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Latest updates, now that it's spreading around official media outlets: a suspect is wanted, Vance Boelter. He has ties to Tim Walz and the greater Democratic Party. Still no released motive.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/democratic-lawmakers-minnesota-shot
A man masquerading as a police officer is shooting politicians in their homes. The why is debatable; the theories I see floating around have to do with these two Democrat's recent voting records, and breaking from Dem consensus to support the Republicans. I don't know if this is true, I didn't check their records -- I share only because it's what I heard.
The why is also, I think, insignificant. There are so many reasons to be violent in modern society, if you're not intrinsically against violence itself -- punishing defectors, rallying your side with a show of force, intimidating people and politicians on the margins. I don't care what specific social ill or rage drove this would-be assassin.
More interesting, to me, is that we're seeing assassinations and their attempts more and more. It seems that way to me, at least -- I'm going off vibes and a gut reckoning with the numbers, not a reasoned analysis. Maybe I'm entirely wrong! But the vibe I get is the willingness to use violence on one's enemies is becoming significantly more normalized by the day, and eventually, I suspect, we're going to hit a turning point where no one pretends they don't want the other side dead and we get to it.
I don't particularly want that end result, but I find it hard to argue against murderous force on principle. The arguments supporting it seem obviously correct; the protests against it seem sincere, well-meaning, and completely wrong.
It makes me think. We're materially better off than ever. We're spiritually dead. We have more freedom than ever. We're trapped in our heads like anxious prisons. We solved hunger, and crippled ourselves with food.
We don't build. We don't conquer. We prosper, sort of, the numbers on the charts go up and the useless shit is really cheap -- but the precious things are rarer than ever.
I dunno. Nobody died this time, I guess that's nice. And the future, rough beast that it is, continues to slouch toward Bethlehem.
edit: scratch that two died, I guess that's less nice. RIP.
Like hell we are. We are constantly surveilled and the frontier has been filled for well over a century. Regulations of all kinds are only ever increasing, never decreasing. I can't think of any way in which we are more free than the modal man of 1875. More wealth and safety and security, sure. More freedom? I don't see it.
In no way is an overstatement, although in many ways I agree. To take the obvious one, sexual freedoms have clearly increased, not entirely to society’s benefit.
Slavery to lust and degeneracy is not freedom.
You want to attack freedom, fine, there’s plenty of illiberal thinkers and arguments you can draw on, including, especially, here. But have the honesty to call your enemy freedom, not slavery.
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I feel like your statement kind of might just boil down to "things I like are freedom, things I don't like are not freedom".
From an objective point of view, we absolutely have more sexual freedom right now than people in the West did 150 years ago.
You're just parroting the progressive line that more choices equal more freedom. When those choices lead to societal decay, it’s not freedom, it’s chaos. Your 'objective' view is just moral relativism dressed up as enlightenment.
Or literally 1984: “Freedom Is Slavery” because, according to the Party, the man who is independent is doomed to fail. By the same token, “Slavery Is Freedom,” because the man subjected to the collective will is free from danger and want.
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No, I'm just using the normal, everyday meaning of the word "freedom", the one that can be stated as "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action". In that sense, we are undoubtedly sexually more free than people were 150 years ago. If you prefer a different definition of "freedom" that's fine, this is just a semantic argument after all. My point, though, is that I did not say what I said because I have some kind of progressive ideology. I said it because it's objectively true if you use the normal, most common, everyday "man in the street" kind of definition of the word "freedom".
Sexual freedom is not a real thing in the individualistic sense, because sex isn't really an individualistic activity. We should judge sexual freedom by whether society's norms more easily feed into what makes people happy in the long run, not by the theoretical freedom of activity.
It's unclear by that standard that western societies are sexually freer today or in 1875 or 1950 or whenever.
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When OR decriminalized drug use were the addicts freer? It seems they had fewer options as they were slaves to their addiction. They possibly have an additional choice, homeless addict living in a tent (this was an option before too), but far more choices are now unavailable to them, as we see how challenging it is to move on from homeless and drug abuse.
Did it make the larger society around them freer or do they too now have fewer places to be free of homesless addicts living in tents.
Individuals have alway had the 'freedom' to be lustful degenerates if they were willing to face the opprobrium that went with it.
Yes. Some of them just used this extra freedom to make decisions that made them less free. But the decriminalization itself made them freer. They just didn't necessarily make good choices with that freedom. Part of what freedom is, is that it sometimes allows people to make decisions that make them less free in the long run. That does not mean that it is not freedom, though.
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Since when has license being equivalent to freedom become "objective"?
Exactly. The conflation of license with liberty is the hallmark of a society that’s lost its moral compass. Freedom isn’t the absence of restraint; it’s the presence of virtue.
I think the word you’re looking for is not freedom but “agency”!
Mao Zedong was extremely agentic, but I wouldn't call him free. These are fairly distinct concepts.
You'd have more of a point if you said "self-actualization" but I'd argue that's far closer to the historical meaning of freedom than unrestrained whim.
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No, the presence of virtue is virtuousness. Freedom is something different.
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"This is not liberty, this is license" has always been a tyrant's excuse.
That's just ad hominem. Who gives a shit if it's a tyrant's excuse?
Is it true? Whatever the answer it, it certainly doesn't seem "objective".
The tyrant is a tyrant because he's taking away your liberty, in this case by claiming it is not liberty at all, but "license" (which is liberty that he doesn't like).
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'Anything goes' has always been the rallying cry of those who want to tear down civilization. Tyrants and anarchists both love to twist language to suit their ends. Call it license or call it degeneracy, either way, it’s not freedom worth defending.
When one uses the word "freedom" in its most common, everyday meaning of "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action", that's not twisting language, that's just using the most common, everyday meaning of the word. I would argue that it's actually more of a twisting of language to use the word "freedom" to mean something more philosophical, like you are doing. But in any case, this is just a semantic argument.
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Well, it is, actually. Some people just misunderstand "freedom" as an unalloyed good. Freedoms come with responsibility, as they say, which is why a lot of people like libertarianism in theory but find it's completely nonviable in practice, and anarchists are just profoundly unserious people.
Put another way, your argument would also be made by Muslims who claim that making women wear burkas actually gives them more freedom, since they are protected from the lustful gazes of men. (I have actually known Western progressive female converts to Islam who argued this, happy in their burkas, and ignoring the key word making.)
Getting back to @KMC's point, he's right in the sense that a man in 1875 could ride out into the frontier and build, explore, or taking another path, rob, rape and pillage, with much more impunity than today. That was certainly more "freedom" and some men fancy themselves born into the wrong age, but yes, freedom comes with tradeoffs. And wealth, safety, and security is very much a kind of freedom! Sure, a man starving in the wilds is more "free" than me in the sense he has no legal authorities "surveilling" him.
The "they" who say this are generally authoritarians, who sometimes write unintentional parodies of Bills of Rights in the form of paired statements of the form "You have the right to do X, you have the responsibility not to do X unless we say it's OK".
Yet freedoms come with responsibility.
No, they do not. One only says "freedom comes with reponsibility" when one wants to vitiate the freedom claimed. It's saying you have freedom, "but". (And nothing before the "but" matters)
Freedom comes with responsibility.
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freedom with responsibility?
It’s a nice sentiment, but it ignores the fact that most people can’t handle the responsibility. That’s why we have laws, traditions, and taboos. Without them, 'freedom' just becomes a euphemism for hedonism.
It's a sliding scale, as all things are.
If I have to choose between people having too much freedom to do things I disapprove of, or people being forbidden to do things you disapprove of, I choose freedom.
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Whatever you call that option, having it compared to not having it is freedom.
By that logic, the freedom to self-destruct is still freedom. Sure, but it’s not something to celebrate. It’s a symptom of a society that’s lost its way. Options don’t make you free if they’re just different flavors of ruin.
Whether or not a freedom should be celebrated is different from whether or not it is a freedom in the first place. The latter is the point that you are trying to deny.
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There's freedom from and freedom to. If rampant sexual degeneracy ruins most young people as spouses, the remainder is about as 'free' to behave traditionally as they would be in solitary confinement.
The 'freedom' to indulge in degeneracy doesn’t just affect the individual, it poisons the well for everyone else. It’s like saying you’re free to pollute the air because it’s your right, never mind that it makes the atmosphere unbreathable for others.
I think it always makes more sense to describe freedom in specific contexts rather than try to define some kind of net, global, non-associated “freedom”. Freedom to breathe clean air without payment or restriction is a different freedom to, say, pollute the skies. These freedoms are often in conflict and it’s not clear that you can describe a ‘net freedom’ as if it were something numerical.
To choose a more grounded example, burning trash is a classic local conflict with no clear ‘more free’ option. One neighbor says it’s freedom to choose how to dispose of their own property on their own property. Another neighbor says it’s freedom to have clean air. Another says freedom is being able to throw loud parties whenever, but yet another says excessive noise infringes on their own freedom to do certain activities that might require quiet.
The solution is practical compromise, not arguing over which appeal to freedom is stronger.
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I do not think that the ungendered version of the argument works. In high density areas (where your "sexual degeneracy" is more frequent), it does not matter if 99% of your generation do not qualify as a partner, the remaining 1% is still a decent-sized pool. If Jehova's witnesses can manage to find another JW to marry, then traditionalists should likewise be fine.
Now, I could be wrong and you could be lamenting how hard it is for 20 year old tradwives-to-be to find a virgin man who is making enough money to provide for a family, and how all the men have been "ruined" through either unmarried sex or porn.
Given traditionalist double standards, I think it is more likely that you are lamenting that there is a dearth of virgin women wanting to marry and start a family, and how all the 20 yo's want to go to college, will likely go through multiple boyfriends, perhaps suck a few cocks at parties, experiment with lesbianism or try anal sex, at which point you would consider them ruined.
As someone who himself gets laid less than I would likely have before the sexual revolution, let me say I have about zero sympathies.
All these arguments against the sexual liberation (mostly of women) could as well be made about the liberation of slaves in the US, which removed a lot of liberties previously enjoyed by the plantation owners. White families who had for generations enjoyed stable jobs as overseers were suddenly without employment. Today, a white guy can not hope to find blacks to work on his plantation for housing and basic food even if he promises not to whip or rape them. Instead, he is expected to pay them. The indignity!
I am always skeptical of claiming that we should not give one group the freedom to chose what to do with their lives because it will have downstream indirect effects which will harm other groups. (The exception is when the effects are obvious and heavily infringing that other group's freedoms. For example, legalizing anti-tank weapons would lead to a lot of people being blown up, or legalizing violent rape would unduly infringe on the liberties of the victims.)
We did not stop freeing the slaves because we were unsure on how this would affect the social order in the South or the price of tobacco. We went ahead and dealt with the indirect consequences as they appeared (badly, often).
Skepticism is healthy, but willful blindness to consequences is not. Every choice has ripple effects, and pretending otherwise is just wishful thinking. Society isn’t a collection of isolated individuals; it’s a web of interdependencies. Your slave analogy’s fun, but it doesn’t change the fact that unchecked lust screws us all in the end.
In what ways has modern society been screwed by unchecked lust?
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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
I think that George Orwell was quite sympathetic to the idea of negative freedom actually, in spite of his socialist leanings.
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In today’s world, degeneracy is liberation. It’s the same old doublespeak, just with a new coat of paint. Orwell would be proud, or horrified. Probably both.
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I agree, but doesn't this logic follow through to literally every "freedom"? When someone exercises free speech to advocate for X, they deprive those opposed to it from living in a ~X society, etc.
That is how I view the notion of "freedoms" (i.e. incoherent because you can just switch framings to switch what is/is not a freedom) - but it seems that some right-wingers like you and @AvocadoPanic think freedoms make sense in general (and sexual degeneracy in particular just doesn't count)
Could you give an example of an act of moral degeneracy that would still count as freedom? (Otherwise, I think we should just use the word degeneracy, since that is less ambiguous than "freedom")
The freedom to speak your mind, even if it’s offensive. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should. Freedom without discernment is just noise. Degeneracy’s a better word when people treat liberty like a free-for-all buffet.
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