for this kind of thing is historic. With all the strikes starting up I hope that this is yet another good sign for the growth of labor power in this country.

You're fucking stupid, please stop. You are only generating more crow to eat, and it's already a murder.

[Kaelik]

In less joyously fighting about union news:

Biden is going to invade Haiti! Thank god for the glorious US military.

The UN has approved a "Multinational Security Support Mission" which is probably going to look a lot like the last time the US felt like using the UN to invade Haiti, which is to say they will restore the status quo of respect being given to official US puppet presidents who's singular political position is that all Haitian migrants can be deported back to Haiti and will be accepted and in addition to shooting lots of protestors they will go around raping women left and right.

[PseudoStupidity]

We can't have gangs doing the things that imperial troops/police (whatever we're calling this peacekeeping force) should be doing. Alternatively, It's about time the correct boot was put onto the people of Haiti. Lots of different angles to make dark jokes about this.

I thought the US wasn't going to commit any troops though, and that it was mostly (maybe all?) troops from Caribbean nations and also Kenya for some reason. The US is bankrolling it though, a sweet $100 million. Are we sending any of our own troops? I wouldn't be surprised if that was buried or just not mentioned in what I've read about Haiti lately, which has all been WaPo and the NYT.

[Kaelik]

1) We aren't sending any US troops, we are simplying paying Kenyan troops to do it for us and also we have agreed to a military alliance with Kenya.

2) That's still definitely a US invasion! It's a US invasion even if we hire the mercenaries.

3) While in general, yeah lots of jokes about which boots, the main thing is there are 580k encounting people from haiti on a list trying to get into the US from Haiti and the US wants to end the "humanitarian emergency" of irregular killings by non official cops, so they can not admit any of those people to the US.

[Sashi]

I don't know why you're asking me another random question about this framing you continue wanting to use after I explicitly said I reject it.

I'm asking because I want to know your framing and I am genuinely worried about why you deflected this question with increasingly incoherent rambling. This entire idea of a bright line between public and private life has been used to protect interracial marriage but it has also been used to protect child abuse and marital rape, so I would like your assurances that whatever our current disagreements and misunderstandings you do not support child abuse or marital rape. At first this was merely a question trying to figure out the shape of our disagreement, but now that you have twice deflected my question of "do you think this kind of child abuse is okay" instead of just saying it's not okay I am concerned.

Political entities and actions are tools to me and that's it. I want material benefits for myself and others like me. When I interact with these entities it is with that understanding, along with the understanding that others are also pushing and pulling at the same levers I am with goals, ideas, and biases that may or may not coincide with mine. I want more people who don't already want to do what I want then to do to align with me enough to push more levers than the people who don't want what I want. When I advocate for my positions I do so explicitly understanding this is the case and that is my goal So when a political act is undertaken I do not view it as an individual who 'should' feel any responsibility for me. I view it as an institution taking an action for any number of reasons.

Similarly I view others I don't know in the same light. You are not kin to me Sashi. However great you might be irl is meaningless to me because we're not on any kind of friendly terms. I don't know you. We are, however, likely aligned on many political things. Even if I think that internalizing this shit in that way is unhealthy I don't really care that you do beyond thinking it's weird. If, at the end of the day you stand for the same things that I do, and you're voting/advocating for representatives that are necessary for future goals I desire and not ones that I don't, whatever your perception of government is beyond that does not matter to me.

I, however, will never see the government, political entities, or whatever as part of my personal life.

I am extremely curious about how you square the circle of this position with your support of unions, the whole point of which are to act in solidarity and sacrifice a bit of your material wellbeing for the benefit of others who are not your kin, at least in the short term.

More than that, this idea that politics is just pushing levers of the political machine is inherently biased towards the already wealthy and privileged. Not only does it ignore that the levers of power aren't fixed (voter disenfranchisement is a choice) but the already powerful can push harder on the levers to further enrich themselves and further disempower the already marginalized. It's not an accident that every time labor has won major concessions the tactics they use to extract those concessions soon became illegal. It's also not an accident that supreme court justices who regularly go on all-expenses paid vacations with billionaires keep ruling that campaign finance laws apply to unions but not to billionaires.

[MGuy]

It's not my fault you can't read, write, or follow a conversation. I've spelled it out for you and yet you still don't understand how a person could witness you saying Joe Biden showing up to a picket line is a good sign for labor power and decide to post about how they disagree and think it's not a good sign for labor power.

The only thing I'm blaming you for is being dishonest. I understand that your knee jerk reaction was because you didn't understand what I was saying or what I was hopeful about. Blaming me for the fact that you jumped the gun and trying to cover for it by claiming that 'after that' you were clearly just trying to right a wrong? Sure. It's that and not that you jumped the gun in your response because you can't stand the idea that anyone sees Biden or the Dems in a positive light (regardless of if they do or have ever said that). So after you have to twist yourself into knots to validate the fact that you started with a conclusion you wanted to press and was utterly uninterested in what I was saying.

Though, given recent revelations I'm thinking you might've been incapable of understanding it from the get go. On top of the blinding Dem hate.

[MGuy]

Sashi I explained my framing of the government in detail. Asking me a question about my position on parenting in a conversation about government is irrelevant. Especially because I don't buy into your likening the government to a parent in the first place. So until you shape that question in a way relevant to the government I'm not answering it because this isn't about parenting.

On how I square that I'm not sure what you mean. The reason we have to act in solidarity is because the system is Inherently biased in favor of the powerful and well connected. I chose to start doing the ground work and being more pro labor because it is in my best interest to do so. The hell we live in is very real and very vivid to me. I work a labor job. I barely get enough to stay afloat because every time I get a little ahead and emergency happens. The fact that other people don't actually care about what I'm going through from the top to the bottom is something that I am well aware of. The only thing to do then is get enough people generally pushing in the same direction I want things to go. I don't have the luxury of being too picky about how that happens. Some people are genuinely moved by the plight of others. Some only care about a thing when they are told it matters. Some people are moved by symbolic gestures.

[MGuy]

1) We aren't sending any US troops, we are simplying paying Kenyan troops to do it for us and also we have agreed to a military alliance with Kenya.

2) That's still definitely a US invasion! It's a US invasion even if we hire the mercenaries.

3) While in general, yeah lots of jokes about which boots, the main thing is there are 580k encounting people from haiti on a list trying to get into the US from Haiti and the US wants to end the "humanitarian emergency" of irregular killings by non official cops, so they can not admit any of those people to the US.

Do we have a name on who this united security thing wants to install as the interim head official in Haiti?

[Kaelik]

1) We aren't sending any US troops, we are simplying paying Kenyan troops to do it for us and also we have agreed to a military alliance with Kenya.

2) That's still definitely a US invasion! It's a US invasion even if we hire the mercenaries.

3) While in general, yeah lots of jokes about which boots, the main thing is there are 580k encounting people from haiti on a list trying to get into the US from Haiti and the US wants to end the "humanitarian emergency" of irregular killings by non official cops, so they can not admit any of those people to the US.

Do we have a name on who this united security thing wants to install as the interim head official in Haiti?

The alleged head of Haiti will continue to be the current unelected head of the government who took over after the assassination and at least nominally asked for this intervention.

The head of the UN Military force is supposed to be someone Kenya picks apparently.

[Sashi]

Sashi I explained my framing of the government in detail. Asking me a question about my position on parenting in a conversation about government is irrelevant. Especially because I don't buy into your likening the government to a parent in the first place. So until you shape that question in a way relevant to the government I'm not answering it because this isn't about parenting.

Every time I say you have a personal relationship with the government you react with disgust:

Even the idea of doing so is disgusting to me.

But what I didn't really process was how much of this disgust seems to come from the idea that you think "responsibility to care" is the same as "responsibility to parent".

You're welcome to idealize government as your mommy/daddy but I am not.

From this it's clear to me that you and I have different meanings of "personal relationship". Where for you it's much more on the side of "intimate" or "affectionate" but right now I'm using it more like "affects you personally". Especially the way you use the term "idealize", as if expecting other people to care if my rights get violated is a utopian fantasy.

There is a reason for the phrase personal is political. That's because the consequences of politics can affect people's personal lives. That's not a relationship to political entities. My personal life is affected by politics. My personal life isn't what I'm participating in when I do politics that's not me dealing with family. There's no need for a bright line because these are different things all together. Not some kind of fuzzy scale.

From this it is clear that we agree politics affects our personal lives, where we diverge is the bolded sentence. Here you have switched from "that's not a personal relationship" to "that's not a relationship" as if "relationship" exclusively means a deep emotional connection rather than a general association. This is where I really should have noticed what's going on, and I apologize. Let me be clear that when I was saying we all have a "personal relationship" with the government I do not mean in the sense of parent/lover/sibling/friend. I mean just what you said: the consequences of politics can affects people's personal lives. My job changing my shift schedule affects my ability to attend a dental appointment, that's a personally consequential effect of a decision made by my employer, who I have an association with. If you want to push back on that being a personal relationship and just call it a professional relationship that affects my personal life then okay, it's a little clunky to say, but also more pedantically correct.

But what I can't deal with is that you also seem to insist that these non-personal relationships imply zero responsibility towards others:

Political entities and actions are tools to me and that's it. I want material benefits for myself and others like me. When I interact with these entities it is with that understanding, along with the understanding that others are also pushing and pulling at the same levers I am with goals, ideas, and biases that may or may not coincide with mine. I want more people who don't already want to do what I want then to do to align with me enough to push more levers than the people who don't want what I want. When I advocate for my positions I do so explicitly understanding this is the case and that is my goal So when a political act is undertaken I do not view it as an individual who 'should' feel any responsibility for me. I view it as an institution taking an action for any number of reasons.

When I say that the government is not just a tool and does have a responsibility towards you (and you towards it) you react as though I am saying that I want the government to be a parent/lover/sibling/friend, rather than what I actually mean which is the Uncle Ben principle: with great power comes great responsibility. The government is not just a set of levers to be pushed and pulled by whoever has the most power to operate them, or at least it shouldn't be.

Where I'm confused, here, is that it seems to me like part of your pushback seems to be that you don't believe the power the government has to affect our lives implies a responsibility to protect the general welfare. Instead, it seems to me that you think having responsibility for someone's welfare also grants power over that person. As if your boss having the responsibility to provide you with a safe working environment would also give them the right to dictate who you can have sex with.

So when the President breaks a strike because they have made the assessment that they would rather not allow the harm for that to spread to every other point in the economy this is not the same as something like deciding whether my sister or I will get to decide what movie we all watch for that night. The kind of decisions a nation makes are simply nowhere near the kinds of decisions parents make for children. I don't like it but I don't see it as done kind of personal abandonment of parental duty that they did. Now there are places where the government has acted in that way and almost every time it does it is seen as a bad thing. Curfews, deciding who we can't marry, how we get to have sex, and such are typically things you don't want government to be doing because that's considered authoritarian. That's getting beyond the fact that the government is not a single person and doesn't even act as a single entity.

One way to read this is that you think the government doing these things is bad because it is the government acting like a parent, which would imply you think it's okay for a parent to implement curfews, decide who their child can marry, and dictate their child's sexuality. That would certainly make sense for why you believe the government having a responsibility towards its citizens would be a "disgusting" relationship.

I am asking for clarification because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt on this and figure out what I am misunderstanding. The fact that you have deflected on this so heavily has made that benefit of the doubt a lot more difficult to give. I believe this is not a random or irrelevant question because you are the one who brought up the connection between a personal relationship and curfews/marriage/sex, not me. At this point I am genuinely worried you believe thinking the goverment has a responsibility to protect the rights of labor is a slippery slope to the government having the right to dictate how you have sex, and the reason you think that is because you believe that's how a parent/child relationship works.

The responsibility of a parent to provide for their child's welfare does not, in any way, grant that parent the right to tell that child they're not allowed to be gay. Similarly, the responsibility of the government to protect the rights of labor does not give government the right to dictate where you work or for whom.

On how I square that I'm not sure what you mean. The reason we have to act in solidarity is because the system is Inherently biased in favor of the powerful and well connected. I chose to start doing the ground work and being more pro labor because it is in my best interest to do so. The hell we live in is very real and very vivid to me. I work a labor job. I barely get enough to stay afloat because every time I get a little ahead and emergency happens. The fact that other people don't actually care about what I'm going through from the top to the bottom is something that I am well aware of. The only thing to do then is get enough people generally pushing in the same direction I want things to go. I don't have the luxury of being too picky about how that happens. Some people are genuinely moved by the plight of others. Some only care about a thing when they are told it matters. Some people are moved by symbolic gestures.

What I mean by "how do you square that" is how do you imagine your ideology of "zero responsibility to people who aren't my kin" could result in anything other marginalized groups competing to throw each other under the bus in return for scraps from the powerful and well connected. I genuinely wonder how you expect to build solidarity when you've announced your intention to pull the ladder up the moment it's materially beneficial for you to do so.

[MGuy]

I get that you don't get where I'm coming from because you have internalized this idea of government as parent. I don't think it is possible to really talk you out of that in this medium. Since it doesn't really effect the fact that we align politically I'm not going to waste time trying to get you out of it. To me personifying the government might be a nifty rhetorical strat, you apparently have taken it to heart. Given your lengthy insistence on sticking to it I don't think it's just rhetoric to you.

Government has people in it but it isn't a person. Government is an authority that can claim sovereignty over an area. It is an organization with a monopoly on force. That is what it is. Political organizations are just that. Collections of people and resources that are combined to try to lobby or play political games (hopefully) to push toward interests that the organization was formed to push.

That's all these things are. I might like the people that are in them. I might not. But I'm just a guy with not a lot of resources and not a lot of free time. It is in my interest and others to form groups and to act in unison toward political outcomes that are favorable. That is just what it is. Responsibility? Care? These are things congress people might abide by. The government? Is an institution. It is a means. So is every political organization attempting to lobby or act in their interest. I have things I want the government todo. My desires are personal. The government is not.

I want to know how you expect to build solidarity by arguing this long with someone who you are on the fence about giving the 'benefit of the doubt'. When coalition building would dictate that your focus should be swaying me to your side.

That is unless our differences aren't really that big so you understand that solidarity can be built without getting personal.

[Sashi]

We are not allies! You have made it very clear that you consider me a political tool who is currently useful to you because you believe joining a union would improve your material condition and I support unions. You are a ladder puller who would happily throw me under the bus for the slightest benefit because you feel no responsibility to help me unless it happens to also benefit you and your kin.

You also have shit reading comprehension so I can't even trust you to improve your understanding of political theory enough to actually be an ally. You are a person who should be kept as far away from the levers of power as possible explicitly because you believe the purpose of those levers is exclusively to enrich yourself.

[MGuy]

What do you think an ally is? What do you think building solidarity means? Are you saying that Unions shouldn't try to enrich the workers who are in the unions? What exact political theory do you subscribe to that casts government and its relation to its citizens/political groups as something significantly different than what I outlined?

[krakenn]

This guy can barely make decisions on his own, his reelection would be insanity.
Also, this is a cool online shop selling techwear pants, techwear jackets, futuristic clothing, and so much more: techwear

[PseudoStupidity]

Holy shit Mguy, the phrase "personal relationship" can mean both "a relationship that affects someone's personal life" and "a relationship between two people." This is the stupidest sticking point ever, Sashi is making sense and you are hung up on their phrasing (which is correct)! They aren't anthropomorphising the government, they are saying the government affects your personal life and thus you have a personal relationship with the government.

Now get to the part where you explain whether or not you think people have a responsibility to care about people they have power over.

[Foxwarrior]

Is this true? I tried looking it up and the definitions were all about relationships between persons, the ambiguity was only in whether those persons have to be having sex.

[PseudoStupidity]

Is this true? I tried looking it up and the definitions were all about relationships between persons, the ambiguity was only in whether those persons have to be having sex.

That is because "personal" is a word that means "of, affecting, or belonging to a particular person rather than to anyone else" and relationship is a word that means "the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected." Context dictates that someone saying "personal relationship with the government" is saying they have a relationship with the government that affects themselves, instead of suggesting that the government is literally a person they have a relationship with. Language is complicated and context matters a lot, personal relationship means different things depending on the context it is used in.

[Omegonthesane]

Prior to this thread, the only time in the history of ever that I have heard "personal relationship" mean anything less than a romantic and sexual partner - not even a family member - is Christians claiming to have a personal relationship with their god, framed as "I talk to my god and sometimes he answers" and not as "the world architect makes decisions which roll down onto my face".

This thread is the first time I have heard the phrase "personal relationship" used to describe a relationship that impacts you personally. If you told me you had a personal relationship with your ISP, I would probably look at you as if you had grown an extra head.

[PseudoStupidity]

The Christian relationship with god example is a good one, they call it a personal relationship but they literally do not believe god is a person (god is God, not a person). It's actually a fantastic example of how personal relationship is used to refer to relationships between a person and a thing that is not a person. Christians are weird for having a personal relationship with god, but that's because god isn't real. It's totally possible to have a personal relationship with Christianity or the concept of god or religion, though. I had a personal relationship with Christianity, but that's because I was born and raised as a catholic so the church was really important to me as a person and had major impacts on my life.

If you want something that means "relationship between people" unambiguously the term you want is "interpersonal relationship." So glad I finally get to use this English degree. Take that, parents. I told you it would be useful.

[Omegonthesane]

You are in fact mistaken on a key point, the Christian line is that god is effectively a person who hears your individual prayers and answers them personally, and is only "not a person" in the same way that Yog-Sothoth is "not a person" in that he's a different order of being to the tiny mud men he allegedly created. They frame it as a personal relationship because they believe they're talking to a thing that is best understood as a person. A Father, specifically, as of the Nicene Creed.

Anyway I googled "personal relationship meaning" without quotes, and all the results are about relationships between individuals, none of them are about relationships that fuck a person. Same when I duckduckgoed the same phrase. There was some variation in that some of the results implied that a "personal relationship" could be less intense than the type of relationship legally recognised at a wedding, but none of them referred to anything except a connection between one person and one other person. Language is use; if people were using "personal relationship" to describe how they are eternally at the mercy of the government, I'd expect it to reach the front page of a search engine.

[MGuy]

I've not seen any definition of personal relationship not being between persons. In this context likening one's relationship to the government as a personal relationship is suggesting that Sashi see's their relationship with the government as if it was between themselves and another person. Sashi's continued insistence on likening the relationship to a parent and child confirms over and over again that this is how they see it as well. If you're going to interject PS just for a gotcha that is an odd one to choose.

Besides that what you're asking is better phrased: Does MGuy think people 'should' take responsibility for the people that they have power over? I don't think people or governments do what I think they should. I think PS should stop being petty. I think that Sashi should stop with this government = parent nonsense. What I think people do is whatever satisfies them. I think people respond to incentives. No matter what I think of 'people' though the government is not a person. It is an institution.

[PseudoStupidity]

You are in fact mistaken on a key point, the Christian line is that god is effectively a person who hears your individual prayers and answers them personally, and is only "not a person" in the same way that Yog-Sothoth is "not a person" in that he's a different order of being to the tiny mud men he allegedly created. They frame it as a personal relationship because they believe they're talking to a thing that is best understood as a person. A Father, specifically, as of the Nicene Creed.

Anyway I googled "personal relationship meaning" without quotes, and all the results are about relationships between individuals, none of them are about relationships that fuck a person. Same when I duckduckgoed the same phrase. There was some variation in that some of the results implied that a "personal relationship" could be less intense than the type of relationship legally recognised at a wedding, but none of them referred to anything except a connection between one person and one other person. Language is use; if people were using "personal relationship" to describe how they are eternally at the mercy of the government, I'd expect it to reach the front page of a search engine.

No, I'm not mistaken here. There's like a million different sects of Christianity and they all believe different shit. I was raised Catholic (Roman Catholic, if that matters) and we didn't think God listened to our prayers and answered them. Technically it's a game of telephone with Jesus between the praying person and God iirc, but you never expected god to answer your prayer. Why the fuck should god ever pay attention to a pathetic being such as myself, a lone sinner? It's been like two decades since confirmation and I left the church about as soon as I could, so I could be a little off on the theology, but that's what I was taught in a catholic church. We had a bishop and everything, I think it was legit.

For personal relationships, yes when most people talk about a personal relationship they are referring to interpersonal relationships. That doesn't change what those words mean, though, and they certainly don't change that the person who wrote them explained exactly what they meant. If you want to intentionally misunderstand Sashi you are welcome to do so, but Sashi communicated correctly when describing their personal relationship with the government. This is not a matter of debate, it's simply a verifiable fact that you can have personal relationships with things that are not people.

Do you really think people driving around with American flags and "my country, love it or leave it!" bumper stickers don't have a personal relationship with the United States of America? People have personal relationships with all kinds of things, it is shocking to me that several people have expressed that they don't understand the concept of personal relationships with things that are not people.

I've not seen any definition of personal relationship not being between persons. In this context likening one's relationship to the government as a personal relationship is suggesting that Sashi see's their relationship with the government as if it was between themselves and another person. Sashi's continued insistence on likening the relationship to a parent and child confirms over and over again that this is how they see it as well. If you're going to interject PS just for a gotcha that is an odd one to choose.

If the person who was communicating with you quite literally tells you what they mean by "personal relationship" you don't get to decide they meant something different. It is incredible that you regularly misunderstand things and then stubbornly insist that your misinterpretation is correct.