6 ms·

One of the weirdest developments of the past 25 years since this was written has been the wholesale conversion of a huge set of these people to a weird hybrid o

by api 4y ago

One of the weirdest developments of the past 25 years since this was written has been the wholesale conversion of a huge set of these people to a weird hybrid of elements of the original current and traditionalist reactionary right wing ideology. I watched it happen through the mid 20-teens and I am still puzzled about why and how this got such traction. In any case one result of this was to cause the whole project of the “Californian ideology” to jump the rails. The original ideology was very libertarian about LGBT issues and generally not racist in the classical “race blindness” framing. This made it loosely an ally of the left at least on social issues, with the two agreeing to disagree on economics. When the power of the technical aptitude of these folks met hard right reactionary ideology, you got high tech highly savvy movements like the whole 4chan-borne Pepe the frog… thing. That in turn disgusted the left and turned off a bunch of the remaining adherents of the original ideology in its original libertarian form. Many of the latter were driven fully to the left, abandoning libertarian economics and certain less-lefty libertarian social positions. Meanwhile the left got less liberal. I’m not sure how this happened either. Someone more familiar can tell that story. The time frame was the same though: the 20-teens. This left us in the end with a techie community split between technocratic leftists who now believe in censorship and benevolent concentrated power and technocratic rightists who now believe in actual monarchy or even fascism or theocracy. (I think this is a choice of two different awful dystopias.) Some of us remain though. I feel like a baffled refugee after some kind of apocalypse. I continue to work on decentralized human centric tech designed to deliver both freedom and human dignity and empowerment like we thought we were doing in the 90s. I sometimes feel alone. I feel less alone on Mastodon where it seems some of us now hang. Edit: or maybe what happened is just that the masks fell off. A lot of tankie reds and technocrats maybe once pretended to be more liberal while a lot of authoritarian rightists pretended to be libertarians. Maybe everyone stopped pretending, leaving those of us who actually believed in the fusion of liberty and humanism bewildered. Also Californian ideology is a bit misleading. One did not have to be in California, though it did seem to be concentrated there.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
I think in general there's an effect something like this: Let's say I'm some person curious about a political party that I think makes some good points in an area I care about. I'm a bit uneasy about some of their points that seem a bit extreme, but overall they don't seem unreasonable. When I, the hypothetical voter, talk to other people, they say these people are literally the worse than the devil, and I am to be tarred and feathered and dragged through the streets for even considering voting for them. This doesn't feel justified to me, and I, the hypothetical voter am not convinced to change my mind, but I'm rather pushed toward this somewhat extreme party, that in my eyes seems less extreme than the people threatening to lynch me for being curious and open-minded. I think overall this is a recurring and common mechanism of polarization that has the only people daring to speak chewing the scenery like something outta Warhammer 40k[1], and everyone in the middle just hunkering down to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmrZXewToE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmrZXewToE
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Maybe I am not trapped in the Star Trek Mirror Universe; I am trapped in a W40k timeline? We went from TFA's > Emboldened by supposed advances in Artificial Intelligence and medical science, the Extropian cult fantasises of abandoning the ‘wetware’ of the human state altogether to become living machines. to the strength and certainty of steel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gIMZ0WyY88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gIMZ0WyY88 [Edit: NB, there are countries with viable and functioning political centres. They're just not the countries which constitute the cultural centre of the 'net.]
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    > [Edit: NB, there are countries with viable and functioning political centres. They're just not the countries which constitute the cultural centre of the 'net.] Which are they? Every country I've got insight into has had a marked decline in the political dialogue post 2010-somewhere with a significant uptick in polarization and shit-flinging (I think coinciding with most of the political dialogue moving onto Twitter; where given the medium is the message; generalizations and zingers rule).
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      I won't disagree about a decline in dialogue, just think voting records (in places fortunate enough to have (a) not succumbed to first-past-the-post mentality, and have (b) voting districts that may hundreds to thousands of years old, preventing the more egregious cases of gerrymandering) show that even though winger parties have indeed gained adherents in this century, in absolute numbers they are still behind centrists (meaning especially that they are still far from the near-majorities that they, due to paucity of parties, are in my Old Country). In particular, there was a brief period several years ago when the far right in my country ran political posters with candidates liberally draped in the national flag. They don't do that anymore. Will conduct a survey of EEA parliaments tomorrow, if not later today.
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      This will take a while; I think I'll limit it to top 10 by population. Using lower chamber where bicameral, regional parties and unaffiliated have not been counted (but so far have not been numerous). I take "english-country-name parliament" and the first wikipedia page that comes up in a google search, and attempt to characterise (where not available from WP) as left, centre-left, centre, centre-right, right, regional or unaffiliated depending upon keywords when clicking through to each party's english-language wikipedia page. left centre right DE 39 613 79 FR 74 387 88 IT* 64 134 184 ES** 35 217 52 PL 3 212 240 RO - 279 32 NL*** 16 100 28 BE 12 94 25 CZ - 180 20 EL 21 265 10 Note how many governments are centrist coalitions, containing both centre-left and centre-right parties, and having both wings in opposition. * 5 star has been counted as left? they claim unaligned, but seem to be populists who are —at least currently?— in opposition to a centre-right/right-wing government. ** many small (and some not-so-small!) regional parties *** The worker's party is only centre-left here, but not to worry, there's a "party for the animals" on the far left :-P
spamizbad 4y ago
The root of all this has been a disillusionment with Liberalism. Which may have put itself on a pedestal after the fall of the Soviet Union, and then knocked off during the first decade of the 21st century through overreach: * The response to the 9/11 that lead to multiple western military quagmires * A financial crisis followed by a recession, with lots of rhetoric that placed blame on regular Americans * Privatization of public services that did not bear meaningful fruit Basically we ran head-first into some real limitations of Liberalism. Edit: For what it’s worth I think 2022 showed the opposite with Russia’s own military quagmire, the unrest in Iran, and Xi’s China we are now seeing the limitations of authoritarian regimes.
Robotbeat 4y ago
I think a lot of the libertarian techies are still pretty libertarian. One thing about social media (Twitter especially, but Mastodon, too, partly because of a concentration of people from Twitter) is the exaggeration of positions and the conflation of markers for actual beliefs. Like someone will agree with a Republican on leftist overreach and be branded a fascist, meanwhile maintaining a consistent opposition to far right political elements or figures. The latter is not ever retweeted by folks you follow, and folks who point this out are often mocked (and acknowledging it is avoided because we now see social media as platforms for meting out mob justice by calling out perceived wrongs via quote-tweets to our followers instead of trying to arrive at the truth), so a distorted view develops, and the same kind of ideological tribal epistemic closure that has existed among many on the right starts infecting the left and center-left because of the algorithmic and social dynamics of social media.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > I think a lot of the libertarian techies are still pretty libertarian. You don't really see this on HN though. Economic illiteracy is rife here as is, more generally, social-science illiteracy about how politically-driven decision making works in large real-world organizations (Including but not limited to governments). These are the insights that the core of libertarianism is based on. Of course if you mean the rather more self-serving, "I'd rather not pay taxes" Sovereign Citizens' kind of libertarianism you may well be correct.
  - csdvrx 4y ago
    > > I think a lot of the libertarian techies are still pretty libertarian. > You don't really see this on HN though. Spot on! I have a weird interest in the old-times, when geek were actually libertarian? (well, based on my readings and what people told me, they seemed to be different from now) And it's not just the people: instead of "safe" languages like rust, people liked "unsafe" perl that let you do about everything! I really wish there was some time travel, to get the chance to live and work in the 1990s-early 2000s where there seemed to be both optimism AND libertarianism in the tech world, instead of the current pro-big-government/social conformity trend. But since tech is now mostly fueled by advertising $$, it is difficult to get techies to understand something, when their salary depends on them not understanding it.
pharmakom 4y ago
Libertarianism has become deeply unfashionable. Many on the right talk about libertarianism as a gateway drug to the hard right. As some who is broadly libertarian this is quite distressing. We have no representation in government or the mainstream parties and no media machine like the hard right / alt right or even the far left!
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >Many on the right talk about libertarianism as a gateway drug to the hard right Lolwut? Both the left and the right complain that libertarianism is a gateway drug to the other party. "We'd have won if it weren't for that obnoxious 2% that won't vote for anybody who's platform is all about controlling people" and all that jazz.
  - pharmakom 4y ago
    Sorry I don’t have any links to share but this is common view in the alt right
    - Mouthfeel 4y ago
      [dead]
  - spamizbad 4y ago
    I think people on the right talk about it pushing people "hard right" they're specifically talking about the rise of the Mises caucus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Caucus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Caucus I think there's a separate complaint about the Libertarian candidates peeling voters away from conservative Republicans in close contests, resulting in a Democratic victory. The problem with this argument is that many of these Libertarian voters have zero interest in major-party politics, and may not be closely aligned with either party. So if you removed the Libertarian candidate from the ballot, many Libertarian voters would rather stay home than decide on the "lesser evil", and those that did choose a major party wouldn't support one party over another enough to matter.
cagenut 4y ago
You might find some of Adam Curtis's films help you feel less baffled. Not that they have 'answers' but good contextual analysis that will give better understanding. Century of the Self, and Can't Get You Out of My Head are the most relevant here. Power of Nightmares, Bitter Lake and Hypernormalization are great too.
pyuser583 4y ago
Regarding the left becoming “less liberal”, I think it really became “more international.” The left realized that most liberal democracies have laws against hate speech, technocratic power centers, extensive regulation, etc. If Germany can outlaw hate speech, fringe political movements, and private ownership of firearms, why can’t we? Notice how the Democrats focus on healthcare, even when it hurts them (they were killed at the polls over Obamacare in 2010). If every other country has state guaranteed affordable healthcare, why can’t we?
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > If every other country has state guaranteed affordable healthcare, why can’t we? Because government meddling has already made healthcare unaffordable?
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    The "market good government bad" really is one of the most poorly considered and hard to defend positions. In the US the government is wholly captured by the oligarchy. There's a reason why health care is extortionate and the defence budget is a huge pork factory, and it's not because voters are content with that balance. That's one of the points of the original article. The US pats itself on the back for being a market driven economy of freedom and opportunity, when in reality for most of the population it's a labour camp. It's true there are various levels of comfort, but they all demand time and labour and non-compliance is punished severely. Genuine freedom requires at least an eight figure net worth. Without that the system treats you like a disposable NPC. Independent opportunity is possible, but most people quite literally cannot afford the risks.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      > In the US the government is wholly captured by the oligarchy. All large-enough organizations are captured by an oligarchy of some kind. It's an iron law of social organization. The term for a genuinely decentralized counterpart of organization that's immune to such capture is, well, a "market". (And yes, non-monetary markets can exist. HN itself is, in no small part, a market for upvotes.) > ... when in reality for most of the population it's a labour camp. It's true there are various levels of comfort, but they all demand time and labour People who have lived in a less-developed country will be well aware that this description is far more applicable to such places than the U.S. The U.S. is far from perfect, there's plenty of room for improvement. But the direction of improvement is for more involvement of a genuine free market, not less of it.
pedrosorio 4y ago
"high tech highly savvy movements like the whole 4chan-borne Pepe the frog…" what a phrase
- api 4y ago
  I felt dirty writing it. I really couldn't think of a phrase absurd and ridiculous enough to capture the reality. This does a better job: https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2021/01/Jake1-1024x640.jpg https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2021/01/Jake1-1... Photo caption: "That time 4chan influenced politics."
ROTMetro 4y ago
Progressives do not equal hippies yet somehow they took over as the representatives for that group. Hippies were very libertarian. When I was a kid our commune had everyone from atheist communist hedonists to super religious Muslim political refugees from Egypt, everyone was welcome. Progressives only welcome fellow Progressives, and heaven forbid you mention the L word (libertarian) around them. They go into 'attack the evil witch' mode and lose all reason. Somewhere along the line Progressives were able to take up the lead as if they were the continuation/inheritors of the hippie ideal, but they in no way were/are, they are the opposite. They take the 'hippies were trying to make the world better' then add 'and WE KNOW what rules will make it better, so we are therefor an extension of the hippie ideals'.
- stonogo 4y ago
  Progressives go into fight-or-flight reponses around libertarians because the 60s-style 'live and let live' libertarian has been displaced by the 'destroy all government services' libertarian in popular culture.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Live and let live sounds great if you're the child of petty bourgeoisie parents. Meanwhile the millions in poverty don't have access to the "live" part. The only answer to the neoliberalism of the last 40 years is a course correction to socialism and big state government.
int_19h 4y ago
Back in 1993, one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents, Valeria Novodvorskaya, had this to say on the subject of human rights: "I always knew that only the decent people should have rights, and the indecent ones should not. ... Personally, I've had enough. Some time ago we [dissidents] and the USA have used this concept as a ram against the USSR and communists. This concept has served its purpose, and we should stop lying about human rights and promoting their defenders, lest we undermine ourselves." (http://www.newlookmedia.ru/?p=11889 http://www.newlookmedia.ru/?p=11889; many people still considered her liberal after this and worse, but that's beside the point) Now, this is a different case in a sense that internal anti-Soviet opposition was generally somewhere to the right of the state ideology (although it still included socialists etc) - Novodvorskaya was never "left" in any meaningful sense. But, more broadly, this shows how people can be seemingly genuine about their political liberalism when they are fighting against long odds, and then when they win, you find out that they always saw it all as a tool to gain power to advance their agenda; a tool that's too dangerous to leave for the opposition to your rule. I wouldn't be surprised if similar attitudes existed on the American left back when it broadly supported freedom of speech etc.

by api 4y ago

marginalia_nu 4y ago

I think in general there's an effect something like this: Let's say I'm some person curious about a political party that I think makes some good points in an area I care about. I'm a bit uneasy about some of their points that seem a bit extreme, but overall they don't seem unreasonable. When I, the hypothetical voter, talk to other people, they say these people are literally the worse than the devil, and I am to be tarred and feathered and dragged through the streets for even considering voting for them. This doesn't feel justified to me, and I, the hypothetical voter am not convinced to change my mind, but I'm rather pushed toward this somewhat extreme party, that in my eyes seems less extreme than the people threatening to lynch me for being curious and open-minded. I think overall this is a recurring and common mechanism of polarization that has the only people daring to speak chewing the scenery like something outta Warhammer 40k[1], and everyone in the middle just hunkering down to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmrZXewToE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmrZXewToE

082349872349872 4y ago
Maybe I am not trapped in the Star Trek Mirror Universe; I am trapped in a W40k timeline? We went from TFA's > Emboldened by supposed advances in Artificial Intelligence and medical science, the Extropian cult fantasises of abandoning the ‘wetware’ of the human state altogether to become living machines. to the strength and certainty of steel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gIMZ0WyY88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gIMZ0WyY88 [Edit: NB, there are countries with viable and functioning political centres. They're just not the countries which constitute the cultural centre of the 'net.]
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  > [Edit: NB, there are countries with viable and functioning political centres. They're just not the countries which constitute the cultural centre of the 'net.] Which are they? Every country I've got insight into has had a marked decline in the political dialogue post 2010-somewhere with a significant uptick in polarization and shit-flinging (I think coinciding with most of the political dialogue moving onto Twitter; where given the medium is the message; generalizations and zingers rule).
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    I won't disagree about a decline in dialogue, just think voting records (in places fortunate enough to have (a) not succumbed to first-past-the-post mentality, and have (b) voting districts that may hundreds to thousands of years old, preventing the more egregious cases of gerrymandering) show that even though winger parties have indeed gained adherents in this century, in absolute numbers they are still behind centrists (meaning especially that they are still far from the near-majorities that they, due to paucity of parties, are in my Old Country). In particular, there was a brief period several years ago when the far right in my country ran political posters with candidates liberally draped in the national flag. They don't do that anymore. Will conduct a survey of EEA parliaments tomorrow, if not later today.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    This will take a while; I think I'll limit it to top 10 by population. Using lower chamber where bicameral, regional parties and unaffiliated have not been counted (but so far have not been numerous). I take "english-country-name parliament" and the first wikipedia page that comes up in a google search, and attempt to characterise (where not available from WP) as left, centre-left, centre, centre-right, right, regional or unaffiliated depending upon keywords when clicking through to each party's english-language wikipedia page. left centre right DE 39 613 79 FR 74 387 88 IT* 64 134 184 ES** 35 217 52 PL 3 212 240 RO - 279 32 NL*** 16 100 28 BE 12 94 25 CZ - 180 20 EL 21 265 10 Note how many governments are centrist coalitions, containing both centre-left and centre-right parties, and having both wings in opposition. * 5 star has been counted as left? they claim unaligned, but seem to be populists who are —at least currently?— in opposition to a centre-right/right-wing government. ** many small (and some not-so-small!) regional parties *** The worker's party is only centre-left here, but not to worry, there's a "party for the animals" on the far left :-P

spamizbad 4y ago

The root of all this has been a disillusionment with Liberalism. Which may have put itself on a pedestal after the fall of the Soviet Union, and then knocked off during the first decade of the 21st century through overreach: * The response to the 9/11 that lead to multiple western military quagmires * A financial crisis followed by a recession, with lots of rhetoric that placed blame on regular Americans * Privatization of public services that did not bear meaningful fruit Basically we ran head-first into some real limitations of Liberalism. Edit: For what it’s worth I think 2022 showed the opposite with Russia’s own military quagmire, the unrest in Iran, and Xi’s China we are now seeing the limitations of authoritarian regimes.

Robotbeat 4y ago

I think a lot of the libertarian techies are still pretty libertarian. One thing about social media (Twitter especially, but Mastodon, too, partly because of a concentration of people from Twitter) is the exaggeration of positions and the conflation of markers for actual beliefs. Like someone will agree with a Republican on leftist overreach and be branded a fascist, meanwhile maintaining a consistent opposition to far right political elements or figures. The latter is not ever retweeted by folks you follow, and folks who point this out are often mocked (and acknowledging it is avoided because we now see social media as platforms for meting out mob justice by calling out perceived wrongs via quote-tweets to our followers instead of trying to arrive at the truth), so a distorted view develops, and the same kind of ideological tribal epistemic closure that has existed among many on the right starts infecting the left and center-left because of the algorithmic and social dynamics of social media.

zozbot234 4y ago
> I think a lot of the libertarian techies are still pretty libertarian. You don't really see this on HN though. Economic illiteracy is rife here as is, more generally, social-science illiteracy about how politically-driven decision making works in large real-world organizations (Including but not limited to governments). These are the insights that the core of libertarianism is based on. Of course if you mean the rather more self-serving, "I'd rather not pay taxes" Sovereign Citizens' kind of libertarianism you may well be correct.
- csdvrx 4y ago
  > > I think a lot of the libertarian techies are still pretty libertarian. > You don't really see this on HN though. Spot on! I have a weird interest in the old-times, when geek were actually libertarian? (well, based on my readings and what people told me, they seemed to be different from now) And it's not just the people: instead of "safe" languages like rust, people liked "unsafe" perl that let you do about everything! I really wish there was some time travel, to get the chance to live and work in the 1990s-early 2000s where there seemed to be both optimism AND libertarianism in the tech world, instead of the current pro-big-government/social conformity trend. But since tech is now mostly fueled by advertising $$, it is difficult to get techies to understand something, when their salary depends on them not understanding it.

pharmakom 4y ago

Libertarianism has become deeply unfashionable. Many on the right talk about libertarianism as a gateway drug to the hard right. As some who is broadly libertarian this is quite distressing. We have no representation in government or the mainstream parties and no media machine like the hard right / alt right or even the far left!

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>Many on the right talk about libertarianism as a gateway drug to the hard right Lolwut? Both the left and the right complain that libertarianism is a gateway drug to the other party. "We'd have won if it weren't for that obnoxious 2% that won't vote for anybody who's platform is all about controlling people" and all that jazz.
- pharmakom 4y ago
  Sorry I don’t have any links to share but this is common view in the alt right
  - Mouthfeel 4y ago
    [dead]
- spamizbad 4y ago
  I think people on the right talk about it pushing people "hard right" they're specifically talking about the rise of the Mises caucus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Caucus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Caucus I think there's a separate complaint about the Libertarian candidates peeling voters away from conservative Republicans in close contests, resulting in a Democratic victory. The problem with this argument is that many of these Libertarian voters have zero interest in major-party politics, and may not be closely aligned with either party. So if you removed the Libertarian candidate from the ballot, many Libertarian voters would rather stay home than decide on the "lesser evil", and those that did choose a major party wouldn't support one party over another enough to matter.

cagenut 4y ago

You might find some of Adam Curtis's films help you feel less baffled. Not that they have 'answers' but good contextual analysis that will give better understanding. Century of the Self, and Can't Get You Out of My Head are the most relevant here. Power of Nightmares, Bitter Lake and Hypernormalization are great too.

pyuser583 4y ago

Regarding the left becoming “less liberal”, I think it really became “more international.” The left realized that most liberal democracies have laws against hate speech, technocratic power centers, extensive regulation, etc. If Germany can outlaw hate speech, fringe political movements, and private ownership of firearms, why can’t we? Notice how the Democrats focus on healthcare, even when it hurts them (they were killed at the polls over Obamacare in 2010). If every other country has state guaranteed affordable healthcare, why can’t we?

zozbot234 4y ago
> If every other country has state guaranteed affordable healthcare, why can’t we? Because government meddling has already made healthcare unaffordable?
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  The "market good government bad" really is one of the most poorly considered and hard to defend positions. In the US the government is wholly captured by the oligarchy. There's a reason why health care is extortionate and the defence budget is a huge pork factory, and it's not because voters are content with that balance. That's one of the points of the original article. The US pats itself on the back for being a market driven economy of freedom and opportunity, when in reality for most of the population it's a labour camp. It's true there are various levels of comfort, but they all demand time and labour and non-compliance is punished severely. Genuine freedom requires at least an eight figure net worth. Without that the system treats you like a disposable NPC. Independent opportunity is possible, but most people quite literally cannot afford the risks.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > In the US the government is wholly captured by the oligarchy. All large-enough organizations are captured by an oligarchy of some kind. It's an iron law of social organization. The term for a genuinely decentralized counterpart of organization that's immune to such capture is, well, a "market". (And yes, non-monetary markets can exist. HN itself is, in no small part, a market for upvotes.) > ... when in reality for most of the population it's a labour camp. It's true there are various levels of comfort, but they all demand time and labour People who have lived in a less-developed country will be well aware that this description is far more applicable to such places than the U.S. The U.S. is far from perfect, there's plenty of room for improvement. But the direction of improvement is for more involvement of a genuine free market, not less of it.

pedrosorio 4y ago

"high tech highly savvy movements like the whole 4chan-borne Pepe the frog…" what a phrase

api 4y ago
I felt dirty writing it. I really couldn't think of a phrase absurd and ridiculous enough to capture the reality. This does a better job: https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2021/01/Jake1-1024x640.jpg https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2021/01/Jake1-1... Photo caption: "That time 4chan influenced politics."

ROTMetro 4y ago

Progressives do not equal hippies yet somehow they took over as the representatives for that group. Hippies were very libertarian. When I was a kid our commune had everyone from atheist communist hedonists to super religious Muslim political refugees from Egypt, everyone was welcome. Progressives only welcome fellow Progressives, and heaven forbid you mention the L word (libertarian) around them. They go into 'attack the evil witch' mode and lose all reason. Somewhere along the line Progressives were able to take up the lead as if they were the continuation/inheritors of the hippie ideal, but they in no way were/are, they are the opposite. They take the 'hippies were trying to make the world better' then add 'and WE KNOW what rules will make it better, so we are therefor an extension of the hippie ideals'.

stonogo 4y ago
Progressives go into fight-or-flight reponses around libertarians because the 60s-style 'live and let live' libertarian has been displaced by the 'destroy all government services' libertarian in popular culture.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Live and let live sounds great if you're the child of petty bourgeoisie parents. Meanwhile the millions in poverty don't have access to the "live" part. The only answer to the neoliberalism of the last 40 years is a course correction to socialism and big state government.

int_19h 4y ago

Back in 1993, one of the most prominent Soviet dissidents, Valeria Novodvorskaya, had this to say on the subject of human rights: "I always knew that only the decent people should have rights, and the indecent ones should not. ... Personally, I've had enough. Some time ago we [dissidents] and the USA have used this concept as a ram against the USSR and communists. This concept has served its purpose, and we should stop lying about human rights and promoting their defenders, lest we undermine ourselves." (http://www.newlookmedia.ru/?p=11889 http://www.newlookmedia.ru/?p=11889; many people still considered her liberal after this and worse, but that's beside the point) Now, this is a different case in a sense that internal anti-Soviet opposition was generally somewhere to the right of the state ideology (although it still included socialists etc) - Novodvorskaya was never "left" in any meaningful sense. But, more broadly, this shows how people can be seemingly genuine about their political liberalism when they are fighting against long odds, and then when they win, you find out that they always saw it all as a tool to gain power to advance their agenda; a tool that's too dangerous to leave for the opposition to your rule. I wouldn't be surprised if similar attitudes existed on the American left back when it broadly supported freedom of speech etc.