It's liberals' fault. Leftists ripped off their skin and wore it as a suit and liberals lay flat and did nothing about it.
Now, leftist and liberal are synonyms, sadly.
Saying classical liberal helps. But it doesn't change the fact that classical liberals are the ones who handed the keys to the kingdom over to the highly illiberal left. It didn't mater, they hated the Right so much they didn't care.
Well, gosh, nobody pulls the fire alarms to stop your speakers. Us? Happens all the time. Or we just plain get punished for speaking. Remember the Berkeley Anti-Free Speech Riots of 2017? At the home of the Free Speech movement?
A violent mob chased a man off campus. When you can violate deeply held standards with no accountability, that’s the keys to the castle.
Imagine a violent right wing mob chasing a gay or trans speaker off campus.
And nothing happens. Or Evergreen when students were patrolling the grounds with baseball bats looking for wrongthinkers.
But someone leaves a white bedsheet stuck in a tree branch and the whole university shuts down to hold racism classes instead of educating its student body.
A marvellous bit of well-deserved skewering. I have saved it for repeat reading. My only cavil is that I can understand how this applies to that fraction of the left who could reasonably be labelled ‘progressive’ or ‘identitarian’ - but ‘liberal’? This goes against the grain of any liberalism deserving the name.
This is a very good piece, with many amusing asides. It's been a regrettable fact of politics since 2010 (when I started paying attention) that there are so many more opportunities for intellectual mischief and amusement on the right than the left. You can overstate how much this matters, but the fact that Donald Trump is currently the US president suggests it might do a little.
'Erection of an impossible standard'? That's what she said HAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA sorry I'm so sorry I'm so so sorry really that'll never happen again I swear I'm deeply sorry.
Enjoyed the piece! I've saved 'Purity and governance are antonyms' to my Quotes doc, can see myself digging that out to use in a post some time (with attribution of course).
Great piece. I’ll pick a nit though, and it isn’t just this author, but here goes: Does anyone proofread anymore? Just a once over to catch mistakes. It seems not.
Well in my case I have no excuse as amongst other things I work as a proofreader. For your reference I always proofread. It's just a long piece and I'm usually rewriting until it goes out. You've inspired me to do another pass, tho, and caught a few.
The idea of “being on the right side of history” is the most dangerous of all. It’s used to justify all kinds of authoritarian and undemocratic actions, because it means that Leftists are justified in pushing their policies, even if they are unpopular (because popularity is not an object). Every crusade has the moral force of abolishing slavery or Jim Crow, because Leftists need it to BE that way, to give their lives meaning.
In principle, winning elections (and power) is not complicated; it just requires adopting a bunch of popular positions. But Dems have adopted a bunch of UNpopular positions, almost BY DESIGN, because the MORALLY-CORRECT positions are not popular - they are the positions that ELITES have. And the elites, of course, are smarter and better than us.
If your positions are not popular, causing you to lose elections, then you have to obtain power some OTHER way - usually by controlling the media and manipulating the spread of information in some way.
Love this piece. As a left-inclined kind of voter it was all fine until the online left became unavoidable. They succeeded in intellectually and morally alienating me with these kind of slogans.
If there is any “arc of history” towards freedom it is the harassing of technology to eliminate manual labor which (unintentionally) increases individual freedom.
So it is interesting that the people saying this tripe are usually collectivists
To quote Georges Clemenceau (probably), on his son's political affiliations: "If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then."
As someone who is now 31 and still has friends who think and post like this, I 100% agree. They're more annoying than the kids posting, because they should know better *from experience*
Things would actually be healthier if we recognised that liberals and leftists believe totally different things, and mostly hate one another.
It's liberals' fault. Leftists ripped off their skin and wore it as a suit and liberals lay flat and did nothing about it.
Now, leftist and liberal are synonyms, sadly.
Saying classical liberal helps. But it doesn't change the fact that classical liberals are the ones who handed the keys to the kingdom over to the highly illiberal left. It didn't mater, they hated the Right so much they didn't care.
I wish us leftists did have the keys to the castle. We have one barely functional trebuchet which is usually blasted at fellow leftists.
Well, gosh, nobody pulls the fire alarms to stop your speakers. Us? Happens all the time. Or we just plain get punished for speaking. Remember the Berkeley Anti-Free Speech Riots of 2017? At the home of the Free Speech movement?
A violent mob chased a man off campus. When you can violate deeply held standards with no accountability, that’s the keys to the castle.
Imagine a violent right wing mob chasing a gay or trans speaker off campus.
And nothing happens. Or Evergreen when students were patrolling the grounds with baseball bats looking for wrongthinkers.
But someone leaves a white bedsheet stuck in a tree branch and the whole university shuts down to hold racism classes instead of educating its student body.
That’s the keys to the kingdom.
Probably I agree that’s all bad. I just don’t like my country being asset stripped.
A marvellous bit of well-deserved skewering. I have saved it for repeat reading. My only cavil is that I can understand how this applies to that fraction of the left who could reasonably be labelled ‘progressive’ or ‘identitarian’ - but ‘liberal’? This goes against the grain of any liberalism deserving the name.
Thanks. I can always stand to be a bit more precise in my terminology. And I should know better as I aspire to be liberal-minded myself.
This is a very good piece, with many amusing asides. It's been a regrettable fact of politics since 2010 (when I started paying attention) that there are so many more opportunities for intellectual mischief and amusement on the right than the left. You can overstate how much this matters, but the fact that Donald Trump is currently the US president suggests it might do a little.
'Erection of an impossible standard'? That's what she said HAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA sorry I'm so sorry I'm so so sorry really that'll never happen again I swear I'm deeply sorry.
Enjoyed the piece! I've saved 'Purity and governance are antonyms' to my Quotes doc, can see myself digging that out to use in a post some time (with attribution of course).
I'm going to pretend that line was intentional!
Dynamite piece! Thank you!
Great piece. I’ll pick a nit though, and it isn’t just this author, but here goes: Does anyone proofread anymore? Just a once over to catch mistakes. It seems not.
Well in my case I have no excuse as amongst other things I work as a proofreader. For your reference I always proofread. It's just a long piece and I'm usually rewriting until it goes out. You've inspired me to do another pass, tho, and caught a few.
There’s the “tho” again. Is this a think piece or 13 year old’s text chain? 😂
Great article tho
The tho is intentional. I like it like that
God gave us that hideous queue of consonants for a reason, James
Je refuse !
Just leave him Cyrus. He’s on the wrong side of history with his ‘tho’ nonsense and cannot be saved.
This is great! If you can fit your political slogan on a greeting card, it just might not be that realistic!😎
Certainly not able to stand much scrutiny
But it will get you elected so thats what you get
Good article. I wrote about my exasperation with "the right side of history" here: https://firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com/p/columbia-protests-and-the-right-side
I wrote 30k words trying to grapple with 1-4 and 6. I ended up junking it all. Thank you for expressing it so clearly.
The idea of “being on the right side of history” is the most dangerous of all. It’s used to justify all kinds of authoritarian and undemocratic actions, because it means that Leftists are justified in pushing their policies, even if they are unpopular (because popularity is not an object). Every crusade has the moral force of abolishing slavery or Jim Crow, because Leftists need it to BE that way, to give their lives meaning.
In principle, winning elections (and power) is not complicated; it just requires adopting a bunch of popular positions. But Dems have adopted a bunch of UNpopular positions, almost BY DESIGN, because the MORALLY-CORRECT positions are not popular - they are the positions that ELITES have. And the elites, of course, are smarter and better than us.
If your positions are not popular, causing you to lose elections, then you have to obtain power some OTHER way - usually by controlling the media and manipulating the spread of information in some way.
My response to those who would tell me to 'get on the right side of history' is to remind them that history is written by the winner.
And the winners change
Gonna draw them as the soy wojak when I win.
Love this piece. As a left-inclined kind of voter it was all fine until the online left became unavoidable. They succeeded in intellectually and morally alienating me with these kind of slogans.
It's a bit like ‘You’re welcome to your truism, but please don't make it a purity test’
Once came up with a quippy rebuttal to the “silence is violence” line.
“Silence is violence? Oh yeah? Well, noise destroys.” 😜
Any maxim that rhymes must be true, right?
Like 'smelt it, dealt it.' That one's basically law.
If there is any “arc of history” towards freedom it is the harassing of technology to eliminate manual labor which (unintentionally) increases individual freedom.
So it is interesting that the people saying this tripe are usually collectivists
"None of us are free until all of us are free" won't work in the real world because people have different definitions of freedom.
For example, freedom for a Zero Covid means that *everyone* wears masks in public. For a normie, freedom means living life without a mask (mostly)
18-21 year old me is in too many of these and I don’t like it
That's fine. It's the 35-year olds who don’t have an excuse
To quote Georges Clemenceau (probably), on his son's political affiliations: "If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then."
As someone who is now 31 and still has friends who think and post like this, I 100% agree. They're more annoying than the kids posting, because they should know better *from experience*
Yeah, well I'm 42 and my challenge now is not to become too much of a reactionary!