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Notes -
A great way to predict most western government actions these days
And this is why the activists win. Every time you move the line a little, the next movement of the line is only slighter more expensive compared to the new status quo and the government has already admitted the alleged moral case.
I find activists in part evil because they never hold up their end of the bargain. On Friday, they will celebrate their hard won compromised victory and on the next Monday they will be telling us how the status quo is intolerable and needs changed.
I don't really understand how this makes activists 'evil'. If they believe in A, how is trying to get to halfway to A first an illegitimate way to pursue your goals. Compromises never constitute a recognition on the part of one party that the new status quo is actually desirable, merely better than the alternative, and this is always how politics has functioned. Most obviously, as soon as each thought they had the ability to put their cause in a better position, those both North and South who had acceded to the compromises of 1820 and 1850 were more than willing to jettison them.
It is evil in the same way that when you strike a bargain, you ought to uphold the bargain.
Sure bargains are revisited after some time. But most people understand that a bargain is designed to last at least for some period of time; not weeks.
Activists therefore are violating the spirit of the bargain.
I also think activists frequently have wrongheaded goals and make things worse off but that’s a separate matter (though it no doubt makes me less favorably disposed to activists in general — in truth I think an activist is a shameful “profession.”)
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I kind of see activists in a posiwid sense - yeah nothing is ever good enough for them, their job depends on it. What I find truly frustrating is that even after a decade of this, many people still somehow think progressive lip service is fine or even morally just - they will even joke about how useless activists are in one breath before condemning conservatives for racistly not want to throw money away on performative bullshit in the next.
This is natural- casting shade on people not wanting to conspicuously consume (in this case, from the society-wide patronage network that activists embody) is a thing rich people do naturally.
When you're rich in virtue, conspicuous consumption is saying "yeah, polygamy is totally for everyone".
When you're rich in rent-seeking, conspicuous consumption is saying "yes,
my property valuesthe environment is more important than developing the next generation".It's not necessarily realized by people doing that, since this is just copying the fashions of the richest- but it is still that thing either way.
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Right. No one's willing to make or defend the counter proposal of "You get nothing this time and furthermore we've decided we're taking away what you got last time", so it can only move in one direction.
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