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PaperclipPerfector  14hr ago (text post)   1852 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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I'm a socially libertarian, economically moderate, tough-on-street-crime, race realist, pro-choice, don't-care-about-abortion, moderate-on-immigration classical liberal.

I don't post here as much as I used to because it gets boring to argue with the same few conservatives about the same few topics over and over again.

Not only that, but many of my disagreements with conservatives boil down to matters of preference that can't really be argued about on rational grounds. For example, take the matter of whether drugs should be legal. This topic can often boil down to a question of whether individual liberty is or is not more important than the government taking steps to keep society physically and mentally healthy. But that is not an answerable question. It really is just a matter of taste, odd as that might seem.

I do still find interesting ideas here pretty regularly though.

I notice that my comments often get upvoted much more than the actual written replies to them would make it seem. Which indicates that either people here are actually pretty good at upvoting for reasons other than agreeing with the material and/or that the people who post the most on the site are not actually a representative sample of all the people who vote on the site.

This topic can often boil down to a question of whether individual liberty is or is not more important than the government taking steps to keep society physically and mentally healthy. But that is not an answerable question. It really is just a matter of taste, odd as that might seem.

While I do get and agree with this, there is some useful discourse around the implications of those vibe-driven policies.

For example, I'm relatively OK with laxity on drugs, but I wish those folks would either ge% behind efforts to exclude the indigent from libraries/parks or else admit that this laxity has a real consequence in the destruction of those places and the deprivation of those that would usually benefit from them.

One doesn't have to confront the unsolvable issues to have that conversation. And maybe it helps not to talk about it directly but to work on how to accommodate it and what tradeoffs are needed.

Oh, I agree with all that. I think that drugs should be legal but that society should strongly police things like antisocial use of public spaces. And I agree that it is good to have a conversation about the tradeoffs that both the lax or the strict approach to drugs have. I just think that the fundamental issue of individual liberty to consume substances vs. use of government force to limit individual consumption of substances is not rationally arguable.

But that's a perfectly valid reason though. It's not like the Motte is homework.

Agreed. I just saw your post as an opportunity to share some related thoughts.

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