> It can't just be for "ordinary people", it has to be for everyone, with a minimum level of rights protected by law.
Nicely put.
Around the Iraq War, I remember some clever cynic pointing out that while we might 'export democracy', it's still democratic for 51% of the people to vote to murder the other 49%. Or perhaps more commonly, to vote for a permanent dictator from the 51%. The fundamental advance of a healthy government isn't (just) democracy, it's a bedrock of inalienable or hard-to-alienate rights.
The recent talk about the 'paradox of liberalism' has been interesting, but it's all felt a bit misguided to me. There's a real question, sure, but the entire fight between "let intolerance go unchecked" and "be intolerant of intolerance" was a false dichotomy. The missing alternative is liberalism within boundaries - setting some threshold of behavior which isn't permitted, and can't be permitted by any minor political swing.
(Arguably what we were having was a debate about where to set those boundaries, but if so I wish we could actually say that.)
Nicely put.
Around the Iraq War, I remember some clever cynic pointing out that while we might 'export democracy', it's still democratic for 51% of the people to vote to murder the other 49%. Or perhaps more commonly, to vote for a permanent dictator from the 51%. The fundamental advance of a healthy government isn't (just) democracy, it's a bedrock of inalienable or hard-to-alienate rights.
The recent talk about the 'paradox of liberalism' has been interesting, but it's all felt a bit misguided to me. There's a real question, sure, but the entire fight between "let intolerance go unchecked" and "be intolerant of intolerance" was a false dichotomy. The missing alternative is liberalism within boundaries - setting some threshold of behavior which isn't permitted, and can't be permitted by any minor political swing.
(Arguably what we were having was a debate about where to set those boundaries, but if so I wish we could actually say that.)