@Zeusdelight It could be that the joke went over my head... but if you weren't joking, then please feel free to explain how statistics are going to work out here?

@GerOttman It's strange that I've never pointed out peoples' spelling mistakes or typos but only reply to the substance of once replies. And it's even stranger, that the people that like to do these things during conversations that I'm a part off, ussually have very little insightfull to contribute.

@Kwek00 and now you see the problem. you have no substance to reply to leaving only your spastic spelllin to deal wig.

auf weidersehen!

@GerOttman Go post a meme somewhere :)

@dancingtongue I agree on the first part.

I do blame demagogues, I also blame media capture. This is all true.... but I don't deny that there is a segment in society that are just running on a diffrent moral system then mine. And that that the diffrent moral system has just been part of society for a long time. You can trace the ideas of the MAGA movement and by extend Christian Nationalism, all the way back to the early 17th century. It's always been there, and when it comes to christian nationalism, these ideas are perceived to be part of providence. No matter how we would like the world to be, the reality right now is that there is a segment of the poppulation that believes that their ideas aren't just better but ordained by God. No matter what you want... you will not win any argument against this God-concept. You can erode these movements over time, but it will not help you today and it will not protect you from certain upsurges that can be extremely violent and viscious. The reason why you can't, is because liberalism doesn't permit it. Inside liberalism, all these people are "reasonable individuals" and you can "reason" them out of bad ideas. Liberalis will also defend (to the death) the right to say ideas that they dissaprove off (thx Voltaire). So there is also no real mechanism to censor or clean the dataset (culture) in which these types of identies are formed in every generation.

Liberalism doesn't deal with certain parts of the human condition, mainly concerning concepts like: the forming of once identity, tribalism (or social groups that have collective outlooks) and the longing for meaning. Liberalism, doesn't tell you how to live your life neither will it solve existential crisis that pop up in every individual. The utopian vision of liberalism isn't only a very long term project that none of us will ever see realised in our lifetime... it also has a big potential of being a really bleak vision of the future (this is an old idea, but Fukuyama is bringing it back to the forefront with his new book tour). And while we are going towards that vision, human beings are just perceived as "rational" individuals striving towards their own invidiual happiness. For a lot of people... this just isn't enough. So they look to other pastures. Demagogues use this, to form narratives that lure these people into giant movements, and these movements do fill the holes that liberalism left behind. So it's not enough to blame demagogues, we also need to accept that liberalism has some serious issues. That human beings aren't "rational actors" that can be "reasoned" out of every position no matter how holy or backwards those positions can be. And that liberalism really doesn't have any practical guidelines to deal with these situations... except for the noble idea that you can "reason" people out of every "unreasonable" position over time. And we need to face the fact, that the ideas that the demagogue uses... were already part of a large segment of the populations conceptualiation of reality. Demagogues don't tell these people new stuff, they largely confirm the toxic and radical ideas that these people already had. It's not when the demagogue leaves, that these ideas are suddenly discarded and leave.

Erosion of a movement... a big coalition, is to be expected. However, that hardcore base and it's orbit, will not dissapear. The influx of money they had, in the last 15 years, will assure that these ideas will stay with us for a long time. You have an entire young generation, where this types of politics is now normalised again, and polical actors have been given a glimpse on how far you can actually go because those that protect liberalism will not really push back at all. Liberals can write angry letters, reason in the house and the senate, impeach in the house ... but at the end of the day your rights are pretty much moot if the people in power are unwilling to protect them and enforce the law. What Donald Trump is doing might be a horror for us... but for some people, this is an inspiration. And if it's going to be liberals being liberals after the next election win, then I don't see any reason why these ideas and the people that hold them will just go away for ever. Because these people have no reason too, because it seems that they can get away with a whole lot.

@dancingtongue

Did I give up on that? ... Where is that to be found? As I said before, in the long term you can erode movements, even the once that go against the vision you hold. But you don't live in the future, you live in the now. And in the now, you'll have to play the cards you were dealt. A quote from Machiavelli in his preface to The Prince: “How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.". When I read this... my heart broke, and for several days I felt disturbed by this simple wisdom. But I've found no refute, imposing the ideal state on any society as an intellectual exercise, does not make you understand the current times, it only replaces them by a longing that will lead to delusion, depression and despair. At worst it will lead that longing to become a frustration and an obsession to set things right... which, if followed through, will end up with the former dreamer smashing in skulls to obtain instant gratification, pushing people into molds before society is hot enough to be molded. For examples, you can look at the killing fields of Cambodja, the concentration camps that are littered over former NAZI-occupied Europe, the mass graves of Spain and the graves dug for those that didn't survive the Gulags and deadly persecution of a regime that wanted to make "the new man" not in the future but in their lifetimes. Comming back to today, in which the world that you want doesn't excist and is not usefull in any analysis of the current moment. However... it's not because you have to face the issues of today that you have to give up your hopes for the far future. I find it more reasonable, to believe that it's healthier to help build and advocate for something, even though I never will see it's finalisation, without denying the state of the current moment.


Just like the first question, I ask you again where you even found this in my writings? Did I not say that: "The "disenfranchisment" that this radical segment of society was subjected too, was the most peacefull way of dealing with this segment.". This "disenfranchisment", has little to do with governement control. Most of the time, it's done by peer pressure in society itself... what you might call "political correctness". It doesn't need to be filled with animosity, but it's okay not to tollerate everything. And the state, shouldn't be funding churches and organisations that engage in politics... something that I believe in the US is law, but has not been upheld.

I'm pretty sure that from what I've said so far, I don't consider Liberalism an "absolute authorian control"-model at all. And I never threw liberalism outside the range of active political ideologies in society. But right now, they are still competing with ideological models that don't believe in compromise and are waging war towards the liberal consesus.

When it comes to liberalism.... I just have a bunch of issues with it, and I honestly think that liberals should start having issues with it too. When it come to this, I think Patrick Deneen makes a good point when he says as reformer that not everything in liberalism needs to be discarded as whole and that there are many values worth saving... Sadly, Deneen is a catholic apologist and goes on fabricating a theocratic system that throws more away then I would ever do. But I do agree that if one wants to save those liberal values that you (and we might not have total overlap but I put myself in this bracket too) want to preserve, it's time to do some reflection on this liberal concept and start kicking out things that sound nice, but are too fantastical to be true. Maybe a return to earlier liberal thought, where people had the "potential" to be reasonable, is already preferable to the self-glorification that a majority of liberals seem to have integrated in their thinking today, where people are by default reasonable and rational actors. Because it feels nice to say that of oneself... but there is no proof that this is true, and neither should it be used in analysis. Like the one the fable that liberals sometimes tells themselves that one is totally responsible for once own position because all the choices that they made flowed from "reasonable" and "rational" descisions, when humans are emotional beings. This is just one example, where a return to the original idea of liberalism can be used to reach diffrent conclussions that we have today... but I do think liberals need to go beyond that. The only way to learn more about once position is not to read thinkers that already agree, but those that fundamentally disagree and see if their reasons are valid. People don't need to adopt all the prescriptions of a NAZI like Carl Schmitts, but liberals should read his criticisms of the liberal system because some of them are more intelligent and to the point, then liberals like to admit. If Self-reflection is an issue, then at least let the most intelligent critics help you out to pluck the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower..

When it comes to the "eternal", I reserve that for the preachers that believe in such things. For me, society is malleable to a high degree and I've not found anything that will not perish over time... I just don't want to mold my society all in a short periode of time because I've seen the suffering that it causes and I can't perceive that it's doable without that. For me, culture, and the generations that grow up in it and are molded by it (aka society), is an oil tanker that changes course slowly and not a sportscar that takes any bent one might want to take in the descision of a split second.

When it comes to war... War is at the foundation of liberal ideology. Without war, Hobbes would have never written his "Leviathan". Although Hobbes, for me, is not a liberal writer. His ideas contain the seed of which liberalism grew. The tendency of human beings to form governement is to protect oneself for the eternal conflict of war against all, at least according to Hobbes. Eternal... not because of a prophetic vision, but because of Hobbes default position on the human condition. For me, as for most people that function within the current liberal zeitgeist, physical violence is only used for: defense and seeking justice through punishment for those that are not susceptible to other means. And, I prefer the monopoly of violence to be held by the state that should excercise it with great caution. Even if an actor inside the state, seeks personal satisfaction for a perceived injustice that I can sympathise with... the state needs to punish the offender for vigiliantism can't be tollerated and needs to stay the exception not the rule. For me... the first and best way to resolve conflict is diplomacy and human relations. However... I don't prescribe to the pipe dream that every conflict can be resolved in such a way. And thus, physical violence should always be a part of statescraft and a tool for revolution and even evolution. Physical violence is a part of the current human condition, maybe it will change but testosteron will urge people to do what testosteron likes to do. Growing up as a society, is partially learning to deal with this tendency to be violent... as a teenage man needs to learn to keep his violent emotions in check so he can become part of the society of adults.

However... that is liberalism today. When liberalism started to become a dominant force and seeked out to create liberal-democratic institutions... they were not so peacefull. From the end of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century with, liberalism established itself through ideological imperialist conquest. Almost every western democracy today was founded on a violent revolution. And "property", something that is central in liberal thought as it was conceived by people that practised a mercantile attitude towards life, can only start to excist if one takes it for itself often by violent mean (Property is Theft, is an idea that even the most devoted capitalists are afraid to deal with). But, and I think this is in a way the sadness but also one of the biggest accomplishments of liberalism, it created a sphere in which even it's opponents could mature and become part of the liberal whole. Legeslation by itself, doesn't reform culture and the people that inhabbit that cultural field. These old tendencies, don't just magically go away because someone has legeslated an idea that counters their own.

It took from the 1776 when Jefferson wrote down his dogmatic foundation: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.", until 1968 for a majority of the country to accept that Black people are part of the category of "men" (as in human beings... which for women, was also a fight) and are equal to all other "men" so it could be put into law. Sadly denying these people their "unalienable rights" for more then 200 years. Every argument, death and every drop of blood shed matured our society as a whole where at least a majority can agree to the ideal that was set out. And even now, in 2026, there are still factions that will embrace the idea said out by Alexander Stephenson in his cornerstone speech: "They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.". These people fight in the political arena to uphold their dogma and bronze symbols, that are spread around in American public spaces, of men that died to defend the idea that a certain group of human beings are not "men" and are not equal and should thus be treated unequally. But the most radical elements still excercise terror and physical violence on a local level, for the state can't stop every actor from acting in a liberal way. The only system where I know, that this process can happen is liberalism OR a society with a liberal element (like the early modern British forms of gorvernement OR time of Bismarcks Germany... where you had a illiberal system of elites controlling society but at least allowing discussion in a parliament for the commons where ideas can ripe and become adopted by majorities). It's an accomplishment and a curse, for more blood and tears will flow before we are all on the same page... if that is even possible. And the only reason blood will flow, is because not all ideologies are compatible and thus not all discussions can be solved in the arena of "reasonable discussion". The foundations of ideologies are not objective truths, but dogmatic ideals that one wants to strive for. And those dogmatic ideas, can't be questioned or substantiated on an objective basis. Once two factions have taken up a dogma that is fundamentally opposed, there is no way to make them work together unless both factions are willing to compromise. And as I said before, certain toppics can't be compromised on, unless you want to loose your proverbial soul. And in those cases... disenfranchisment is the most peaceful sollution. Or to use Jefferson, to perceive the other side as irrational because they have rejected a self-evident truth. Which... btw, is the same thing the radical opponent will do, unless they glorify violence to uphold a new order or a romanticized version of an old one that they want to reinstate.

But if you want to liberal for the sake of liberalism, if you want to work together by those that are set out to destroy you, if you want to compromise by those that are promoting things that are morally repugnant to your own ideals, ... if you want to live how we ought to live and studie what ought to be done rather than what is done, then don't be surprised that you end up at the end of a noose. You can stand there argueing and reasoning to your fellow man how your dogmatic foundation leads to a point where we can all live together and be sociable as long as we compromise on things and tolerate practises that the other party decided can't be tolerated or compromised on. Don't be surprised when that person, with full consciousness, without malice or hate, and out of moral and righteous conviction kicks the stool from under your feet, so (s)he can save their society from degenerate ideas that you either hold or allow in your ideal pluralistic society. You won't be the first liberal to go that way, and you won't be the last.