"Societies are defined less by what they permit and more by what they don’t."
This is why Enlightenment liberalism failed. This why John Stuart Mill is full of crap. A society collectively defines the sacred and the profane. A society whose only sacred commandment is "do as thou wilt" can not sustain itself.
Paraphrasing Matthew Yglesias: "I'm friendly and nice and progressive, so we need cops like me." As they say, a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and I'm sure Matthew has never been mugged. No one of Matthew's temperament would survive a year as an urban cop. He would either get jaded and cynical or get killed. Starship Troopers, man. We're back to Starship Troopers.
I think when we tell people that a society cannot sustain itself, we're not saying it's going to end in 10 years. Not necessarily. What we're saying is that we're never going to last anywhere near as long as even Britain has, and there's very little of a legacy we're ultimately going to leave behind. The problem is, with today's people, you can't get them to care about anything beyond the next 12 months.
Ana Kasparian is an example of a liberal who got mugged. Now she sounds nowhere near as progressive as she once was. In fact, she's become more tolerable than some people on the Right, honestly. And I agree that someone with Yglesias' personality would never make it as a cop. The mistake people like him make is thinking all people can be talked down. Somehow, based on what he wrote, I don't get the sense he actually believes this, but my point is that he's not someone who has the poise to deal with truly unpleasant people who simply won't be denied. Not everyone has good intentions, a fact of life the liberal has a tough time coming to grips with. I also agree that it's precisely someone like him who gets jaded and cynical, and ends up being the biggest of assholes on the force, racking up complaint after complaint.
Yes. My "not sustainable" means over several generations. At least a couple of those generations have already passed, but as Adam Smith said, "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", especially one as powerful as we are. We have enough inertia to continue the unsustainable for a while still. If we're Rome, it's not AD 476, folks; it's 51 BC.
"Societies are defined less by what they permit and more by what they don’t."
This is why Enlightenment liberalism failed. This why John Stuart Mill is full of crap. A society collectively defines the sacred and the profane. A society whose only sacred commandment is "do as thou wilt" can not sustain itself.
Paraphrasing Matthew Yglesias: "I'm friendly and nice and progressive, so we need cops like me." As they say, a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and I'm sure Matthew has never been mugged. No one of Matthew's temperament would survive a year as an urban cop. He would either get jaded and cynical or get killed. Starship Troopers, man. We're back to Starship Troopers.
I think when we tell people that a society cannot sustain itself, we're not saying it's going to end in 10 years. Not necessarily. What we're saying is that we're never going to last anywhere near as long as even Britain has, and there's very little of a legacy we're ultimately going to leave behind. The problem is, with today's people, you can't get them to care about anything beyond the next 12 months.
Ana Kasparian is an example of a liberal who got mugged. Now she sounds nowhere near as progressive as she once was. In fact, she's become more tolerable than some people on the Right, honestly. And I agree that someone with Yglesias' personality would never make it as a cop. The mistake people like him make is thinking all people can be talked down. Somehow, based on what he wrote, I don't get the sense he actually believes this, but my point is that he's not someone who has the poise to deal with truly unpleasant people who simply won't be denied. Not everyone has good intentions, a fact of life the liberal has a tough time coming to grips with. I also agree that it's precisely someone like him who gets jaded and cynical, and ends up being the biggest of assholes on the force, racking up complaint after complaint.
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Yes. My "not sustainable" means over several generations. At least a couple of those generations have already passed, but as Adam Smith said, "there's a lot of ruin in a nation", especially one as powerful as we are. We have enough inertia to continue the unsustainable for a while still. If we're Rome, it's not AD 476, folks; it's 51 BC.