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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   26274 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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What I'm mostly disappointed in are these redditors that seem to take it for granted that the legislation is a bad thing. Because they assume it's just about exerting control and the Republicans are fascist dictators and Reddit has porn anyway and it's all performative theater. I don't think these are convincing arguments. The people passing these laws are probably the same types that go for things like the Brady Campaign, they're not supervillains doing evil things for the sake of it.

They're not "supervillains" in either case, but they really are petty control-freaks coming up with schemes for turnkey authoritarianism and blatant disregard for basic constitutional protections. Importantly, what I mean by "they" in both cases are the anti-porn crusaders and the Brady Campaign. Saying that the anti-porn legislators are the same types that go for things like the Brady Campaign doesn't make me think that they're actually good, it makes me think they're the same kind of people that don't think about second-order effects and don't care about rights.

If any scheme to create a porn regulatory policy (or firearm regulatory policy) is successful, the type of people doing the regulation are going to wind up being the same kinds of people that go into public health - true believers that the government has to do this for your own good. I would honestly prefer that they were just political hacks trying to score a few points than sincere believers in the nanny state. CS Lewis remains relevant:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

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