OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
What I don't understand is why you not only think that ownership is bad but that everyone would agree with you that ownership is bad. The phrase, "legal right to deprive others," might sound scary simply because you put the word "legal" there, but it's incomplete. For example, my kids own things, even if legally I have every right to confiscate their toys. There are some toys which are gifted on birthdays which are theirs for a time, but eventually go into the general toy pile. There are some toys which we would never ever make them share - like the special stuffed animals they have slept with at night since they were infants.
These stuffed animals might be legally "mine," but they are in fact my children's. They have the right to deprive their siblings of these toys, and that is 100% perfect, treasured, lovely. I don't know how to express just how wonderful it is for them to have ownership of these toys, and how much psychological benefit this ownership has generated.
These stuffies are theirs. They smell like their owner. Putting their stuffy in their hands makes them calm down within a minute. Night wakeups are easily managed by reminding my kids of the existence of their stuffed animal.
One day, while driving my oldest to school, she started getting upset. I asked her what was wrong.
She said, "I left Hopper on the floor."
"It's ok, he'll be just fine there."
"No, what if [the toddler] steps on him?"
"Hopper will be just fine, I've stepped on him before and I weigh much more than [toddler]. Hopper will bounce back! He's fluffy."
"No.. What if [the toddler] steps on him... and realizes how soft and wonderful he is?"
"Oh, you're worried about Forbidden Love. I'll call daddy and have him put Hopper on the dresser."
This sounds cute, but it expands further than children in a family. An ideal family holds everything in common, it's as love-oriented over ownership-oriented as you can get. Even in the family, there are different divisions of dominion. Humans need dominion.
We naturally divide up labor and tools according to who has the capacity to use them. Oftentimes divisions become domains - the husband does yard work and bathroom cleaning, the wife does kitchen work, the kids bring the mail in and sweep on weekends. Having dominion gives you authority to do things you otherwise wouldn't do. When a kid is told to clean the counters, the kid will wipe just the visible areas without moving the toaster or spice rack out of the way. This is because the kid does not have dominion over the whole kitchen, doesn't feel pieces of his own awareness/soul/psyche over all the appliances. The adult who has dominion over the kitchen will take everything down, move tables and chairs and appliances, and give everything the maintenance it needs to be clean and functional.
People find dignity in owning things and using them to make other things. My knitting supplies and the kitchen's baking tools, these are mine. I take care of them, I use them to make things for my family. I don't need a lawyer to step in, everyone in the family knows that these are mine and they need to ask my permission to use them. In using these tools I create my identity and dignity.
And if that applies so well in the home, where all is held in legal common and we are constantly working towards the other's good, how much more does that apply in the public world?
I think the only sympathetic thing I find in your comments are what Catholics would call, "The Universal Destination of Goods." Catholics have a concept that the whole world is a gift to all humans from God, and that no one has the right to deprive others of what they need. So that whoever has two shirts should give one to someone without any. And if you have more bread stored up than you can ever eat, you are stealing it from someone without.
However, this concept is tempered by the idea that humans get dignity from work, humans were made to be stewards, and good stewardship depends on having a sense of ownership over the physical world. So you have a world that is truly owned by God, gifted to humanity as a whole, which is divided to everyone as stewards. These stewards have a sense of ownership which is in reality participation in the Divine Ownership of all things. Not everyone has an equal share of stewardship, because there is inequality in people's capacities along with inefficiencies in the allocation methods. But everyone should be using their goods to the glory of God and the well-being of every person.
There you go, I have articulated a positive vision of property and ownership. Now your turn. I'm as tired of everyone else on this forum of how you keep dancing around what you actually believe should happen, rather than just acting negative about a concept that most people actually see the benefits of.
Minnesota Legitimacy Crisis
A legitimacy crisis can occur when two different groups interpret laws in different ways. This is bad because you wind up with two sets of people in the same jurisdiction, each abiding by different laws, living in parallel legal realities, and whether they are caught violating the law or not depends on which member of the group is enforcing it at the time.
In predominately Blue Minnesota, the state legislature found itself in a tie between Republicans and the DFL (what Democrats call themselves over there.) This made Democrats pretty worried, because it meant they would need to work with Republicans this session.
Then disaster struck - one of the DFL candidates who won their House seat, Curtis Johnson, was not qualified to serve in the legislature, because he did not live in District 40B as the state constitution requires. This leaves the seat vacant until a special election can be held. This gave the Republicans an advantage over the Democrats, something the DFL could not tolerate.
So the Democrats refused to show up to the legislature when they were legally required to do so. They were sworn in in secret, and didn't show up. On the first day of the legislative session, the Democratic Lt. Governor showed up, called the House to order, and then said, "You don't have quorum, so you can't do anything, I adjourn the House."
To have quorum, you need a majority of the House's members. Democrats are saying that there are 134 House Seats, half of 134 is 68, therefore the Republicans do not have quorum and cannot do anything.
However, because Curtis Johnson’s seat has been declared vacant by the MN Supreme Court, there are not 134 House members. There are 133. A majority is therefore 67 members—which is exactly what the House GOP has.
Where it gets weird is there are two competing norms written in two different books. Mason's Manual (which governs the Minnesota Legislature’s operations) says:
The total membership of a body is to be taken as the basis for computing a quorum, but, when there is a vacancy, unless a special provision is applicable, a quorum will consist of the majority of the members remaining qualified.
Cushing’s Law Practice of Legislative Assemblies, 9th Edition (1874), which Mason's Manual cites, says:
When the number, of which an assembly may consist, at any given time, is fixed by constitution, and an aliquot proportion of such assembly is required in order to constitute a quorum, the number of which such assembly may consist and not the number of which it does in fact consist, at the time in question, is the number of the assembly, and the number necessary to constitute a quorum is to be reckoned accordingly.
Which can be interpreted as that the number of seats determines quorum, BUT Minnesota does not have the number of seats fixed by constitution. So it does not appear that this rule applies. Conveniently, when Democrats cite the rule, they leave out the first part of the quote that references the constitution.
This is a good write up if you want to read all the details: https://decivitate.substack.com/p/legitimacy-crisis-in-my-minnesota. Or if you prefer something written by an actual expert, and not an internet hobbyist, this brief provides a good (if biased for GOP) summary: https://macsnc.courts.state.mn.us/ctrack/document.do?document=be8019a34d345648b6cf0337f337a772f1da69c972cc5609aef2144e14f85fc1
Meanwhile, the GOP has elected the first Black Speaker of the Minnesota House and is trying to get things done. The DFL is trying to stop them from getting things done by avoiding work and by sending people to harass the GOP in the legislature.
Oral Arguments are going in front of the Minnesota Supreme court today, at 1 PM local. The Supreme Court is 7-0 Democrats’ appointees. I think the GOP's argument has a stronger legal basis, but that does not mean that the DFL will lose the case. What happens then?
One problem is that courts have a limit with their jurisdiction over other branches of government. We saw that with the recent SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity. Can the legislature keep saying, "No, you do not have say over legislative proceedings, we are going to keep doing what we are doing?" The Minnesota Constitution states clearly, "Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings."
So you can wind up in a situation where the GOP legislature passes a law saying that it is illegal to wear red T-shirts on a Sunday, a GOP cop arrests someone for this new crime, and whether or not you end up in prison depends on if the judge is GOP or DFL. People in Minnesota have a real risk at the moment of living in a land where two sets of laws are enforced by two sets of people.
Of all things, I think this is the greatest risk to our country. Not worried about Minnesota specifically (sorry to whomever lives there, please escape at your earliest convenience.) But something similar can happen on the Federal level, might very well happen with Trump trying to shred norms as best he is able. And if that happens... it could spell the end of the Republic (or at the least a Civil War until we can force States to sign an amendment that corrects whatever crisis arose.)
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11mo ago
I'm against Libs of TikTok cancelling random poor workers for not knowing when to shut up. But this article makes a case for it.
First, the author makes a case that "Normie Bloodlust" is common and never punished. Think of people expressing hope that a rapist is raped in prison. I don't think the author believes that this behavior is good, per se, just common and usually unpunished.
He then goes on to say that "there’s nothing unfair, and certainly nothing unconstitutional, about facing social opprobrium for unpopular speech and behavior." He seems to support that sort of cancellation, whichever side of the aisle it is coming from.
But then he argues that the Right has been facing a different, unfair type of cancellation:
The reason you can get fired for liking a Steve Sailer tweet, or donating $25 to a legal defense fund, isn’t because of a Groundswell of Popular Outrage — it’s because your employer can face 9-figure fines if they refuse to enforce a particular set of social strictures.
When my doxx was released, the “expose” got 400 likes on Twitter. For perspective, I’ve had 10 tweets with more than that in the last 72 hours. 400 likes is not “viral”, even with a dozen antifa doxxing rings (at the height of their energy) and a reporter from the Guardian helping it along.
It turns out, nobody actually cares if an entry-level finance drone thinks that feminism sucks.
But it wasn’t about a “social media outrage mob”. My employer was a glowie intelligence contractor — they didn’t “cave to popular pressure”. They don’t even sell to the public.
It was about avoiding the threat of being sued for creating a Hostile Work Environment by allowing my words to go unpunished. They fired me to comply with federal law.
The last interesting point he makes is that:
A good friend who works in HR issues the following warning:
“not sure people realize that 1) a presidential assassination attempt is like a every 30 years black swan event where the HR Ladies are forced to fire anyone who says the wrong thing, and 2) the HR Ladies relish these opportunities to make a few ingroup firings because it reestablishes their neutrality and legitimacy”
“lots of ppl seem to be victory lapping over a "vibe shift" that is really more of a temporary vibe window that will snap shut within weeks”
I think he makes some good points though I disagree with the conclusion that it is fine and dandy for the Right to cancel struggling zero-influence people for saying things that were normal to say two weeks ago.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
Regarding Cardinal Tagle, all I can say is that failure to generate a thriving local church doesn't mean a lack of Cardinal allies. @hydroacetylene knows more about the politics side of the equation.
The Spirit of Vatican II is characterized by the time immediately preceding and immediately following the Second Vatican Council. I'm not sure what would have gone differently if this "Spirit" wasn't a real spirit, and a demon to boot. Watch the Puppet Mass or the Clown Mass and tell me there's no demonic involvement. (I'm not sure how serious I am being here. There are many who would take this allegation more seriously.)
Rewind a bit. Why did people feel like they could have a mass with clowns and puppets? Before Vatican II, there was a very specific rubric they were supposed to follow. After Vatican II, there was a very specific rubric they were supposed to follow, one that did not recommend clowns or puppets. The rubric changed, but the adherence to it stopped. Priests either started doing their own inventions, or stepped back from their leadership role in the liturgy and allowed lay people (predominantly women who were teenagers in the 1960s) to add things to the liturgy.
The Spirit of Vatican II, most plainly put, is the attitude many took when things that seemed unchangable began to change. Many Catholics didn't (and still don't) understand the difference between small "t" traditional practices, like liturgical rites, and big "T" Traditional Doctrine, like teachings on Christology, Sacraments, and Morality. If you were alive then, and thought the mass is something the Church taught could never change, and then the Church changed it...
The conclusion a lot of people made was that anything could be changed. And if anything could be changed, it might as well be changed by themselves, in their own image and likeness.
Let's rewind a bit further. Why were people dissatisfied with the Mass of Pius V? The laity felt disconnected from the mass. There were lots of abuses. The most common mass was a low mass, without music and most of the fanfare that fans of the Mass of Pius V like today.
It was common for priests to try to rush through the mass - I have heard people say that most masses they went to were 20 minutes long. In order to get through the whole liturgy in 20 minutes, the Priest would have to be mumbling quickly in Latin. There wasn't as much call-and-response like there is in the new mass. The experience of many Catholics was: go to Church, pray quietly while listening to a priest mutter to himself for 20 minutes, sometimes receive communion, and walk out.
High masses were glorious time commitments, low masses were checking off a cosmic checklist. Good and holy priests would have good and holy low masses. But there were many priests who did not fill this category, and many priests who felt like there was no point in enunciating a mass spoken in Latin to God instead of in the vernacular to the Congregation.
What was the new mass, the Mass of Paul VI, supposed to look like? Done according to the rubrics, it looks like this. According to the Vatican II document discussing the Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilium, Latin was still supposed to be given "Pride of Place." Here is how the actual council of Vatican II wanted things to develop:
- Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.
- Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy. For it is from scripture that lessons are read and explained in the homily, and psalms are sung; the prayers, collects, and liturgical songs are scriptural in their inspiration and their force, and it is from the scriptures that actions and signs derive their meaning.
- It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, so far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.
-The sermon, moreover, should draw its content mainly from scriptural and liturgical sources, and its character should be that of a proclamation of God's wonderful works in the history of salvation
- the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites... But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.
-The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action
At no point do I see anything recommending deploying clowns.
And so it goes for the other Vatican II documents. Individual Catholics took minor developments in a certain direction (often a return to traditions and increased emphasis on teachings from earlier in Church History) and decided to make a complete rupture.
I focused a lot on the Liturgical side to this, but I could make similar write ups on what Vatican II teaches on interpretation of scripture, No Salvation Outside the Church, etc.
I have never had any trouble finding good parishes that mostly abide by the rubrics. Even so, I have noticed an increase in chant and Latin. Parishes have started doing the entrance antiphon - I never heard this as a kid. Our parish has two first-year priests, they seem a lot less gay and more knowledgeable than the older priests. There is a major vibe shift going on.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
Third, and more idealistically, I would feel like a total hypocrite with no ground to stand on if I claimed to be pro-freedom, pro-liberalism, and pro-democracy, but didn’t really take a stand against somebody trying to attack enemy politicians and rig an election.
If you didn't read anything else but this sentence, would you know Scott was arguing against Trump or against the Democratic Party?
Primarily, I would be teaching my daughters their bodies and give them tools/trackers just for the educational value. There is so much more value to being aware of your cycle. It can tell a woman when she will be the most motivated, when she'll be more likely to make bad decisions, etc. Teenagers taught to monitor their bodies have reported things like, "Now I know when I'm angry at a certain time of the month, to just wait it out and not make any big decisions." Teenage girls in correctional facilities were astonished to see that their misbehavior typically fell in the same time of the month. Etc. I don't think I need to defend to this sub the value of self-knowledge.
The ideal would be that they don't have sex. But if they do, they will know exactly when and why they got pregnant.
I have a huge issue with lumping together "Symptoms-based fertility awareness ex. symptothermal and calendar-based methods". There are five different methods I can name off the top of my head that meet that criteria, which vary in effectiveness from 75% to 99.8% with perfect use. Complicating this is that a lot of people use a condom during fertile time instead of abstaining, which just makes the effectiveness on par with a condom.
Calendar-based method: Terrible effectiveness rate. I've heard of one that was just, "Have sex every 10 days" and it had an effectiveness rate of like 90%, which is funny but isn't super in-tune with the body.
Then there's the Marquette Method, which is starting to get into more measurable, technological solutions. You pee on a stick every morning, it gives you a reading you chart, the chart tells you whether or not you should have sex that day if you want to be pregnant or not.
There were forty-two unintended pregnancies which provided a typical use unintended pregnancy rate of 6.7 per 100 women over twelve months of use. Eleven of the forty-two unintended pregnancies were associated with correct use of the method. The total unintended pregnancy rate over twelve months of use was 2.8 per 100 for women with regular cycles, 8.0 per 100 women for the postpartum and breastfeeding women, and 4.3 per 100 for women with irregular menstrual cycles.
Typical use effectiveness of 93.3% is not bad at all - very comparable to the pill.
The version I use and will teach my daughters is the Sympto-Thermal method with a Doeringer rule - like the Sensiplan. I would give them special thermometers to wear at night which only need to be synced about once a week (unless you really want sex, in which case they get synced every morning.) For the Sensiplan Method:
After 13 cycles, 1.8 per 100 women of the cohort experienced an unintended pregnancy; 9.2 per 100 women dropped out because of dissatisfaction with the method; the pregnancy rate was 0.6 per 100 women and per 13 cycles when there was no unprotected intercourse in the fertile time.
This is comparable to an IUD.
Trust me, I have done the research on this. It is literally impossible to get pregnant on phase III (three days after ovulation to the start of menses), if your phase I is longer than 6 days. I've had to rely on this knowledge many a time and it doesn't fail. If I have sex anywhere near a fertile window, I get pregnant immediately (I have learned.)
Edit to add an article on the "teach teenagers to be aware of their cycle" thing: https://naturalwomanhood.org/cycle-mindfulness-what-happens-when-you-teach-fertility-awareness-to-teen-girls/
Here is what she found out: for 90% of the girls in the program who had ended up in jail, it happened during the premenstrual phase of her cycle...
One of the documented outcomes of Teen STAR’s work is the much lower likelihood for these girls to engage in premature sexual activities. The program was evaluated by ChildTrends, a leading U.S. nonprofit research organization, which reported “that this program is effective in reducing the rate of pregnancy, delaying the onset of sexual activity, decreasing sexual activity in sexually-active youth, and improving attitudes towards abstinence, compared with students in the no-treatment groups.”
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
In any case I feel very comfortable asserting that ~no one enforces their own desires and boundaries as they might like 100% of the time.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that I don't consent to it. I make the decision to accept that I am working late instead of hang out with my husband. I make the decision to watch the show my husband likes and I don't really care about. I consent to all these things because I weigh up their plusses and minuses, and make a decision. That's just what it is to be a human person in an imperfect world making decisions. "Sure, I decided to take on student loans, but I felt pressured from my parents to go to the more expensive school and I don't like the idea of paying them back." Still consent.
An employer or landlord trying to get sex out of an employee/tenant is bad for reasons that have nothing to do with consent. It's bad because it creates an unfair labor or housing market, which is based around who is willing and able to provide sexual favors.
The point is that maybe sex is special, and consent is necessary but insufficient to guarantee an ethical sexual encounter.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
I think we're experiencing a restoration of what was the typical attitude of Americans to Europe. You are asking for American Vibes, so what I say may not be representative but it is how it appears to my family:
The first American settlers knew that they were leaving behind a continent full of aristocratic in-fighting, abuses of human dignity, and religious persecution. When Americans first crafted their government, they did so in response to European governments. They were explicitly thinking, "This is what went wrong in Europe (mostly England and France) and here's how we're going to avoid it."
However, that still puts Europe in a privileged position in America. They're our foil. We didn't create a government in opposition to Chinese governance, or Ottoman governance. We were Europeans trying to improve upon European political theory.
Throughout American history, there was this tension. At first we were the underdogs. Later, we became partners, and imagined ourselves the saviors in global conflicts. We watched, amused, as Europe started to "catch up" to us in freedom. While they didn't have anything close to a Bill of Rights, they did seem to start to understand the value of Free Speech, a justice system centered on the rights of the accused, etc.
However, we were always aware that they didn't see things as we did. European rights and freedoms were not absolute, they still have "sovereigns" who aren't explicitly the citizenry, etc. We have a lot in common - more in common than the rest of the world - but we are not the same. We can be on the same side, but our priorities will be different.
In the past 20 - 30 years, there has been a movement in the US to see Europe as "Just like us, only better." Leftist commentators looked at Europe and said, "They have gay marriage and haven't fallen apart yet, we should have gay marriage." They looked at Europe and said, "They have paid maternity leave, we should too." Subsidized Healthcare, vacation days, worker protections, regulations. America was no longer ahead of Europe, we were behind it. Despite of being the center of culture, technology, and economics, we were told that we were a backwater. "The world hates America." These voices gained influence over time and seemed ascendant during Obama's presidency.
The American people are tired of this messaging. We are tired of snobby Europe who prioritizes their citizen's low retirement ages over their contractual defense obligations and then mocks us for working into our 80s while we foot the Global Peace Bill. We are tired of being lectured to by the Sages of Government Intervention and Safetyism while they prosecute people for praying silently in the wrong places. We especially don't want America to grow any more similar to Europe as it is now.
Most Americans don't have any love of Russia. Most Americans would probably agree that Russia shouldn't have invaded the Ukraine. But most Americans are pragmatic, and understand that prolonging this conflict isn't going to right that wrong. I see America as more pragmatic than Europe in general.
But I think that is the extent of it. America is not actively hostile to Europe. If Trump doesn't want Europe at the bargaining table, it might be because he thinks they will fuck it up. There are some concessions that will have to be made, and Europe has proved that they find it more convenient to throw Ukrainian males at the problem to delay making these concessions.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
Does anyone else find Elon Musk supremely anti-photogenic, in the sense that every photo of him looks awkward and unappealing?
I respect his business skills, but he could have used some time at a finishing school. Needs a Princess Diaries makeover.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
This article is from a historian who thinks Trump is fascist. He points to these specific things:
- Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual
Donald Trump claims immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation,” a turn of phrase used by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf. He also vilifies racial or quasi-racial groups: Nazis spread libels about Jews, Trump falsely spreads baseless rumors about Haitian immigrants, “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” warns his followers that “Your children are in danger. You can’t go to school with these people [immigrants], these people are from a different planet.” In his first campaign, he promised what he described as a “Muslim ban.”
There are plans to operationalize these views, including the creation of mass detention (concentration?) camps to facilitate mass deportations, which Trump has made clear will include at least some immigrants currently in the country legally.
- Associated with a Centralized Autocratic Government Headed by a Dictatorial Leader
This one is almost too easy: Trump says, “‘You’re not going to be a dictator are you?’ I said ‘No, no, no, other than day one.” And later, “I only want to be a dictator for one day.” Please scroll up to see how other grants of ‘temporary’ dictatorial powers to fascists turned out. It is a claim he has reiterated, rather than softened.
- Severe Economic and Social Regimentation
Trump also proposes to radically restructure the US economy through an across-the-board 20% tariff on all goods entering the United States, discouraging trade. That’s actually a very traditional fascist economic policy: fascist governments tend to favor ‘autarky‘ – closed, self-sufficient economic systems (Adam Tooze in his book Wages of Destruction goes in to extensive detail on Nazi dreams of autarky) though they don’t generally achieve autarky because it turns out that it is a terrible economic system that doesn’t work very well. Still, massive across the board tariffs certainly seem to count as severe economic regimentation.
- Forcible Suppression of Opposition
Trump has said that there is an “enemy within” which he would handle with military force. Asked to clarify who he meant as the “enemy within” he has clarified that he means political opponents like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Asked to back off this rhetoric, he has instead doubled down on it, expanding his ‘enemies’ to include the press. He’s also threatened members of the January 6 Select Committee, declaring “they should be sent to jail,” and is now on social media threatening to prosecute anyone he claims ‘cheated’ against him, keeping in mind that Trump falsely claims he was cheated in the last election, a point on which no court in the land agrees.
Note as well how the Italian fascists suppressed political opposition not through state action but through state inaction – by refusing to stop their squads of violent thugs who were intimidating and murdering opponents. Likewise, Trump has promised repeatedly to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, “on day one”, effectively a promise of impunity for his most violent supporters.
I think this is all kind of ridiculous, and if these four items are the mark of Fascism, then I could easily make a comparison to the Democratic party.
- Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual
DEI, Affirmative Action, celebrating immutable traits over individual accomplishment, etc.
- Associated with a Centralized Autocratic Government Headed by a Dictatorial Leader
Which party would like to give power back to the states on issues like school choice, abortion, etc? And which party in contrast has been encouraging centralized power? Which party wants to remove the electoral college and pack the Supreme Court the minute they lost control of it?
- Severe Economic and Social Regimentation
Which side wanted vaccine passports and to shut down "non-essential businesses?" Which side is currently arguing for price ceilings?
- Forcible Suppression of Opposition
Which side is currently prosecuting a politician under "novel legal theories?" Which side has been calling for censoring political opponents on social media?
It seems to me that Fascism (and in the downstream, Nazi-ism) has features that has always been acceptable in the United States in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Being able to compare your political enemies to Nazis is just a matter of who has control of the talking heads at this time.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11mo ago
A while back I made a controversial comment that was along the lines of "When women dress sexy, they don't really understand what it's signaling to a guy. They want to be beautiful, like a sunset, and these are the clothes society is telling them makes them beautiful." A lot of men have a hard time believing it, but it really does tie in to a completely different understanding of sex between the sexes.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
For my background - I am the mother of four kids, the oldest of which is a handful and the third of which has some kind of birth defect that currently requires a fake eye and may require a kidney transplant when he's a teen.
When I say the oldest is a handful, I mean that she is seven years old and has been suspended from school twice for running away from school and across a busy street without looking. Let's call her A. I have trouble taking her places - either I take her by herself somewhere or I leave her behind and take the 6, 3, and 2 year old. It is much easier to take the 6, 3, and 2 year old places together than it is to take A by herself. She is a wonderful child 90% of the time, but 10% of the time she gets stuck on a Bad Idea. Literally stuck, she repeats a phrase over and over again, does not listen to anything, only snaps out of it after 20 or so minutes.
A babysitter quit because one of her "stuck ideas" was to get revenge on the sitter for some slight (didn't get the right color dinner plate, if I remember correctly.) Another stuck idea was to get to the check out line first in a busy Home Depot garden center - I had a toddler in a stroller, a 3 year old walking as fast as he could, and couldn't keep up with the lithe unencumbered A. I lost sight of her and wandered around Home Depot until the intercom said she was at the front - she tried to run into the parking lot by herself but an employee stopped her.
She officially has ADHD and I am supposed to take A to a therapist to treat her for this. They don't think she has ODD because she always feels remorse after. I think she might have high-functioning autism because she also has a very black/white way of looking at things. If someone doesn't predict the future she calls it a lie. Ex. "Can we go outside this afternoon?" "Yes, if the weather stays nice." then if it rains and we have to stay inside, "You lied!"
However, when I filled out the PIC-2 questionnaire with full candor and honesty, the Neuropsych wrote in her parent-facing notes: "[OracleOutlook] responded to the measure in such a way that she reported a slightly higher number of symptoms than is typical for A’s age. This is likely due to increased stressors in their life and not true feigning of symptoms; however, results were interpreted with caution." I suspect we are years away from getting a full diagnosis for whatever is going on with A.
I don't write all this to complain or ask for advice. I am trying to get across the experience of having a "bad kid." I don't take the other kids to as many places as I would like. I worry that they are picking up bad adaptations to having a turbulent, violent personality living with them. The next oldest has a fawn response. The younger two like to hit back. It's not great.
I also have a lot of medical costs from the third child with the eye prosthetic. When he was an infant he needed a new conformer every month or so, which is pretty pricey.
This isn't even getting into pregnancy, which is a crap shoot as you noted.
Ultimately life is a risk. The question is, is it worth it? I say yes. Humans throughout history said "yes" through worse difficulties and dangers.
There are many good reasons to be done having kids. Mine is that I want to increase the odds that my husband is alive and well up to the point the youngest turns 18.
One consideration is that having one difficult kid is hard, but I actually think it gets easier when you have more kids who are better behaved. I'm glad I didn't stop at A. If I had, I would assume there was something wrong with my parenting that caused her emotional disturbances. I also get to have "normal kid experiences" with the other kids.
If your complicated kid is the youngest, it's probably easier to manage. I've seen families where they keep going until they have 5-7 kids, hit a kid who needs more attention, and then stop. They seem pretty happy, even when they need to have specialized schooling, medical procedures, etc. It seems easier for an experienced parent to manage, and they also have older kids in middle school/high school who can help out more with chores and babysitting.
While having a really needy or psychotic child can be really bad, the odds of it happening without a clear family history are around the same as getting into a really bad car accident. Going into each pregnancy I worried about it around as much as I worry about getting paralyzed on a road trip, which is to say not overly much - certainly not enough to make me reconsider.
I hope this helps give you more to consider. I'm not trying to persuade you to have another kid, just give a different perspective on the "getting unlucky" phenomenon. I love A. I wish she didn't get "stuck" most days, but I'm glad she's here. I'll do whatever it takes to raise her right.
Also, life is sadder without a 1 year old in the house. It just is. I have a long ways to go before I get a grandkid to play with but I look forward to it already.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
People seem to misunderstand the suit comment. It's not like Zelenskyy cannot afford a suit. It's not a class commentary.
World leaders dress to send a message. Zelenskyy knows this, it's why he has been wearing his black outfit since the start of the invasion. The black outfit shows that he is a wartime president, fighting an existential threat to the last man.
Trump doesn't want the Ukraine to fight to the last man. He wants a peace. Suits are the clothing of negotiations and treaties.
The clothing is one of many things that caused yesterday to break down.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
Breaking news: Trump is saying he will not be deporting illegal immigrants who work on Farms and in Hotels.
Gavin Newsom is claiming it for a win for the violent riots that have taken over LA and other major cities.
This is a bit of a let down for Trump Supporters and anyone who wants to take America back from those who were not invited. Especially with Gavin Newsom rubbing it in the public's face. Especially with American Approval of deportation efforts have been increasing.
Trump's rationale appears to be:
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Hotels/farms are low hanging fruit, it's easy to pick up illegal immigrants from these locations.
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After swooping these groups first, then the only applicants to these positions (at the wages the farms and hotels are willing to pay) are the criminal illegal immigrants.
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So focus on criminality first.
Does this mean that, once every last criminal is deported, he will then do sweeps of farms and hotels? Left ambiguous.
One problem is the effect of exploitable labor goes in one way. Over the past 2 decades, Landscaping businesses that employed high school students and ex cons went out of business because they couldn't compete against undocumented workers.
If one farm gets raided, and one farm growing similar things does not get raided for another year, then the first farm needs to hire more expensive people and raise prices while the second farm will still benefit from the lowered wages. The farm that got raided first goes out of business first, the second farm maybe gets to buy up the first farm, then when they are inevitably raided they still stay in business and make more money now.
It's not fair. It's not fair that the government has not enforced its own rules surrounding hiring employees uniformly across industries.
The fair thing would be to deport 100% of everyone deportable all at once. The shock of that will be destructive to every industry that is predominately illegal immigrants.
The next fair thing might be to deport 10% of employees in every business all together, then another 10% later, and so on until the bottom is reached.
Of course, the above two "fair" plans are ridiculous. We do not have the man-power to do it.
Any other fair ideas? Besides Trump's new plan of "Don't try to tackle this right now."
You use a lot of words without signifiers. If you would like to be understood, try answering the following:
The point here is to explore alternatives.
Alternatives to what?
Most people have never once even considered the possibility
The possibility of what? The possibility of people not having a legal right to exclusive use of land and valuable property?
If so, yes, I have considered it. I read Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" in High School. Every teenager dabbles in the idea of anarchy or communism or such. In the end, the downsides of not allowing people sole use of productive property is too great. It creates very significant coordination and inefficiency issues. If you look at failed states, where there are no longer laws governing ownership, they are not productive places.
Countering with, "Well, don't raise problems until you've got a solution!" is just silly.
Oh. You really don't have an ideology you're trying to push on us and just darkly hinting? Because all your statements sound like you're darkly hinting at some kind of solution that we're all too dumb to get.
Ok, if all you want to do is ask if people have tried to puzzle out alternatives to ownership, yes, they have. The only reason why everyone has all these objections to the idea of structuring a society without ownership is because everyone has already tried to find alternatives and came up with worse situations than what we have now.
But if you conflate ownership with attachment ("It's mine!", belonging) or even mere physical possession, we can't even discuss whether preemptive principled deprivation is, in fact, a problem like I say it is.
Can you explain the difference between physical possession and belonging and "pre-emptive principled deprivation" is? I am holding a coffee cup in my hand right now. I physically possess it? (Y/N). It was gifted to me by my husband. So is there a principle by which I can deprive others of using it? (Y/N) Is this principle pre-emptive in some way? (Y/N) If no, what would make it pre-emptive (does it have to involve the law, like if I were to get a divorce I would have to have a legal right to exclusive use of the mug?)
I think, if you really want to just explore the topic, you need to start with family life. It is in a healthy family that we see humans at their most cooperative.
But that said, there are the haves and have nots in a family. Kids come into a family with no possessions, everything is preemptively held by the parents. The parents give what they thinks is best in a very paternalistic and condescending way. Even if the toddler has decided for himself that pennies taste delicious, the parent might deprive the child of the pennies - by force if needed! And this is in a loving household where the parents share all in common, and the kids will one day grow to be partakers of this commons.
And then you have to remember the ways in which a society is not a family. It is impossible to love everyone in your city as much as your family, to be as aware of their needs and desires and strengths and weaknesses as you are of your family members. "That only matters if you're trying to be a central-planning-tyrant," you might object. Well, no. It matters when you're trying to figure out if the person next to you, whom you've never met before, isn't going to just lie and cheat you.
"But I'm going to change human nature so that no one lies or cheats.." No, that way leads to death. See also, C.S. Lewis's "Abolition of Man."
So for a starting point (if you're really interested in starting points and don't already have a theory you're nursing that you just haven't shared with us), look at the family, and then see what you can extrapolate out. And then try the following exercises:
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In your new society, who is keeping the power on. What incentivizes them to do so? How do they get the materials they need for power generation?
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In your new society, who is growing food? What incentivizes them to do so? How do they get the materials they need to plant and harvest?
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In your new society, who is making laptops and their component parts? What incentivizes them to do so? How do they get the materials they need to fabricate and manufacture?
If you can answer all three questions convincingly, then people would be more likely to take the idea seriously. The reason why everyone's throwing up their hands and saying they prefer the current system is because no one, despite many people trying, has figured out how answer the above questions without some kind of ownership of productive property, whether it is by the state, by a corporation, or by individuals. My preference would be for everyone to own a portion of productive property, but "owning" is still a part of my ideal society.
Helene will probably be a weekly topic until every last American is rescued or buried, so I will start the conversation now with the latest updates I am aware of:
Biden has ordered "500 active-duty troops with advanced technological assets to move into Western North Carolina." I'm not sure what "advanced technological assets" they are deploying, hopefully it's something like helicopters, bridges, and drones.
There are many people asking why did he wait over a week to deploy these troops. This question is somewhat unfair in itself. In the same document Biden reminds the American people that there are already 1,000 troops on the ground (though it's not clear to me if that is across the affected region or specifically in North Carolina. The numbers he gives for National Guard is the number across Florida to Tennessee.)
I think the real complaint is not that the Federal response has been unusually slow, but that it is insufficient for the "Biblical" levels of destruction. Thousands of dead bodies, "4 Reefer Trucks" full in one county, everyone who is asking for donations asks for more body bags because they keep running out. Young kids naked and crying for their parents, ropes still wrapped around their arms from where their parents desperately tied them to trees above water. People without a roof over their heads or potable water, sewers flooded, hornets unhoused, prime matter for disease and misery. Roads and bridges gone, and no easy path to rebuilding them in the same places due to the banks and cliffs they occupied being washed out.
My husband insists that if things were as bad as I think, the US Army could get everyone out of Western North Carolina in a day. He knows more about the military than I do - he never made it past basic training due to being underweight but has two siblings in the military, one of which who has made it pretty far across 20 years of service. My husband has a very high opinion of our military's capabilities, but I wonder if his model is outdated.
In Greenville, SC, FEMA has taken over a runway with 10 helicopters that loitered all Sunday. For the past week, that runway was being utilized by private charities who were sending materials into the disaster area. Yesterday, it was out of commission for no visible or communicated reason.
Meanwhile, a Blackhawk helicopter just wrecked a distribution center in Pine Spruce (Spruce Pine?), North Carolina. Was it intentional? I hope not. But it displays a level of incompetence that boggles the mind.
All the details indicate to me that the Feds think they can just say, "X number of troops, time to deploy" and solve the problem. But there's no real leadership. No one making a plan to actually help people. The Military and National Guard is too slow and cumbersome. Private charities are able to respond quickly in a crisis, because they have a shorter chain of command and fewer rules. This might be a weakness, in that they will make more mistakes, possibly put their own people's lives at risk. But in the face of the disaster, maybe that is what is needed.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
3mo ago
I guess my 31 year old unemployed brother that weighs 400 pounds and plays Halo all day and occasionally destroys the plumbing and breaks the toilet seat and makes my 68 year old mother clean up the mess will just have to get out his tacking hammer and get busy.
These people might be screwed, but it would be nice to catch a guy like this when he's 18-25, before he's 400 lbs and has a decade of habitual sloth. There are many people right now in their prime years who have the potential to turn out like this brother, and changing the incentives might prevent them from falling into such a grim fate.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
For what it's worth, I was raised by Republican parents who listened to Conservative Talk Radio and watched Fox News. Growing up I listened to Michael Medved, Glen Beck, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Rush Limbaugh, and Micheal Savage in the car. I still follow some of these personalities on X. I feel like I am tuned into normie conservative sentiment. And the Normie Conservative Sentiment is that America is a values-based society. Immigration is great if someone is willing to work hard, not take handouts, assimilate, and parent their kids to do the same.
I only see the "Blood and Soil" types in fringe online groups. The vast majority of American conservatives are not like that, and if you think that the "Values-Based" Americanism is losing I don't know what to say. I don't even know where the fight is taking place - YouTube comment sections?
I say this as someone who thinks it will be very sad if France is not majority French people, Italy not majority Italians, etc. In my heart I almost see Europe as a museum and I will be sad to see that go away. But America is multi-racial and I see that as a good thing.
That being said, seeing America as a Values-Based Society requires limited immigration. To explain, let's say that we brought in 300 million immigrants next year from all over the globe. 50% of Americans would be immigrants, 50% would be born in the USA. Let's ignore the economic pressure that would create, housing and job crises, and just focus on culture. If the population of foreign-born Americans was 50%, would we be able to pass along American values and culture?
I asked my siblings this question once and they said, "Of course, why not?" I think they were pretty stupid for thinking so. If American norms and values were so easily acquired and distributed throughout the globe, why would people need to move to America? They could just turn their existing countries into America themselves.
Instead, we find in immigration-heavy states like California that new structures that resemble the bribery, nepotism, and corruption of immigrant's home countries.
Obviously 50% of foreign-born people residing in the United States would be too big a shift for us to properly integrate them into our culture. But what is the correct percentage? Immigrants today account for 14.3% of the U.S. population. I think this is an under-count, because they list only 11 million "unauthorized" immigrants, when other independent studies have found closer to 20 million..
Is 14.3% of foriegn-born people the sweet spot? I don't think so. At times of greatest stability in America, that number was between 5-10%.
Correct. The complaint is that the helicopters aren't moving. They're not being loaded. They aren't going anywhere.
Edit: It's like someone said, "We need helicopters" and brought helicopters over, but hasn't decided how to use them yet. Just bringing helicopters over doesn't win any brownie points.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
But then there's no more American people. Who will our elected leaders serve? "The people currently standing on the territory formally known as the USA?" Whose long-term interests do they protect?
Our leaders should have a referent "American people" and put the interests of these "American people" first. I assure you that leaders of other countries understand who "their people" are and serve their interests to the detriment of our own. If we do not have leaders who look out for our interest, then we will taken advantage of at every turn.
Who are the American people? Citizens, their children, and those they adopt in. Adoption isn't an uncaring, unnoticed act. It's always personal and usually planned for. The adoptee needs to want to join the family and take on the family's customs.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
he literally said she had made it up to sell books.
Didn't she?
Let's say I accuse you of raping me. You know that you have never raped me. You can honestly say you're innocent! You can also say, with 100% certainty that I am making it up. It shouldn't be libel for you to say that I'm making it up, because you are in a position where you can say that with certainty. Maybe I made it up because I am mentally unstable. But if I was also publicizing a book at the time, then you could reasonably infer that I made up to sell the book.
And this seems like the inference that everyone makes. Most liberals take this libel suit as evidence that Trump has been proven of rape in court.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
The video clearly has Biden saying "supporters (period)" It was the end of the sentence. His voice tone went down. He took in a breath after. The words "garbage" and "supporters" were both emphasized and Biden was linking the two.
How on Earth do people fall for this? "An expert transcriber told me it was actually an apostrophe-S. Trust the Experts!" What is wrong with people?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
How can a Catholic distinguish between a Tradition that's OK to change, and one that isn't?
First, we need to establish what actually counts as Church teaching. And that can be challenging, because there are lots of people running around on the internet and in real life saying, "My personal theological interpretation is the one true teaching of the Catholic Church, I know this because it is the personal theological theory my favorite saint expounded, who are you to say you're smarter than St X of X?"
So what is Catholic teaching? Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ott is an encyclopedia of doctrine that is still used in Seminaries today. You can read it with a free account here. The introduction lays out seven categories in shades of certitude, ranging from "De Fide Definita" (which are defined by a solemn judgement of faith of the Pope or of a General Council) to "Tolerable Opinions" (which are weakly founded, but currently tolerated by the Church.)
Traditions that are "De Fide Definita" are not able to change. But they are pretty rare. There are about 1000 of them, and no, there isn't an infallible list of infallible teachings. People have read through every Church document and made lists, Ott's book above is one such list (though it then gives non-dogmatic explanations under each dogmatic statement. The explanations could be wrong.) Not every statement by a Pope or by a Church Council is infallible. Most are not. To make a De Fide Definita requires the magisterial source saying something like, "This pertains to the deposit of faith and binds everyone forever universally" before the statement. The statement itself is then considered infallible. The justification or explanation of the statement is not infallible even if it is given by the same authority that made the infallible statement.
So questions like "How many people are supposed to elect the pope?" is not infallible. It's not even a question of faith or morals. There are lots of disciplinary questions, like should priests marry or what songs should be sung at Mass, which are not even in the category of Faith and Morals, and therefore cannot by principle have an infallible answer.
How does doctrine develop? Acts gives us a good, basic example of what it looks like. At the beginning of the Church, every follower of Jesus was a Jew. Everyone was circumcised. There was no conflict to resolve, no debate. While it was true, even at that time in the past, that Jesus died for all, gentile and Jew, there was no need for the Church to have a clear teaching on circumcision yet. The truth was the same, but there was no clear teaching.
And then Gentiles started converting. Peter had a vision that he interpreted as God saying to baptize Gentiles. It fit into prior revelation - with Jesus' command to make disciples of all nations. There was a prior teaching which was held in tension to this one - that Jews should not visit with Gentiles. But Peter recognized the voice of God calling him to baptize Gentiles and that Jesus also commanded the baptism of all nations.
Over time, this theological tension grew. Conflicts arose with people who thought Gentiles needed to be circumcised and basically become Jewish first before receiving salvation. There was genuine disagreement with both sides thinking they were following the tradition handed to them.
So a council was called. The Council of Jerusalem declared that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised. The council found other portions of scripture that supported this doctrine, and then promulgated the new doctrine that uncircumcised Gentiles can be baptized and saved.
So the fundamental aspects of doctrinal development are:
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Due to a temporal change in circumstances, a legitimate disagreement has developed between two or more groups of well-intentioned believers. Both groups believe they find support in tradition and scripture.
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A large number of bishops gather together to discuss the differences. (Catholics would say it's important that this gathering has either Peter or one of his successors promulgating the findings of the council, but outside of that distinction I think most Orthodox and many Protestants would agree without this point added.)
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The gathering comes to a conclusion. Since both sides had some justification based on prior teaching, the conclusion will also be based on prior teaching, but will close off one of the previously acceptable theological positions.
And that is how Doctrine develops in the Catholic Church.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
A male feminist makes the mistake of thinking a woman is like a man. If a straight man (I'm less certain of gay men) was propositioned like Scarlett Pavlovich, he would be more assertive that he did not want sex with Gaiman. As a male feminist, Gaiman would have expected that kind of reaction if Pavlovich really didn't want sex with Gaiman. Because she didn't react the way a straight man would have reacted to being propositioned, Gaiman thought they were entering something consensual.
Alternatively:
BDSM and Feminism have a huge overlap with assuming the word "consensual" makes any sexual encounter acceptable. Male feminists may be more into BDSM, and regretted BDSM sounds gross when put into a news article.
Liberalism's Failures in Family Matters
Last week there was some discussion on the recent Lindsay Hoax. I would like to bring up some criticisms of liberalism, and why I think societies that follow it as a singular goal will inevitably suffer from the problems we see (birth rate collapse, sex wars, etc.)
On a newsletter warning of the dangers of sports gambling, Oren Cass wrote:
The liberal ideal relies on many huge assumptions. Two of those assumptions are that people will choose things that bring themselves happiness and that externalities (or times when an individuals choices impact others) will be easy to detect and foreseeable. In reality, people will choose things that bring them temporary pleasure or help them avoid temporary discomfort over things that will bring them greater happiness and peace. And maybe the executives of the sports gambling company and the 19 year old with a phone can consent to enter into a relationship where the 19 year old gives the executives all his money, but the 17 year old girlfriend did not consent to being beaten more often. (After the legalization of sports betting, home team losses increase domestic violence by 10%.)
Another assumption of liberalism is that we enter into the world as individuals, without owing or being owed anything. Marc Barnes of New Polity wrote:
It's hard to believe, but the Enlightenment thinkers really thought that pre-historic humans didn't band together in family or social units. And this complete falsehood is somewhat required to make liberalism work.
The word "atomization" is thrown around as a negative. No one has friends to help them, we have apps that facilitate economic contracts with others to help us move houses or buy groceries if we're sick. Children move thousands of miles from their parents to pursue economic opportunity, leaving behind free family babysitting for the kids they'll never have. Men and women are supposed to be equal, but we're obviously not the same kind of human at all. Atomization is the founding assumption of Liberalism though.
Saying atomization is negative is accepted. But to say that Liberalism has negatives is still very unpopular. The only alternative to Liberalism is Authoritarianism, and Authoritarianism is always Bad.
But there are places where Authoritarianism is needed, particularly in family life. Parents have authority over their children. More than that, there is a pre-existing bond between parent and child to which neither consented. A child cannot consent to their parents before they are born. A parent has no idea what their child will be like before they are born. And yet, by virtue of biological reality, they are committed to a shared project of helping the child become a good adult. The child cannot grow into a good adult without this relationship.
In the latest edition of Dr. Leonard Sax's The Collapse of Parenting, Sax describes a family that comes to him for help. The 12 year old daughter has suddenly shown signs of ADHD. Her teacher filled out a form indicating that the 12-year-old's concentration levels are off the charts in a bad way. The girl's family doctor prescribed her ADHD medication to help alleviate her symptoms. They worked, but also left her jittery with heart palpitations and anxiety symptoms.
Sax's first question to the girl's family is how well she slept. Confused, the parents said the girl slept ok, but when Dr. Sax drilled into the details the girl nonchalantly said she was on her phone until 1-2 AM most nights. "Of course, doesn't everyone?"
Dr. Sax told her parents to take her off the Amphetamines and instead keep the kid's phone in the parents' bedroom at night, starting 9 PM. The parents' response was, "Oh, no, we couldn't do that! She'd be so angry at us."
The parents found it easier to give their 12 year old daughter a schedule II drug than to set a simple limit that would have made her healthier. And Dr. Sax says that this is a very common example that he sees often at his practice.
In The Collapse of Parenting, Dr. Sax theorizes that American parents, especially Liberal/Leftist parents, are uncomfortable with the idea of wielding authority over their children. Longitudinal studies show that kids who have strict but unloving parents grow up without knowing how to form loving relationships of their own. Kids that grow up with permissive parents are incapable of balancing a checkbook and make poor decisions due to a high time preference. The best kind of parenting is both loving and strict - a combination the Literature refers to as "Authoritative Parenting." Authoritative Parenting used to be the default, but among left-leaning families there has been a surge of parents fearing that they are overriding their kids innate preferences. Proper parenting is illiberal, and therefore immoral.
One young child arrived to the practice with a sore throat and fever for three days. When Dr. Sax asked the child to open her mouth, she refused. Dr. Sax looked to the mother, and said, "I need your help to examine your daughter, could you help encourage her to open wide?" The mother responded, "Her body, her choice."
The liberal order worked when it was founded on an illiberal order. When humans acted like humans most of the time, raised their children like humans, formed natural hierarchies like humans, liberalism worked fine. I think it falls apart when the government tries to impose liberal presuppositions on every-day human interactions. It falls apart when people think they are supposed to act perfectly liberal in every social interaction. A society based around consent instead of love (willing the good of one another) will fall apart.
I love liberalism, in a way. I love how it shaped American culture for hundreds of years. But I think the evidence points to a need for a safeguard somewhere, similar to the separation of Church and State. A separation of State and Hearth? Americans need to parent better than Rousseau.
Tocqueville famously believed that religion, particularly Christianity, was necessary in America to create and sustain our Democracy. It provided shared values. People had shared common ground beyond their mere desires which which they could identify what is good for all. There is a benefit to having an ultimate Authority, in Heaven, who everyone agrees to serve but who seldom gives specific commands.
Maybe the problem will resolve itself, as atheists fail to reproduce and the deeply religious take over again. Or maybe the cat's all the way out of the bag. But the evidence seems to point towards Liberalism being good but insufficient, and the next best thing needs to be figured out before we lose the goods of Liberalism as well.
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