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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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I've personally chosen to live in one of these and it's been a massive improvement to my quality of life and that of my friends and family. Mostly out of not having to worry about constant petty crime anymore. But in fact I've observed the exact opposite of what you're claiming. People are a lot nicer and more respectful of cultural differences than I've seen in supposedly enlightened liberal democracies.

You live in Tamaulipas? Because we definitely aren’t talking about the same thing if that’s not the case. And I don’t know of any rich trillionaire that owns an entire city outright, so I’m going to call it that you don’t live in such a city.

I choose to trust my personal experience over your conjecture.

You have quite the unheard experience from anyone on planet Earth if that’s the case.

I'm not sure what to make of your evaluation of what's a common human experience if the concept of a king is such a novelty to you.

There are people that have whole nations as their estates, it's one of the most common government forms in history. And you'll be hard pressed to argue that nobody has ever enjoyed such an arrangement.

I understand new worlders are fanatically down on aristocracy, but that's not a bias everyone shares.

Look at what you replied in agreement to.

An unabashed attack on the idea of organic society from what I can only surmise is a proponent of republican/liberal centralism. At least that's how I'm reading it.

Well much as such sentiments would like to think that the debate ended in 1789, not everyone actually agrees that centralized social engineering is desirable.

Not even close.

Well perhaps you'll enlighten me then as to the meaning of this call for unity in the people as opposed to their free exercise of their customs, rights and contracts.

I’ll state what my original post was again if it was misunderstood:

He was a radical advocate of social and economic laissez-fairism. To such an extent he thought if you were someone who harbored racist beliefs and wanted to hang Neo-Nazi slogans on the window of your business, you should be able to do that. Or if you were a prejudiced business owner who wanted to refuse someone because of their religious beliefs you could turn away anyone you wanted for any reason.

I think there’s a point where unconstained liberty brings you far too close to the breakdown of society and it just becomes unworkable. Large segments of society refuse to cooperate with each other. Everyone is suspicious of their neighbor. People have to travel far out of their way to buy groceries or make a living. Violent retribution is always a looming concern. Corporations may refuse to provide power to your neighborhood’s electric grid. Who knows, police may refuse to help you if you get into trouble; depending on who you are. But at least you have freedom of speech and expression.

But without the metapolitical and social prerequisites that allow a shared community to flourish, it’s ultimately worthless. It’s why when the program of economic “shock therapy” was introduced into Russia under the Yeltsin era, hitmen and assassinations were a readily available service in the Russian free market.

So you're going to say things like this:

I think there’s a point where unconstained liberty brings you far too close to the breakdown of society and it just becomes unworkable

And argue you're not a centralist because...?

Who is constraining this liberty to ensure that society doesn't "breakdown" in your mind if not a State or a Church or any such imperial administration? Some magical force, "the people", God maybe?

No let's face it, you're arguing that a minority of men with a monopoly on violence make sure that the rules are unified in their territory. You want a unified institution to produce society instead of it being the sum of private arrangements.

That's all well and good, but it's a political opinion, one that not everyone shares.

I’m not aware of any venn diagram that logically entails centralism at the mention of the idea of a regulated society. A lack of enforceable norms or rules simply means anyone with the means can go in and impose his own on everybody else.

“Centralism” isn’t a synonym for “rule of law.” Centralism is a type of rule of law. And to be honest to quote Deng Xiaoping, “I don’t care whether it’s a white cat or a black cat so long as it catches mice.” The test of its success of governance is its overall pragmatism, not whether “centralism” or “federalism” or “localism” is right.

You like living in a society where the only limiting factor on that is how many guns someone has on the rack of the back of their pickup truck?

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