So also Justin Trudeau stated years ago that of all countries he admired China’s dictatorship the most because they could get things done quickly. Like father, like son. So he replicates his Dad’s fanboy admiration of Castro and Mao.
https://public.substack.com/p/brazil-should-terrify-you
“Brazil Should Terrify You: What’s happening here isn’t an isolated event”, MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, APR 13, 2024
“Just a day and a half ago, it seemed like things were calming in Brazil. The Folha de Sao Paulo, the New York Times of Brazil, editorialized against censorship. The head of the Brazilian Bar Association gave a strong statement in support of freedom of expression. And the President of Brazil’s Supreme Court said the conflict between Brazil and X, formerly known as Twitter, was over. “People talk a big game but don’t act on their words,” he said.
“All of that has once again changed. Yesterday, Brazil’s President Lula called for criminalizing lies. Given that everybody lies, Lula is proposing to give the government the power to arrest anyone he wants. Thousands of Workers Party activists took to X yesterday to demand that I be arrested for things I said during my testimony before the Brazilian Senate. And today, the head of X in Brazil announced he had quit, fearing for his safety.
“I am not afraid for myself. As I said on X a few days ago, I fear neither the devil nor de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice rapidly turning himself into Brazil’s dictator. I am taking all necessary precautions to ensure that I can leave Brazil safely and without being arrested. You can help by sharing this video and spreading the word about what is happening here.
“And yet Brazil terrifies me nonetheless. I love this country and its people and fear that they are on the cusp of totalitarianism. A significant share of the Left wants to incarcerate their political enemies. Respected Brazilian journalists say with a straight face that the government must engage in mass censorship in order to protect democracy. Brazil is everything that George Orwell feared and worse. The Brazilian government appears to view “1984” not as a dystopian future to avoid but as an instruction manual for building a new future.
“I might be less worried if Brazil were a small and irrelevant country, but it’s not. Brazil is the largest and most important nation in Latin America. Just this week, top Brazilian government representatives were in China talking about how China, one of the most totalitarian nations in the world, is a model for Brazil. Brazil is an inspiration for European totalitarians who have weaponized government intelligence agencies to spread disinformation about their political enemies and are implementing a censorship system to control the entire Internet.
“The most terrifying part of all of this is the marriage of psychopathic government leaders like Lula and de Moraes with totalitarian activists and voters. Governments have successfully brainwashed a significant percentage of the population into supporting mass censorship. Young adults raised on social media are today more intolerant than the students in China’s Cultural Revolution in China who denounced their teachers and sent them off to work camps to be tortured.
“At the same time, people with a mentality no different from the people who ran the Stasi and the Gestapo are in charge of intelligence agencies in Europe and the United States.
“Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives renewed legislation that gives the US government the right to spy on Americans suspected of collaborating with foreign governments. The result will be McCarthyism on steroids. The FBI will be able to spy on any American citizen who dares to criticize the war in Ukraine. The US government will label people who oppose endless wars in Eurasia as “political extremists,” ruining their careers, or worse.
“During the rise of Communism and fascism in Europe, many Jews and other persecuted people could flee to the United States. Where will we flee if the United States continues down the road to totalitarianism? Not Europe. Not Brazil. Is any country safe in a world where every movement, transaction, and thought is being monitored?
“I keep waiting for the downward totalitarian spiral to hit bottom, and it never does. I am naturally optimistic, but sometimes, that means I have tended toward wishful thinking. Such wishful thinking is dangerous and irresponsible in moments like this one. So, too, is passivity.
“We must act. That starts with standing up to the bullies, all of whom are cowards on the inside. Elon Musk stood up to the bully de Moraes last week and appears to be holding strong. Tonight, he will hold a Spaces with the controversial former president of Brazil, whom the Supreme Court has prevented from running for office again for another eight years.
“My colleagues and I are building a new free-speech movement. All of the organizations we used to rely upon to defend human rights, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and ACLU, have been taken over by totalitarians demanding censorship. We are gathering in London in June. We are starting our own NGOs around the world.
“We can’t do this alone. Please share this post, consider subscribing to my publication, Public, and make a donation. People are risking their lives to defend free speech for all human beings. You don’t need to risk yours, but we desperately need your help. Things won’t calm down until we stand up to the tyrants and remove every one of them from power.”
Note: Classic Liberal, Libertarianish-type principles, institutions, and policies will give you some criteria to evaluate what is going on today with this new collectivist totalitarianism trying to dominate our liberal democracy societies.
Another warning re the leftist assault on freedom
https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/yes-they-want-to-shut-down-free-speech-5625148
“Yes, They Want to Shut Down Free Speech”, By Jeffrey A. Tucker, 4/9/2024
Quotes:
“If you want to see the future of free speech in the United States, look to Brazil today. Speech that runs contrary to the existing regime of Brazilian President Lula da Silva is being criminalized. The restrictions grow tighter by the day….
“Tragically, the tech platforms themselves have proven to be incredibly unprincipled throughout this entire period. In both the United States and Brazil, most have gone along with the censorship push, even to the point of cheering it on.
“One of the few holdouts is the platform formerly known as Twitter, which is now X, managed by Elon Musk. He still believes in free speech as the foundation of all other freedoms….
“In the background is a gigantic protest that filled many city blocks in São Paulo. It was organized mainly through postings on X. This outraged the government and tipped it toward totalitarian controls, cracking down not only on the right of assembly but speech itself.
“The Lula regime is a close ally of the Biden administration, so of course the White House has said nothing about any of this….
“Free speech right now stands at a precipice. No question that many powerful people want it shut down completely.
“I don’t usually listen to podcasts, but I spent time with one on TechDirt. The person being interviewed was law professor Kate Klonick, who is a designated expert on free speech and the law. In matters of internet speech, she favors more control and cheers for the Biden administration in the case before the Supreme Court right now in Murthy v. Missouri.
“I listened hoping to discover some new arguments or facts of the case. She offered nothing new. What we got instead was a very long display of tribal loyalties….
“Listening to her interview, you would never know that most of the plaintiffs have no connection to anything “right-wing” at all but are rather just scientists trying to correct the record in times of extraordinary disinformation being dished out by the government. In this attempt, they ran headlong into a massive censorship industrial complex that involves a complicated web of control and influence, all being directed by the government itself….
“For her, it’s all a matter of tribal relationships. The censors are the good guys, her team, a gang of credentialed experts who know what is true and are determined to see it prevail in public culture as the dissidents are shoved to the margins. Her condescension is as palpable as her loathing of the very idea that speech should be free from coercive control.
“Sadly, she speaks for an entire class of rulers in many sectors of society today. They have sympathizers in the courts and every corporate boardroom. They are working to defend and celebrate the advent of totalitarian forms of governance in the West, all because they believe that they are and will be the ones in charge of it. The justification is to suppress the populist movements that threaten the entrenched power of global government elites….
“There was a time when people trusted sources such as Slate, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Wired, and, of course, The New York Times. But now, they are very reliable tellers of ruling-class tales….
“The chasm that separates the venues of honest journalism from the repeaters of regime propaganda is growing ever wider…
“But we should ask ourselves: How is it that we know all this? It’s because of the freedoms we have left to publish, speak, read, and listen. It’s these freedoms that they want to take away. This is because the controlled venues of legacy media are losing money, while alternative sources are growing in traffic, influence, and profitability. The only real option remaining for the plotters is to seek a full shutdown of the internet and the criminalization of speech.
“That is exactly what is happening in Brazil and what many in the United States want in our future. And we are not talking about a far-distant future.”
Us old school liberals are still adjusting to the great switcheroo, Wendell Krossa
All of us who have associated with the liberal side over past decades are still adjusting our heads to the great switcheroo that has occurred within the formerly liberal side of society over the last 10 years. That those who only quite recently claimed to identify as liberal, those who once defended the liberal principles of “pro-free speech, anti-censorship, anti-war, inclusivity of all, pro-equality, etc.”, those liberals have now rejected these principles of “Classic liberalism” for a highly illiberal authoritarianism. They are now engaged in directly assaulting and undermining the basic principles of liberal democracy, attacking true liberalism. Note, for example, the surveys that show a majority of US Democrats now affirm censorship and banning of opponents from elections ( https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/09/26/poll-clear-majority-democrats-want-free-speech-restrictions/ ).
This is the great readjustment that we are wrapping our heads around as we see mainly the left side shifting toward extreme Woke Progressivism and the “psychopathology of left-wing authoritarianism”. These leftists appear to have locked themselves into a narrative where they actually believe that they are in a morally superior position by embracing collectivism as operating for the “greater or common good”. And their collectivism is posed as a righteous crusade against their caricature of differing others as being about too much evil individualism, as a counter to the Classic liberal protection of individual freedom and rights that they have caricatured as being about “selfish individualism”. And hence, those who advocate for the Classic Liberal system are now “threats to democracy”, democracy as they have framed it. But their mangled narrative no longer bears any remote resemblance to liberal democracy.
So listen to these true liberals- e.g. Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger- representative of many others like them, who clearly see what is going on, and are detailing the actors and agencies involved that are pushing now for censorship, undermining free speech, and advocating for a new totalitarian intervention and control of populations.
Fortunately, many other “moderate liberals” today also recognize the threat that is coming from their side, though far too few are exhibiting the courage to speak out like Taibbi and Shellenberger. It reminds me of that police supervisor in the movie “Will”, who stated to the new recruits that would serve under the occupying Nazis during WW2, “You will stand silently and observe”. Or will you?
And in a nod to bothsideism, yes, there is always the threat of totalitarianism erupting from the right side of society. That has to be watched also, as in the recent conservative push to shut down pro-Palestinian protests and speech. See free speech and hate speech comments below.
So bothsideism is generally the cautionary stance that we need to hold. But today one side has taken the dominant position in pushing for intervention and control of citizens lives. Hence, it’s belief that it holds a “morally superior” position in society is undermined by its now unapologetic totalitarian stance. Therefore, the left today poses the greater threat to liberal democracy, as Robert F Kennedy recently stated to Erin Burnett on CNN.
Add here that where McCarthyism once came from the right side, today it comes to us on steroids from the left side (“Russia, Russia… Russian disinformation”).
Note my bothsideism qualifiers scattered throughout the comment here. That’s comes from my fierce independent stance as per Louis Zurcher’s “The Mutable Self”. That being said, as the historical pendulum swings, today the greater threat of totalitarianism is from the Woke Progressive left. Even many liberals acknowledge this.
This on defining “hate speech”: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/hate
“Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group”.
The safest approach to defining and criminalizing hate speech is to limit the definition to “Incites imminent lawless action”. This prevents the extending of hate speech boundaries (“concept creep”) which can then open the door to abuse, like infringements on the rights of others to freedom of speech, as well as the dangerous politicization of such laws against the speech of opponents (criminalizing differing speech that some consider upsetting, offensive, even repugnant).
https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/4156_ri_1978.pdf
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself,” Thomas Paine.
We are seeing varied forms of abuse of “hate speech” across the planet, presented in terms of “noble cause” legislative crusades against “disinformation, hate speech, exposure of children to porn and bullying, etc.”. And that element of legitimate harm exists but then the proposed legislation employs fuzzy boundaries and that opens the door for partisan abusers to criminalize speech that they don’t like, the speech of political opponents, and even comedy that upsets. That is a direct assault on liberal democracy.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/jk-rowling-not-delete-posts-scotlands-new-hate-crime-act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA1p8jAp5ew
Regarding this last one- Scotland’s criminalization of “offensive” comedy- there is nothing that a totalitarian fears more than mockery of their nakedness, of being exposed as totalitarians, stripped of any pretense of remaining liberalism.
As liberalism is assaulted and abandoned in our societies, and the home-grown totalitarians in our formerly liberal Western societies now push for more and more control, the rest of us are left to ponder how former liberals have lost their way, now apparently unaware of what they are doing. Unaware that, in unleashing their impulse to totalitarianism, they are causing horrific damage to liberal democracy, And where are the courageous remaining liberals who get what is happening? Its time to speak out, guys.
I see part of the problem here is how people delude themselves with narratives that they are in a righteous battle against intolerable evil (the hysterically exaggerated demonization of differing others) and therefore must “save democracy, save the world”. They view themselves as heroes sent to slay the monster, the enemy. Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi detailed how this story line played out recently in their “America This Week” comment on the MSNBC thing. This is the result of excessive demonization, over past years, of differing others as “Nazis, racists, far-right, fascists, threats to democracy and life,… etc.” You cannot go more extremist than to demonize the differing other as “Hitler, Nazi, etc.”.
The MSNBC folks portrayed themselves as courageous heroes for their expulsion of a dangerous threat in their midst- a balancing conservative voice. No DEI diversity and inclusion for them.
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-april
Ira Glasser on Joe Rogan’s podcast- the important issues re free speech, Wendell Krossa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kypokn111hU
The above link contains a brief explanation from Ira Glasser, former ACLU director, on the critical need to protect free speech, even hate speech, repugnant speech. The main issue, he says, is- “Who gets to decide what hate speech is?”. If your side bans the other side’s speech today as hate speech, then when the other side gains power in the future they will in turn ban your speech as hate speech. Everyone then suffers loss of freedom.
The only safe solution is to “duke things out in the public free speech arena”, countering other’s speech with your arguments and ideas. Protecting all speech, even repugnant speech, is the safest way to protect our own freedom of speech.
“Power is the antagonist”, says Glasser, and the great threat to civil liberties, and power must be restrained. No matter who has power. Both sides are equally dangerous with unrestrained power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kypokn111hU
Glasser offers one of the best explanations and defenses of free speech anywhere. As Glasser says, freedom of speech is not intuitive but is a learned taste. He presents helpful illustrations of the issues involved.
And Glen Greenwald again: “Your defense of free speech only matters if you’re defending the free speech rights of people who not just disagree with you, but who expressed views you find repugnant”.
Similarly, physicist Lawrence Krause warns regarding the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the concern to teach AI “universal human values” so it will not pose a danger to humanity. Krause says, “This sounds good, in principle, until one tries to define universal human values, because it is difficult “to find consistent examples of logical, ethical, or moral behavior running across time and geography”. The problem, he says, “is the question of who gets to provide the guidance, and what their values are”. It is very much, says Krause, the coding problem of “junk in, junk out”.
https://quillette.com/2023/02/21/artificially-intelligent-offense/
My suggestion: Why not program AI with the basic principles of Classic Liberalism?
Added note: Who said that the most dangerous people in society are those who assume that they know what is best for all others and will coerce others to embrace their view of things, “for their own good” of course, or “for the greater or common good” as they see it.
Michael Shellenberger and others are good on this issue of liberals having abandoned liberalism for totalitarianism…
This article below illustrates the larger problem of how media lost the public’s trust, including the trust of many liberals.
This liberal NPR journalist and senior business editor is writing about his own media forum and illustrates exactly what has happened to most mainstream media outlets, how they have all abandoned journalism to become partisan activists, propagandists for the narrative of one side, a side gone Woke Progressive extremist. Now they act as the fronts for the new totalitarianism that has corrupted democracy, something Shellenberger and many others are warning us about. Canadian media have done exactly the same. This could be the CBC, Global, and other media. And after hysterical presentation of these false stories there is the repeated refusal of media to acknowledge how wrong they have been, and refusal to take responsibility or make corrections. How did we get here?
This quote from below: “What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions, but don’t practice those standards yourself. That’s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media.”
And after shifting to let DEI dominate the NPR, this was the result: “And this, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity….”. Yes, from an ideology self-righteously claiming to promote more diversity and inclusion.
“I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust: Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.” Uri Berliner, April 9, 2024
https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
Quotes:
“You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off. I’m Sarah Lawrence–educated, was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother, I drive a Subaru, and Spotify says my listening habits are most similar to people in Berkeley.
“I fit the NPR mold. I’ll cop to that….
“It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding.
“In recent years, however, that has changed. Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population….
“For decades, since its founding in 1970, a wide swath of America tuned in to NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio pieces with birds singing in the Amazon. Millions came to us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country and the world radically different from our own—engaging precisely because they were unguarded and unpredictable…..
“Back in 2011, although NPR’s audience tilted a bit to the left…
“By 2023, the picture was completely different… We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals.
“An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America….
“Like many unfortunate things, the rise of advocacy took off with Donald Trump. As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair….
“Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting. At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.
“Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse….
“But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.
“It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story….
“What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions, but don’t practice those standards yourself. That’s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media….
“In October 2020, the New York Post published the explosive report about the laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer shop containing emails about his sordid business dealings. With the election only weeks away, NPR turned a blind eye….
“The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched. During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump….
“Politics also intruded into NPR’s Covid coverage, most notably in reporting on the origin of the pandemic. One of the most dismal aspects of Covid journalism is how quickly it defaulted to ideological story lines….
“I’m offering three examples of widely followed stories where I believe we faltered. Our coverage is out there in the public domain. Anyone can read or listen for themselves and make their own judgment. But to truly understand how independent journalism suffered at NPR, you need to step inside the organization.
“You need to start with former CEO John Lansing….
“He declared that diversity— on our staff and in our audience audience— was the overriding mission….
“Race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace. Journalists were required to ask everyone we interviewed their race, gender, and ethnicity (among other questions), and had to enter it in a centralized tracking system. We were given unconscious bias training sessions. A growing DEI staff offered regular meetings imploring us to “start talking about race.”…
“All this reflected a broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic of birth….
“The current contract, in a section on DEI, requires NPR management to “keep up to date with current language and style guidance from journalism affinity groups” and to inform employees if language differs from the diktats of those groups…. (This “tyranny of the minority” inevitably emerges from this totalitarian ideology)
“But what’s notable is the extent to which people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview.
“And this, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity.
“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line….
“More recently, we have approached the Israel-Hamas war and its spillover onto streets and campuses through the “intersectional” lens that has jumped from the faculty lounge to newsrooms. Oppressor versus oppressed. That’s meant highlighting the suffering of Palestinians at almost every turn while downplaying the atrocities of October 7, overlooking how Hamas intentionally puts Palestinian civilians in peril, and giving little weight to the explosion of antisemitic hate around the world….
“Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None….
“With declining ratings, sorry levels of trust, and an audience that has become less diverse over time, the trajectory for NPR is not promising.”
“Uri Berliner is a senior business editor and reporter at NPR. His work has been recognized with a Peabody Award, a Loeb Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Society of Professional Journalists New America Award, among others. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @uberliner.”
Another counter point to the climate alarmism mantra pushed repeatedly in media:
“Is Weather Really Getting More ‘Extreme’: Despite the claim that weather is getting more ‘extreme’, some who track climate trends say the evidence suggests otherwise”, Kevin Stocklin, Sept. 8, 2023
https://co2coalition.org/news/is-weather-really-getting-more-extreme/
“NPR wrote in January that “climate change makes heat waves, storms, and droughts worse,” and according to the EPA, record-setting daily high temperatures have become more common in the United States since the 1970s. However, according to a more extensive set of climate data, the 1970s were an unusually cool period, and heat waves were significantly more extreme a century ago than they are today.
“Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, researched data over the past 100 years from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) and found that heat waves, measured as the number of days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, reached a peak in the 1930s and have been declining since.
“Data from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) indicates heat waves were worse a century ago. (Courtesy of Gregory Wrightstone, USHCN)
(See the graph referred to at link above)
“Forest fires and hurricanes also appear not to be escalating.
“Climate analyst Bjorn Lomborg wrote last week in a New York Post op-ed that “since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward. In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a record low of 2.2% burned area.”
“The New York Times… their reporting omitted the fact that forest fires have declined.
“The Biden administration and the Times can paint a convincing picture of a fiery climate apocalypse because they selectively focus on the parts of the world that are on fire, not the much larger area where fires are less prevalent,” Mr. Lomborg stated.
“A July 2021 report in Science News analyzed hurricane data from 1851 to 2019. The report “found no clear increase in the number of storms in the Atlantic over that 168-year time frame” and “more surprisingly … the data also seem to show no significant increase in hurricane intensity over that time.”…
“Mr. Wrightstone researched data from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and found that deaths from natural disasters worldwide have declined more than 90 percent from a century ago, down from an average of more than 500,000 deaths per year in the 1920s to 45,000 in the past decade.”
“The complete Epoch Times’ article, originally published August 5, 2023, can be accessed here”.
Keep an eye on the real enemy, the monster inside you, Wendell Krossa
We all have within us this dangerous impulse to totalitarianism that we inherited from our animal past, the Alpha female/male thing (yes, both sexes share this impulse). This impulse becomes especially dangerous when we grant it expression, intervening in the lives of others, controlling them, and while doing so, we delude ourselves by believing that we are doing something heroic, righteous, and for some “greater good”. And too bad for all those we hurt along the way- the collateral-damaged folks.
The prominent public example today, of course, is that of leftists/Progressives who claim to be engaging a righteous battle against intolerable evil, the evil of opposing viewpoints and speech that they frame as “disinformation, hate speech, threat to democracy, etc.”. And while some of that may be in the mix, too much of the speech they caricaturize in that way is just differing opinions and speech of political opponents. Even comedy, as in Scotland’s case.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/jk-rowling-not-delete-posts-scotlands-new-hate-crime-act
Leftists/Progressives today are dressing up their unleashed totalitarianism, their ugly impulse to intervene and control the lives of others as “compassion for the oppressed”, for victims. But their shutting down of differing others that they frame as “oppressors” is just more of the same old ugly totalitarianism as ever before, now rightly exposed for what it is- i.e. “cruel compassion, the psychopathology of left-wing authoritarianism, etc.”. (And as always, the qualifier- the right side is subject to this same destructive impulse to intervene and control others, notably on issues like women’s choice.)
The outcome of unleashed leftist totalitarianism? Their “noble cause” crusade is destroying true liberalism and democracy with their pretense to righteous crusade to “save democracy”. Their crusade is a rejection of the true liberalism that protects the freedom and equality of all, that includes true diversity of opinion and speech, especially the speech that upsets us, offends us, that we find repugnant. Such diversity and freedom of speech is critical to true freedom and love in a society.
Who said that the most dangerous people in our societies are those who believe that they know what is right for all others, what is truth, and they will use state force to coerce others to submit to their views, willing to censor, silence, and even criminalize differing, dissenting others? And where in all this is true DEI- i.e. diversity, equality (not illiberal equity), and inclusion?
Insert: Outcomes matter, Wendell Krossa
Most of us will admit that the intentions behind advocacy for collectivist approaches are good (i.e. concern for “greater or common good”). But it’s the evidence of outcomes that matter. And we are all responsible for the ideas, narratives, ideologies that we promote. And we have over a century of evidence on the outcomes of the two approaches to organizing human societies- i.e. the collectivist versus individual rights and freedoms approaches. Evidence from the 20th Century- 100 million deaths versus billions lifted out of poverty.
Meaning- The orientation to individual rights and freedom better produces “greater or common good”- i.e. the “greatest good for the most people” (Milton Freidman).
So (a note to collectivists), show some integrity and own the outcomes of your system. Stop the denial of what your system produces in human societies. Look again at the latest experiment in Venezuela. And ask, as many have after all the other experiments- Why are all those citizens fleeing?
A post to a discussion group: Wendell Krossa
“Hope all of you are making yourselves aware of how dangerous this is across Western societies, in its varied fronts coming at us…
“Note the pretense that censors use to validate their censorship- the claim to be protecting people from “disinformation, hate speech”, and then of course, the smear of “Right-wing extremism… far right” to discredit any dissent to the domination of their ideology. Again, in all this we see again the old psychopathologies of “Left-wing authoritarianism… cruel compassion…. Etc.” And the element of “projection”…..
“And note the comment in the Shellenberger article below on the “long march” plans of collectivists to take over societies. Just as Nial Ferguson said about 60s US Marxists changing strategy to go into teacher’s colleges to indoctrinate the upcoming generations of teachers and thereby students…. Shellenberger shares his own experience of this below….”
“Socialist Strategy Behind Brazilian President Lula’s War On Free Speech: Free speech, not censorship, remains the only weapon for defeating disinformation and hate speech”, Michael Shellenberger, April 11, 2024
https://public.substack.com/p/socialist-strategy-behind-brazilian
Quotes:
“When I was in my early 20s, I became enamored with Brazil’s left-wing Workers Party (PT) and its leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. I read an inspiring 1991 book, Without Fear of Being Happy, whose title is the English translation of Lula’s campaign slogan. It described Lula and the PT as democratic socialists who embraced anti-poverty measures but also rejected the authoritarianism and censorship of Communist regimes such as the one in Cuba.
“In 1994, I interviewed the great man himself in his office in São Paulo. I asked Lula, if he were elected president, would he transform Brazil into another Cuba, complete with censorship? He said, emphatically, “No.” The Brazilian people loved freedom too much, he explained, as did he. After all, Lula had risen to fame in the 1970s when he led mass protests against Brazil’s military dictatorship as a labor union leader.
“Now, 30 years later, President Lula is seeking sweeping restrictions on freedom of speech as severe as the ones that have been in place in Cuba since the early 1960s….
“Lula also created the Digital Policies Secretariat, a body linked to the Ministry of Justice. “The Digital Policies Secretariat is responsible for,” it explained, efforts to “combat misinformation and hate speech on the Internet, in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.” Lula also created an innocent-sounding “fact-checking” website whose real purpose was to serve as a foundation for demanding censorship — a de facto “Ministry of Truth” straight out of 1984. And Lula supported the “Fake News” Bill, which would have created steep financial penalties for social media companies that refused to censor “fake news.”…
“But Lula and de Moraes have been close allies in demanding censorship, and the end of freedom of speech is a crucial first step toward dictatorship….
“And just yesterday, President Lula wrote a post on X that strongly suggests that his government will push for censorship legislation in order to counter the impact of the freedom of speech allowed for on X. “Right-wing extremism allows a foreign businessman [Elon Musk], who has never produced a stalk of grass in Brazil, to dare to speak ill of the Brazilian Court, its ministers, and the Brazilian people.”
“Such censorship is plainly illegal and undemocratic. It is a hallmark of democracies that people be allowed to “speak ill” of their government….
“Why Governments Censor
“Politicians and governments around the world say they must censor speech online to protect vulnerable individuals and democracy from hate speech and dictatorships….
“But free speech, not censorship, is the only tried and true way of correcting disinformation and hate speech….
“As for “hate speech,” it is best dealt with by publicly and openly seeking to humanize demonized groups. For more than three decades, a black blues musician named Darryl Davis engaged with and even befriended members of the Ku Klux Klan, the famously racist hate group. Davis famously asked KKK members if they hated him. “Initially,” said Davis, “they feel that if you’re not white, you are inferior. [They believe] that black people have smaller brains, we’re incapable of higher achievement.”
“Davis said one KKK member told him, “Well, we all know that all black people have within them a gene that makes them violent.” I turned to him, and I’m driving, and I said, “Wait a minute. I’m as black as anybody you’ve ever seen. I have never done a carjacking or a driveby. How do you explain that?” He didn’t even pause to think about it. He said, ‘Your gene is latent. It hasn’t come out yet.’” Responded Davis, ‘Well, we all know that all white people have a gene within them that makes them a serial killer… name me three black serial killers.’ He thought about it — he could not do it… Five months later, based on that conversation, he left the Klan. His robe was the first robe I ever got.”
“The functioning of X and Davis’ story are well-understood. Most children learn of the importance of freedom of speech starting in elementary school. In middle school, children around the world learn of the danger of letting governments censor and monopolize the truth. They read George Orwell’s 1984 where they learn about the danger of allowing for the creation of a “Ministry of Truth,” to decide what is true and false, which inevitably results in the censorship of true facts in service of political power.
“And, notably, the people demanding censorship are demanding it solely of their political enemies, not their own side….
“Socialism is fundamentally incompatible with free speech and democracy, note many. Under socialism and communism, where the government controls all business and enterprise, it must repress critics who object to it. “Democracy and Socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality,” said Alexis de Tocqueville. “But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
“The economist Friedrich Hayek, in his 1944 book, The Road to Serfdom, argued that “the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans.” The reason for this is that, as central planning fails, socialist governments must crackdown on their critics. And indeed, this has been the record of every genuinely socialist, rather than social-democratic welfare state government, for the last 100 years.
“The failure of communists to overthrow governments around the world during the mid-20th Century led many of them to seek a change in strategy. Instead of directly overthrowing governments, Communists should seek to take them over through elections and by occupying key societal institutions. Communists sought a “long march through institutions,” including the media, churches, and universities, rather than seek a rapid government overthrow, as in Cuba. And Communists sought to rebrand themselves as liberal democrats in favor of free speech and democracy for as long as they needed to until they could consolidate power and implement a dictatorship.
“In 1985, the Marxist press, Verso, published a landmark update to the long-march-through-institutions strategy in the form of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, coauthored by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The two argued that Marxists and socialists should de-emphasize class and emphasize instead a broader range of grievances, such as racism and sexism. The book was foundational to what is today called “Wokeism,” a political philosophy that is undermining civilizational institutions in the name of social justice….
“I know the hegemony strategy well because I was trained in it for four years at a Quaker school at Earlham University. There were multiple advantages to such a strategy. First, it avoided alarming both enemies and potential libertarian allies. Second, the strategy appears to convince its adherents to think they were genuine democrats, even though they were seeking communist rule. I, for example, didn’t realize that the “long march through institutions,” which my Earlham professors, called “cultural action,” would result in censorship and dictatorship….
“True Liberals Fight Back
Over the last week, after publishing the Twitter Files – Brazil, the mainstream news media have been attacking me, Elon Musk, and my Brazilian journalists colleagues as “far right” and part of a conspiracy to help former president Bolsonaro to overthrow the government….
“It’s worth putting the mainstream Brazilian news media’s reaction in context. Public trust and audiences for the mainstream news media are declining, as is advertising revenue. Instead of trying to regain public trust by engaging in real journalism, corporate media outlets demand to be paid by X and the government, so they engage in propaganda….
“This means that their financial incentives are to carry out state propaganda. If they report honestly and objectively about the Lula government, they risk losing government subsidies. As a result, they attract mediocre reporters willing to repeat state propaganda….
“Now that it has conceded the unpopularity of social media regulation, it is unlikely that re-branding it will be sufficient to overcoming the fact that it is, at the end of the day, censorship.” (See full article at link above)
In our discussion group I posted this response to another member about dying (i.e. my aggressive, metastatic cancer, and how I got over fear of death)…
“Just to add ___, long ago in the mists of the deep past I finally got the point of Jesus in that Matt.5:38-48 section, or the better version as Bob says, being the similar message in Luke 6. Better ending. But Jesus’ use of a “behavior based on similar belief” finally came through. Fortunately, Clifford Geertz who did his anthropology field work in Bali Indonesia, had witnessed the Balinese basing their houses, villages, and lives on what they believed was the divine model. Much like the Greeks did with Plato’s invisible Forms/Ideals/Ideas, that should guide the ideal society. So also the Hebrews in the OT modelled everything after their belief in the divine model, the law, will, word of God as revealed to them.
“And with that in mind it was a breakthrough of light into my head, that the behavior described the belief (as Bob argues- We do theology best from humanity to deity, projecting the best of being human out to define deity). Both behavior and belief were about no “eye for eye” retaliation, but as Jesus adds to this point about no eye for eye- “love your enemy because God does”. How so? God loves all the same by sending sun and rain to good and bad alike. Non-retaliatory, non-punitive, inclusive, universal, and all the rest that goes with such.
“So it was clear- God was just like that. There went any remaining shreds of concern about “afterlife harm”, noted by whoever it was that said fear of after-life harm was humanity’s “primal fear”. And I never was a “fear-of-death obsessed” person anyway. It was always just in the background, more like what the Australian actor Sam Neill said recently, just “an annoyance because I have so much to do yet”.
“And then reading the NDEs, well that backed up the “stunning new theology of Jesus”, more affirmation with lots of testimonial detail, for whatever your criteria can accept as credible in those accounts.
“So yes, the real remaining concern is the ruckus that you leave behind by upsetting family. But being durable, resilient people, family will get used to your empty space at the table, and maybe even celebrate a bit… after enough time passes. “The old bugger finally kicked the bucket, bought the farm, went belly up” …. And that joke may fall flat. As the comedians say when the audience boos at a bad joke about some tragedy— “Whaaat? Too soon?” Adds another layer of comedy.”
Bob Brinsmead responded to my post…. This is about his point that Jesus was not on about metaphysical things, after-life concerns, but focused intensely on life here and now and especially the love issue.
“This is how Tolstoy expressed what Jesus was on about:
“We must first understand that all the stories telling how God made the world six thousand years ago; how Adam sinned and the human race fell; and how the Son of God, a God born of a virgin, came on earth and redeemed mankind; and all the fables in the Old Testament and in the Gospels, and all the lives of the saints with their stories of miracles and relics – are nothing but a gross hash of superstitions and priestly frauds.
“Only to someone quite free from this deception can the clear and simple teaching of Jesus, which needs no explanation, be accessible and comprehensible. That teaching tells us nothing about the beginning, or about the end of the world, or about God and His purpose, or in general about things which we cannot, and need not know. It is only necessary to treat others as we wish them to treat us. In that is all the Law and the prophets, as Jesus said.”
“This reminds me of Hillel’s reply to the Gentile who asked Hillel what he could teach him about the Torah while he stood on one leg. Hillel simply said, “Whatever you would hate that others do to you, don’t you do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.” Jesus re-stated that in a more affirmative way: ”Treat others as you would have them treat you. That is the whole Law and the Prophets.” Implying what Hillel said, “The rest is only commentary.”
“So if you are asked whether you could say what the teachings of Jesus were all about while your hearer stood on one leg, you could repeat the Golden Rule, and add that the rest is only commentary.
“The remarkable thing is that Jesus taught it, as Geza Vermes pointed out, in a way that was more winsome and powerful that any before him, including the OT prophets.”
My further reply to Bob:
“Hence, to summarize the core and essence of Jesus- “Love your enemies because God does”… the single most profound statement ever uttered anywhere. “Jesus most important contribution to the history of human ideas”, James Robinson. And we honor the man for that, an insight unfortunately buried by Paul’s Christ myth, but not entirely for those who love treasure hunting as Jefferson and Tolstoy did.
And then my further response:
“The “single most profound statement ever uttered” because it takes us to the highest reach of what love actually means, what it means to be truly human and Jesus backs this with an illustration of how God does this, meaning what God is actually like (i.e. “Do this and be like God”). And we make many other conclusions from this central statement of Jesus. So my argument that this summary statement of Jesus answers all the most profound questions that people have had about reality and life, about deity and the meaning/purpose of our conscious existence on this planet. His statement takes us to the very essence of life as all about love, the highest reach of love, all in one simple six-word statement that sums it all.
“I like to poke and probe these things, like the nature of ultimate reality because we all have questions and curiosities about this and related things. And yes, its speculation, a lot of it is just that. But some answers are better than others and a lot of bad stuff is already lodged in our narratives and has been there for millennia and still sticks around in religious traditions and philosophy. And that speculation of our ancestors confuses and deforms human consciousness and life. So much of it frightens, alarms, and deforms human understanding so why not probe for better alternatives for our speculations on such things?
“Its always the Daddy thing for me, trying to comfort the kids, tell them- don’t be afraid because there are no real monsters, no ultimate monsters, whether angry punitive gods, vengeful Gaia, angry planet or angry mother earth, or payback karma. You are going to be safe. Its going to be all right in the ultimate end, for everyone.”
Interjecting a bit more philosophy, theological speculation into the mix here, Wendell Krossa
During the darker eras of our history, when totalitarian thugs rule, we are blessed with the appearance of the best of the human spirit as in pleasantly surprised by the emergence of heroic figures who, at serious risk to themselves, are willing to pushback against dominating elites on behalf of all us oppressed commoners. Today, we see this same emergence of heroes, seeing clearly the issues at stake, now stepping up to combat the new totalitarianism that threatens to overrun our free societies. Today’s heroes include journalists Michael Shellenberger, Glen Greenwald, and Matt Taibbi, businessman Elon Musk, author J. K. Rowling, psychologist Jordan Peterson, among many others who have emerged to fight the evil of totalitarianism shoving itself at us now through Woke Progressivism gone extremist with its varied fronts like ESG, DEI, Woke Racism, Climate Alarmism, and so on.
And here is the philosophical/theological point in this: Good emerges out of the bad in life, as the human response to evil….
Julian Simon (for one example) said that our problems are good for us because they bring out the best in us. Problems push us to find solutions that we then use to benefit others. I would relate that to the argument of some in the philosophy/theology community that evil, in general, exists in our world in order that good might be known and experienced, in contrast with the evil. Meaning that we would not know or experience good without the contrast with evil. Authentic good only emerges from the possibility of truly free choice between good and evil. Just as, for example, human courage emerges in contrast with totalitarian bullying.
Got that? It’s a bit of a stretch but a necessary setup for my point. Good needs the contrast with evil or otherwise we would not know it or experience it, and this helps to understand the presence of evil in our world.
This is a sensitive/delicate thing to engage, to delve into, and it demands that we put cautious qualifiers around this discussion, notably, that there is an absolute obligation/responsibility to fight evil in this world, in all its forms.
But, acknowledging the qualifiers, it helps to wade into these issues and consider the insights that others have offered. They may help to explain the cursed presence of evil and suffering in life. It is worth speculating on any possible role that evil plays in life. Again, this is not in any way a defense or excusing of evil because we are obligated to fight it with all the rage and ferocity that we can muster as the detestable ugliness that it is.
Some (e.g. Joseph Campbell) have suggested that in the larger scheme of reality, evil is only part of the temporary dualism of this material realm. It does not exist in ultimate, eternal reality. Hence, Zoroaster was wrong to suggest in his mythology that there was a cosmic dualism of a good God in an eternal battle with an evil Force or Spirit.
Evil only exists here, playing the role of a contrast to bring out the best in us.
So consider that in the totality of reality- i.e. physical and metaphysical- that dualism only exists in this material realm. Good vs evil doesn’t exist in ultimate eternal reality. Again, Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism myth can be rejected as wrong about deity. And from our long history we recognize that his dualism (another “bad religious idea”) has validated too much damaging dualism and tribalism among people- i.e. people validating their fighting of different others as enemies as part of a greater metaphysical battle of good versus evil.
So is Campbell perhaps right that evil has a role on the stage of this world where we are all actors in God’s drama of history, actors in God’s stage play, taking differing roles to help one another learn things, experience things, gain insights, with no lesson as important as learning to respond unconditionally to enemies, unconditional as the highest reach of love?
We have long had the counter narrative to this old complex- the new themes of Hist. Jesus arguing there is no dualism in God, meaning no ultimate realm of dualism, no metaphysical dualism between evil and good. There is only love in God.
And also loosely related…
A conventional view is that over the last few centuries Christianity moderated its previously violent history as Christians felt revulsion over the bloodshed across their past. But I have a quibble with that view because historians have shown that basic Christian ideas incited and validated, in just the last century, the violence of Marxism, Nazism, and they now shape the very same framework of themes that drives environmental alarmism (i.e. the apocalyptic millennialism complex of myths). So yes, contemporary Christians in general have moderated their tendency to incite and engage violence. But the core ideas of the religion that have incited so much past violence, those basic ideas still dominate the religion and still pose the danger of inciting and validating ongoing destruction whether via religious or “secular/ideological” versions of the same.
Just to rehearse the ideas that I am referring to- I am talking about the “lost paradise, decline of life toward apocalyptic ending, and the demand for sacrifice to achieve salvation (give up the good life, decarbonize, de-develop). Add that true believers must heroically engage a righteous war against evil enemies in order to save the world. They must purge the world of some evil threat- like industrial civilization, CO2 as the threat to life- in order to recover a lost paradise or install a new utopia”.
The historians are right that this complex of ideas (“apocalyptic millennialism” is their term) has promoted endless harm across history and today this complex of themes shapes climate alarmism. Hence, we see the destructive outcome in the salvation scheme of the alarmists- decarbonization.
Its all the same old anti-human nihilism.
Point: The old themes are the same in essential nature but have been given new expression in today’s “secular/ideological” versions like the “profoundly religious crusade” that is climate alarmism. It’s the same old threat to humanity of personality-deforming ideas at the core.
Fortunately, in the NT there is the entirely contrary teaching of Hist. Jesus that overturns the “lost paradise/apocalyptic/redemption” complex of ideas. We are fortunate that his new insights were included but they are almost buried by the larger NT context that gives prominence to Paul’s Christ myth.
Again, kids, everything is going to be alright. There are no real monsters. All will be safe in the end.
A dissenting Democrat: Juan Williams
https://www.foxnews.com/media/juan-williams-responds-editors-charges-npr-bias-insulated-cadre-people-who-think-theyre-right
Williams was also fired from NPR.
Quote:
“So they are a very much an insulated cadre of people who think they’re right, and they have a hard time with people who are different,” Williams said.
This again illustrates what has happened to media in general as they have positioned themselves to be partisan activists for the Woke Progressive far left, refusing to tolerate different opinion and speech, refusing to include diversity on their stations. There is nothing of liberal equality in such forums.
Time for all true liberals to wake the fuck up and speak out as this tyranny continues to push everywhere for domination on our societies, to the destruction of liberal democracy.
And another in the endless series of prophesies of the end of days… this Chicken Little madness never ends.
“UN climate chief presses for faster action, says humans have 2 years left to ‘save the world’”, Canadian Press,
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/un-climate-chief-presses-for-faster-action-says-humans-have-2-years-left-to-save-the-world/ar-BB1lokzY?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=98bd452b38a34a6b80d4e32accd86fed&ei=15
And this on climate facts- The Honest Story of Climate Change: Weighed down by fear and intimidation”, Guus Berkhout, Kees de Lange, April 11, 2024
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/11/the-honest-story-of-climate-change-part-i-weighed-down-by-fear-and-intimidation/
“There is no climate crisis, even if politicians, climate institutes, and the media would have you believe there is. Climate change is a fact, but it is a change as in everything changes, both inside and outside our atmosphere. No surprise! We will show that we should not turn climate change into a drama. On the contrary, we should take advantage of it….
“In Part I, we urge politicians, climate researchers and journalists to stop fearmongering and stop citing results of flawed climate models. Our leaders must tell citizens the honest story….
“The climate represents an extraordinarily complex physical system and responds to all kinds of external influences from inside and outside our atmosphere. This has been happening for 4.5 billion years. We call these external influences the causes of climate change….
“Mitigation and adaptation
“If climate change can be shown to be dangerous, and the principal causes can be controlled by humans, then climate policy will have to focus on eliminating those causes. This is known as mitigation policy. But if humans are powerless against the dominant causes, then climate policy will have to focus on adaptation, the adaptation policy….
“CO2-contribution
“And 100% of scientists also agree that more CO2 contributes to warming, but only a minority really thinks that human CO2 is the dominant cause of current warming. That, too, is borne out by hard facts. In the first place, in the history of the Earth’s climate (long before there were humans) we see that there were periods with high CO2-concentrations and low temperatures, as well as periods with low CO2-concentrations and high temperatures. So, there were other causes at play, which had a major impact on the Earth’s temperature.
“Saturation effect
“But even more interesting are the modern satellite measurements that show that with more CO2 emissions there is a saturation effect, as we so often see in nature. The more CO2, the less the effect on temperature….
“Molecule of life
“In that light, we would like to say a few extra words about CO2. Laboratory measurements indicate that more CO2 does have a warming effect, but those measurements also indicate that this warming is modest and nonlinear. So, there is therefore no, we repeat no scientific evidence whatsoever for all those AGW scare stories. Moreover, measurements also show that CO2 is the molecule of life for all nature on Earth. The more CO2, the greener Earth becomes and the higher agriculture productivity becomes. If we compare both CO2 properties, nonlinear warming, and agricultural productivity, then the extremely expensive and disruptive “net-zero” climate policy being pursued is scientifically, economically, and socially irresponsible….
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us an overly simplistic and alarmist story about climate change. In that story, anthropogenic CO2 is pointed out as the main cause (‘Science is settled‘). The consequence of this rigid statement is that a rapid phasing out of the use of fossil fuels is required. However, technical and economic realities will not allow this.
“Apart from the practical impossibility, there are the scientific arguments. We have shown above that there are many indications that there is much more going on than anthropogenic CO2 (‘The science is not settled at all‘). We still know far too little about Earth’s climate to claim that humans can control it….”
Added notes:
Why do so many of our fellow “liberals” not see clearly what is happening today with the outcomes of their brand of highly illiberal Progressivism? Because of the power of our narratives to delude us. Today’s delusion bubble is the outcome of framing the pathology of tribalism in terms of the ideology of collectivism as the best approach for organizing human societies for the “common or greater good” (Marxist claim that the state should take ownership of property to be used on behalf of the oppressed workers). And as collectivists have convinced themselves- How can organizing societies for greater good go wrong?
Especially when you also frame any opposition to your approach- the protection of individual freedom and rights as in Classic Liberalism- in terms of selfishness and greed. Collectivists convince one another that the individual “self-interest” approach, that gives prominence to individuals, is so obviously all about selfishness and greed. Case made- it’s clearly an issue of good against evil, according to collectivist reasoning.
And then also add a bit of religious backing as in Acts 2: 44-45, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” So there you go- real love is “You will own nothing and you will be happy eating bugs”, (WEF slogan, now taken down).
Real love will share everything in common, for the greater good. Hence, Christianity’s comfortable bed-sharing with socialism, as in Latin American “Liberation Theology”, etc.
But that caricature of Classic Liberalism distorts entirely. The individual responsibility to improve oneself and one’s family is the most basic form of love. And post-individual success, where sharing is uncoerced, where the free choice of the individual is protected, where self-determination is honored, well, we have much evidence of the success of this individually-oriented approach lifting billions out of poverty. And of course, there are the common or greater good elements in Classic Liberalism- in such things as taxation to share common infrastructure and other costs.
The genius of protecting individual rights and freedoms is that in dispersing power among those competing individuals and institutions/businesses you get the protection this affords against the totalitarianism that is unleashed by centralizing power as in the collectivist approach where “enlightened elites” take over the collectives.
None of us should delude ourselves that we would become the “benevolent rulers” that we like to imagine we would be. We all need checks against our impulse to totalitarianism.
