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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

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conservatives, i.e. the party of law and order, be a fan of measures which promote public safety?

Define public safey. Because the moment authorities in the US cracked down on anti-lockdown protestors, but then allowed BLM protestors free reign (because "racism is a bigger threat than COVID) it became transparently obvious that either lockdowns had nothing to do with safety, or that those in charge of determining what constituted safety had no idea what they were doing. Or plausibly both. For mild evidence in support of this, I refer you to Sweden which had more mild lockdowns thsk most of the US, and achieved better outcomes.

right in the US, especially in its current MAGA incarnation, is just as gleeful in its authoritarian tendencies

It's fairly obvious that you get your US news from lefty sources, but a few moments of consideration would show that mostly what the MAGA agenda is about is deregulation, sprinkled with some mercantilism. I understand there is a great temptation to slap the evil "authoritarian" label on things you don't like, but getting rid of laws is not authoritarian by any possible stretch of the word. The few genuinely authoritarian actions, like banning red dye 40, have mostly gone unnoticed.