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Or to elaborate: a lot of what our modern culture is selling as freedom and pursuit of happiness is absolutely fake, and we'd be a lot better of just forbidding it (in fact, I'll go out on a limb and say the only reason these things were allowed and promoted was to meet depopulation goals).
I don't even think the satisfaction / dissatisfaction comes quite from the mechanism you describe. Does cake taste good because I'm not allowed to eat it every meal, or do I not eat it because I know it would come with negative consequences, and would end up not tasting as good as a result of eating it so much? I'm pretty sure it's the latter, and so it is with all the other things you mentioned.
This really is a matter of preference. Some people, like you and Tretiak, prefer the authoritarian blend, others like me prefer the liberal blend. If our society had stronger freedom of association, you and Tretiak could go off and build a sub-society where you forbid those things you dislike for anyone who wishes to live there.
The idea of you imposing your preference on the larger society is non-negotiable for me. I will use violence if necessary to stop any such efforts. But I do not want it to come to that. Hence the need to reform freedom of association so that people who prefer to live in more authoritarian or more exclusionary societies have a place to call their own, assuming of course that they do not hold anyone, including their own children, captive behind iron curtains, disallowing them from experiencing other societies.
I haven't seen statistics, but my impression was that the Amish aren't actually losing that many people to exit, and that they explicitly tell you to go out and experience the outside world as an adult before you make the final decision of whether you want to remain Amish.
That said, this isn't a very good example of the magnitude of freedom of association. Why, specifically, do I have to go full isolationist to be able to offer an alternative to what the establishment teaches, when officially we're supposed to be a pluralist democracy? Why is it that when people try to engage their local democratic system to influence the education of their children, they get branded as "hate groups" and "domestic extremists"? I suppose it's nice that if I show sufficient fanaticism in disengaging the system, while not challenging it directly, I might be tolerated for the time being, but it's a bit perverse to pretend that this is freedom.
Also one thing to keep in mind is that you're writing from an American perspective. A lot of supposedly liberal democracies are a lot more intolerant of non-participation. For example home schooling in Europe is a lot harder, and in some places nearly illegal.
Unfortunately, it is the religious conservative crowd (and their sympathizers) who were the public face of anti-lgbt for some time--and this group has zero credibility when it comes to arguments rooted in principled liberalism.
While there are many kinds of diversity that can be tolerated in a liberal environment, one that rejects the principle of liberalism itself is obviously logically incompatible with that environment. In that case, the best that can be offered is an enclave-type arrangement.
You could say that all this applies to the illiberal left as well. I agree. Without condoning it, I think the left, bring borne from the same tradition as classical liberalism, is simply better than the right in couching their position in liberal terms; they have the credibility. I try to tell any liberal who will listen that the left is not liberal but old habits and all.
huadpe:
me:
you:
Make it make sense, please. You cannot attack average conservatives for being anti-lgbt in order to defend the argument that the glorious and tolerant liberal system allows groups like he Amish, Hasidim, and fundamentalist LDS sects to flourish. Do you think they have a more liberal approach towards LGBT people?
No they don't. They were swearing up and down they're in favor of freedom of speech, privacy, and peace, and the moment they got power they turned into censorious, surveillant warmongers. To be honest probably the reason I ever gave them any credibility on liberal principles was that I was too young to remember their past excesses.
It's quite clear, I don't know what it is youre not understanding. I'm not attacking average conservatives, they can believe what they want, as long as they're not trying to force their way of life on me. I'm pointing out the that it is illogical to appeal to liberal sensibilities of inclusion to paint liberals as the bad people for rejecting the illiberal tendencies of conservatives.
As I said, I think there are many things about the conservative viewpoint that can coexist with object-level liberals in a liberal meta-system. Of course if conservatives reject liberalism itself, that can't be tolerated for game theoretical reasons.
In that case the best that can be offered is an enclave -- which is far more tolerant and accomodating and than conservatives would be, if the shoe were on the other foot.
But your argument is incoherent in the light of the conversation being around the Amish and Hasidim. Their illiberal tendencies are even stronger then those of conservatives.
Ok, but that makes even less sense. Do you think liberals who are in favor of age of consent laws are rejecting liberalism itself? Or are liberals who are in favor of state-recognized marriage being exclusively monogamous rejecting liberalism itself? If not, how were people who were against LGBT rejecting liberalism itself?
It's not incoherent. Amish etc seem content to form their enclaves and practice their values as they see fit without forcing it on others. "Mainstream" social conservatives are not like this and do actively try to pass illiberal policies that would apply to everyone. Even as the Amish are more conservative on the objective level they are more consistent with the liberal meta system.
Depends on how they go about it I think. There are both ethical and secular arguments that can be made for or against both of these. Liberal principles dictate that we should bias ourselves towards a solution that maximizes both personal liberty and liberty of prospective subgroups without causing other on others to be harmed. In practice, if two groups disagree on policy, the more permissive policy has an advantage in that it allows the permissive party and the restrictive party to both coexist (in that the restrictive party and self-apply the more restrictive policy). That's not to say that the more permissive policy is always the right one. In the case of (lowering) the age of consent then the very obvious counter-argument is that children would be harmed by sexual predators.
My original point was that mainstream social conservatives couched their arguments against gay marriage in specifically religious terms which is definitely illiberal: not everyone follows their (interpretation of a specific) religion, so it is illiberal to impose that policy on non-believers on that basis. And so lost the credibility (with mainstream liberals) when they made similar arguments about trans people.
If you want to have an object level discussion about age of consent, or polyamory then state your case.
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