Like, I appreciate that the Overton Window shifts, but there’s no way this shit is organic…
It’s everywhere, now. Not just college campuses. Not just the internet. Not just cable news. In urban Australia, it is almost literally inescapable (unless you never turn on the TV, never use a streaming service, never read the news, and practically never leave your suburb).
It’s… Bizarre. And people have become afraid to speak out, or question it.
Hell, I even know some of my own family members (and family friends) have started to “adopt” political positions fundamentally at odds to the beliefs they claimed to hold, less than a decade ago… So much so that it takes getting them in a one-on-one, face to face situation to admit they secretly don’t believe what they pretend to, when around the rest of the family, or that they secretly don’t believe that the endless boosters and masks will “protect” them from this virus that everyone around me claims to still fear…
It’s… I don’t think I’ve ever seen society be this… Conformist, and cowed, and fundamentally… “Degenerate”.
Honestly, from where I sit, it feels like the loudmouth activists have won, and “we”/normies have fundamentally lost.
It’s fucking disillusioning AF. Just look at any “documentary” that covers how things have “changed” in the last 2-3 decades. I promise you, you’ll see the trend…
Something’s gotta give. Society can only bend so far left before it a) breaks, or b) snaps back.
More and more this feels like the last days of Athens/Rome/Constantinople. I very much doubt we have the technology and wherewithal to prevent a similar collapse.
Stay sane, y’all. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep pushing back, for what that’s worth…
A very large amount of people will not behave morally unless they are forced to by society. That's why "democracy" is such a farce, and why every society decays and rots soon after adopting universal suffrage.
What's the libertarian counterargument for this premise?
If maximal liberty is best but the average citizen will always lean towards degeneracy, how is this addressed and balanced?
They don't really have one, they're an intellectually bankrupt philosophy that fails to account for, and thus is paralyzed against bad faith actors.
Further, I didn't say the average citizen. The average person will go along to get along. But a large amount of people are never going to behave unless the consequences for not doing so are severe.
What I'm talking about is a moral society that policies itself from a desire to stay a moral society. Maximize liberty without permitting evil to flourish, via the simple admission that being and doing evil is not a right, but a crime.
Which is in itself the idea behind the concept of illegality anyway, something every society accepts and acts on. We're merely talking about dialing some things back that used to be crimes, and should be once again.
I like libertarianism, a lot. But this is one of the things that I have a problem with. Hell, libertarians can't even agree with each other on what makes a libertarian. Some, like me, are in favor of some limits especially concerning drugs, while others want practically no rules at all.
The biggest problem though, is that at its core, libertarianism is an individualistic ideology, and that means that it is inherently difficult to come together as a group to solve problems or counter outside threats. Meanwhile, collectivists like liberals/commies/etc, are able to do that automatically by their own nature.
It's basically the problem that the right is having in America right now, where there is little real organization, and no real way for them to stand up to liberals or the federal government, whereas liberals can set up huge protests, marches, or riots in mere days, and they march in lockstep in terms of getting laws passed regardless of the legality or legitimacy.
One of the things I begrudgingly respect China for is their ability to get things done when they want to, even if it isn't done well. Unlike the right in America, China doesn't bother asking if things are the right thing to do, or whether it's moral, they just do it. No concern for the opposite party members (though it helps that there are none over there).
The problem the right in America has was deliberate. Buckley was a leftist and a sodomite, whose ideology was designed to create impotent opposition to the left.
That's why the so called conservatives have never conserved anything. Because they were designed not to. There is no path to victory while clinging to an ideology of constant retreat.
It is the state that favors and cultivates this degeneracy because immoral people are easier to control and enslave.