I sadly am coming to believe that people want crazy authoritarians to tell them what to do and how to live. They especially like to have a strong authoritarian to force people they don't like to do what they want them to do. That's book burning is so popular.
One of the things that turned me away from conservatism was the mindless embrace of the word "freedom".
A lot of people love the word but not the principle, and the conservatives around me were very much along those lines.
Freedom.
Okay, so can gay people marry?
Nah, that offends our faith.
Yeah well what if it's integral to somebody's else's faith? What if you're a faithless heathen like me that needs a tangible social harm to justify a restriction on free association?
Yeah, freedom.
What most people want is stability. If the system offers stability and minimizes offense, they'll ignore the excesses that take place mostly out of their sight. If the system doesn't offer that, if people feel the abyss yawning next to them (and most Americans feel that, because we're overworked, overcapitalized, and one medical mishap away from lifelong suffering, unpayable debt, and/or death) then a strong man becomes attractive.
This isn't a 'people suck' screed, it's acknowledging human nature. Most people want stability, respect, security, and freedom from offense to their core values.
Which has left us numb and complacent to the very real threat of anti-democratic authoritarians taking over government.
I sadly am coming to believe that people want crazy authoritarians to tell them what to do and how to live. They especially like to have a strong authoritarian to force people they don't like to do what they want them to do. That's book burning is so popular.
One of the things that turned me away from conservatism was the mindless embrace of the word "freedom".
A lot of people love the word but not the principle, and the conservatives around me were very much along those lines.
Freedom.
Okay, so can gay people marry?
Nah, that offends our faith.
Yeah well what if it's integral to somebody's else's faith? What if you're a faithless heathen like me that needs a tangible social harm to justify a restriction on free association?
Yeah, freedom.
What most people want is stability. If the system offers stability and minimizes offense, they'll ignore the excesses that take place mostly out of their sight. If the system doesn't offer that, if people feel the abyss yawning next to them (and most Americans feel that, because we're overworked, overcapitalized, and one medical mishap away from lifelong suffering, unpayable debt, and/or death) then a strong man becomes attractive.
This isn't a 'people suck' screed, it's acknowledging human nature. Most people want stability, respect, security, and freedom from offense to their core values.
I meant "book banning." Autocorrect
Yep. Look at the proliferation of sheer unbridled lunatic conspiracy theories.
We lack the capacity to marginalize the really dumb ideas these days and they're just a viral as anything.