Reading Seraphim Rose’s book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future was like reading a book from someone looking at the future and describing it to me.

https://www.spring-lake.net/pdfs/religion/ortho-barth/Orthodoxy%20and%20the%20Religion%20of%20t%20-%20Seraphim%20Rose.pdf

Another sad truth underlying all this is that freedom and autonomy really are the passion of the few. The majority really do want to be directed, just like they want to be protected… but in modern times they won’t admit it.

Successful conservative movements (like MAGA) walk a line between flattering talk of freedom and “populist” policies that appeal to human nature.

— BenDavid

Yes, you have to work with human beings as they are. Anything else leads you down the dangerous utopian road.

But as Lincoln observed about freedom:

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

Most people really do want freedom, but by the word they mean specific things which often contradict what other people mean by freedom. You can’t evaluate freedom and tyranny outside the cultural context, and many forms of freedom require things of the surrounding society to be meaningful.

Nobody gets to be autonomous. Period. Autonomy and personal freedom and liberty don’t necessarily correlate. The closest you can come to personal autonomy is a lone existence in the wilderness. That person is maximally autonomous and his life is likely to be nasty, brutish, and short.

I’ve used this example before: the ‘trans’ fantasy. It’s already legal in most places to dress as the opposite sex (at least in your own home or on the public street), to pretend to be the opposite sex. In that sense, the ‘trans’ people already had full freedom to live their preferred lifestyle.

But it was worthless because for their fantasy of freedom to be fulfilled, other people have to affirm it. Which conflicts with other’s people’s freedom to not lie about the gender of the trans person.

If I define freedom as being able to drive my car as fast as I want, whenever I want, traffic laws impinge on my freedom. But people living in a residential area want the freedom not to have a lunatic drive his car through a populated area full of kids and pets and pedestrians at 120 mph. My freedom to drive as I please conflicts with their freedom to be safe.

Real life is all about these compromises. Abstract principle is fine as long as it stays abstract, as soon as you’re dealing with the real world the compromises begin.

Which is also why cultural diversity and personal freedom/liberty generally track inversely. The more culturally homogenous the society, usually the more its members can agree on what freedoms are reasonable and which are not.

It’s not that most people want to be slaves or directed. It’s that conflicting definitions of freedom are in play.

The Democrats are rather annoying in their claim to be the “resistance” or “revolution” when they control the vast majority of the institutions of government and society.
Not having the Presidency and majorities in Congress really sticks in their collective craw, but those are just about the only thing they lack at the moment.

The Left is pushing vigorously for a confrontation that I believe will inevitably lead to a shooting war in America. We better be ready for it.

I offer them Samuel Adams’ advice from the same quote: “May posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

https://www.theblaze.com/news/tim-kaine-shockingly-compares-the-declaration-of-independence-to-iran-s-theocratic-regime-extremely-troubling?utm_source=theblaze-

The core “Progressive” belief is that it is proper to use wartime means to achieve peacetime goals.
I am trying to get the term “mobilizationist” adopted, as it signifies exactly that.
It’s specific, self-explanatory, and isn’t outright judgmental.