You think people dressed nice merely because air travel was expensive or that only rich people dressed nice? Yeah, no. It’s a break down in civility and what’s expected of the people.
One reason they can have ornate subways in Russia is because anyone who dissents gets disappeared and that’s what Jon Stewart is saying here - you have to allow vandalism for freedom. But both those points are extreme takes. Ultimately the reason is that you have a proud people who care about their united history and any attack on public property is an attack on themselves and this goes back to my point about how people dress in public.
Why do you have to allow vandalism for "freedom"? Why can't you just harshly punish vandals while leaving normal people who don't vandalize alone?
And if that is "freedom", doesn't that also include the freedom to stop vandals? But when people exercise that freedom they get "disappeared" (see David Penny as the most recent example).
And of course if you vandalize the "wrong" thing (like that Church of Satan statue, or the people who do burnouts on the rainbow crosswalks) you get prosecuted too, so you don't really have the freedom to vandalize either. You just have the "freedom" to vandalize whatever the State doesn't mind you vandalizing, which isn't really "freedom" but pretty much the same as it is in any "dictatorial" regime.
Right - that’s why I said Stewart’s take is stupid.
But there’s a deeper point here. While it’s true that fear of punishment is one reason people obey laws, the reality is that people honor the laws as part of being in a civil society along with shared experiences and a sense of community.
That’s why, for the longest time, we could have large stores filled with goods out in the open and shoplifting was unheard of.
Nowadays the left has trashed the culture so much that stores are not only locking things up but abandoning whole cities, partially because of lack of law enforcement but because we have an entire culture of sloth and entitlement.
You think people dressed nice merely because air travel was expensive or that only rich people dressed nice? Yeah, no. It’s a break down in civility and what’s expected of the people.
One reason they can have ornate subways in Russia is because anyone who dissents gets disappeared and that’s what Jon Stewart is saying here - you have to allow vandalism for freedom. But both those points are extreme takes. Ultimately the reason is that you have a proud people who care about their united history and any attack on public property is an attack on themselves and this goes back to my point about how people dress in public.
Why do you have to allow vandalism for "freedom"? Why can't you just harshly punish vandals while leaving normal people who don't vandalize alone?
And if that is "freedom", doesn't that also include the freedom to stop vandals? But when people exercise that freedom they get "disappeared" (see David Penny as the most recent example).
And of course if you vandalize the "wrong" thing (like that Church of Satan statue, or the people who do burnouts on the rainbow crosswalks) you get prosecuted too, so you don't really have the freedom to vandalize either. You just have the "freedom" to vandalize whatever the State doesn't mind you vandalizing, which isn't really "freedom" but pretty much the same as it is in any "dictatorial" regime.
Right - that’s why I said Stewart’s take is stupid.
But there’s a deeper point here. While it’s true that fear of punishment is one reason people obey laws, the reality is that people honor the laws as part of being in a civil society along with shared experiences and a sense of community.
That’s why, for the longest time, we could have large stores filled with goods out in the open and shoplifting was unheard of.
Nowadays the left has trashed the culture so much that stores are not only locking things up but abandoning whole cities, partially because of lack of law enforcement but because we have an entire culture of sloth and entitlement.