Lordre: liberalism

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Bilderberg, WEF abandoning the globe for the West

Considering the agendas listed for their most recent meeting, it is noticeable that the Bilderberg forum is focusing less on the supposedly empathy-driven management of world human welfare and much more on the survival of the West. The West, meaning the narrow portion of the world whose most influential people attend these very meetings.

The new focus on ongoing conflicts like Ukraine's reveals that this group is not focused on managing the world’s economic wellbeing but the group’s own members’ desires and insecurities.

Shifting agendas away from world human welfare

If you look at the agendas from 2010 onwards, there is a certain shift from more scientific global concerns to increasingly narrow political ones, driven by a craving by the Western liberal attendees for victory and conquest over other countries and ideologies they personally disapprove of. Notice, in particular, the disappearance of the importance of climate change, formerly a key pressing issue in globalisation and a real basis for global cooperation, now abandoned by these supposedly caring leaders and experts for their preservation of their own political influence. Fear is the motive of their discussions - their own fear, not society's.

Some will begin to ask, was climate change ever real for those people? And, if it is no longer real for them, why should any of their current concerns be taken seriously outside their club? It seems that the most pressing global issues are less interesting to them than what they personally fancy or caters to their personal interests.

The same pattern is apparent at the World Economic Forum, which prioritised talking about the conflict in Ukraine, highlighting global fractures and amplifying conflict rather than maintaining the false liberal tenet of global cooperation. It is striking that the ideological principals guiding Western society just fluctuate depending on what would be satisfying to its richest and most influential individuals at the moment, getting us to scratch their itches. Globalisation and harmony one minute, national power and domination the next. Free markers one minute, state intervention the next.

'Me, me, me'

What we see here is that these forums for bigwigs, experts and public figure seem to be losing their pretence of being caring and responsible managers over global welfare, indicating this was never authentic in the first place. They are out for themselves.

What has happened can be compared with Bill Gates’ apparent obsession with conspiracy theories about himself (also see that one of the Bilderberg agendas is again "disinformation") and his need to save himself from campaigns against his character. Rather than acting like the bewildered but well-meaning philanthropist he claimed to be, and removing himself from a controversial situation, he is increasingly obsessed with defeating a political enemy, even coming into conflict with Elon Musk.

What happened to the experts who focused on the bigger picture of global society and health? Why should we care about their terror at conspiracy theorists in their own society and apparent geopolitical threats from Russia and China to their influence?

Eventually, we will begin to ask: what need do we have for a conference among individuals whose main interest is just their own avoidance of being hanged by the people? Is saving some self-important pencil necks we know very little about, from being snapped, really necessary for the public good and urgent for society to pursue?

Liberalism without prosperity?

The basic appeal of liberalism, and more so the neoliberal economic policy that dominated the world for decades, is meant to be the prosperity it optimises (or at least prevents the loss of). Unfortunately, faced with acute conflict in the world, proponents of this ideology may be increasingly instead turning to sacrifice and austerity in the name of 'civilisation', promoting a geopolitical struggle against competing poles of power like Russia and China. This puts liberalism in the position of, in the future, not presiding over a prospering people but a starved and hobbled people who wonder what it is all for.

Without offering prosperity, liberal democratic states offer nothing. By trying to convince people to enter a global confrontation with opposing continents, and forget about global welfare and even food supplies, the liberal regimes will throw away the only thing they were meant to be about. What hope is there, then, for their survival?

Neoconservatives turn America into all the things it always tried to condemn in other nations - warmongers, tyrants, torturers and enemies of freedom. Guilty of launching the Iraq War, torture programs, and mass surveillance against their own people, there is seemingly no limit to what they might try to do.

Some of these traits may be shared simply by extremists on either side of the political spectrum, but any prominent person or intellectual adopting the below views is a neoconservative. They are a neoconservative because they have the views exclusive to the neoconservative ideology, complete with its absolutistic, utopistic bloodlust.

#1 Condemning “appeasement” regularly

They like to say “appeasement” frequently when describing supposedly weak responses to international conflicts, using it with regard to virtually every war, especially wars their country was already unethically involved in.

#2 Blaming the world's problems on a single “dictator”

They keep pointing to a single person as the public enemy at all times (usually a perceived authoritarian figure e.g., Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Bill Clinton, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin). They portray all these people almost like some reincarnating bogeyman, and the extent of their political theory is that killing or impeaching this bogeyman over and over again will save the world. They claim that political events surrounding this dictator have moral clarity and are like a movie, complete with a beginning, a middle and an end at which this “villain” is killed or defeated, by them or some hero figure, usually an American.

#3 Saying “can”, “should”, and “must” too often

Usually this is preceded by the word “America” or “we” as shorthand for the nation, or Western military alliances like NATO and US or Coalition military forces, usually accompanied by the idea that these forces are invincible in war and are only held back by weak liberals. They might personally have the physical prowess of a potato resting on a couch, but believe that their suggestions about sending soldiers into combat makes them akin to a cape-wearing hero. They also might make statements that America would have won or even did win in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but was betrayed by liberals (very similar to the “stabbed in the back” Nazi myth about World War One).

#4 Hating Kissinger and Carter

They think Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, is a coward for not sharing their simplistic good-vs-evil view of international affairs and conflicts. They might also really hate Jimmy Carter, seeing his administration as the weakest in American history. They might think America was later redeemed by the hero Ronald Reagan, seen by them as a superhero who single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union. They hold the false belief that the Cold War was not a complicated affair ended by agreements, and instead insist it was simple battle between good and evil, believing that the good side (the West) won this “war”, and Russia surrendered and gave up its security (a key cause of the current Ukraine war).

#5 Advocating atrocities

They are willing to go on television and just advocate killing a civilian, even if this isn't their job, and think this is socially acceptable. They might think other members of their own society or fellow citizens should be censored, detained, tortured or killed for disagreeing with them on issues such as the above, presenting their own view as an unambiguously moral or factually correct default position rather than realising they are bloodthirsty fanatics for an ideology. They have no moral problems with torturing your body and killing your entire family if they judged you to be an impediment to their ideology (yet another trait they share with Nazis).

#6 Having protagonist syndrome

Another thing all neocons have in common is that their ideas are rooted in entertainment rather than reality. Neocons have Hollywood brains that love simplicity, villains, heroes, and a lot of violence against whoever they decided is bad (even if it later becomes clear that they are not bad). To quote someone taking the neocon path, “I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo”.

Noam Chomsky asserted in his book, Media Control, that the corporate media had an ability to trigger totalitarian behaviour in people, stating "the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they’re supposed to repeat".

America's history of making excuses for fascist types in Latin America and Eastern Europe, coupled with the veneration of police state figures at home and panic among elites at their collapsing economic and military power, could lay a path for our nations into actual fascism.

Sanitising fascism

As evidence accumulates that we in the West are supporting Nazis in Ukraine, such that even NATO itself is unable to avoid sharing evidence of these Nazis and then hurriedly deleting it, we may see excuses made for radical nationalism and fascism. It is accompanied by our own anti-Russian propaganda, sometimes rivalling the work of the Nazis, as we become enamoured with the monsters we support.

Nazism in Ukraine, however explicit, is uniquely weaponised and directed against the local ethnic Russians, such that Jews in Ukraine are seemingly able to avoid being hurt by it. But, as anyone who was properly educated at school knows, the selected scapegoat makes no difference to whether fascism is fascism. Portraying the West's declared enemies such as Russians, Muslims or the Chinese as subhuman is as wrong as anti-Semitism.

Unfortunately, as Chomsky points out, educated people in the West seem able to forget their entire moral code and education when the media simply claims that things are different this time, and that fascistic sentiment is now necessary. They are then okay with calling for the death or silencing of those who oppose us. Making special exceptions where it is okay to censor or even murder people when we are told is a masterclass in turning a peaceful person into a monster.

The subconscious drift to fascism

Part of the reason for fascism is the feeling that one's country was meant to be the most successful, the best of them all, but that traitors and fifth columnists are hampering it. In the past, that was the essence of anti-communism. Today, the communists are simply "Russians", the word used for essentially anyone on the internet who contradicts the narrative, despite no evidence of any link to Moscow.

There has been a tragic history of the United States relying on fascists to secure its goals in South and Central America, and the US is typically aligned with the most reactionary forces around the world. This is no different in Ukraine, where, from the beginning, the US took as its allies the most violent nationalists and fascists it could find, and portrayed them as liberals to gullible audiences at first. Now, though, the audience is actually becoming illiberal, drawn more and more into pure hatred and flag-waving.

As the West declines in the face of a rising China, and is confronted by the unprecedented failure of its sanctions policy, statements from Western journalists and politicians can only be expected to become more deranged. As economic and financial punishments fail against rival countries for the first time, a new ideology that justifies the magnification of military force, terroristic violence, and the creation of vast armies may be demanded. As refugees flee Ukraine, many still with sympathies to fascism, and are lionised, it is possible that the Western media will engage in revisionism and justifications for a for at least a few variants of fascism.

Ukraine to be the model for the declining West?

Russia has been afraid for some time that World War Two could be rewritten by the West, in a way that puts all the blame on the Soviet Union. It could get worse. As Russia is increasingly vilified, Ukrainian Nazi collaborators are redeemed in Western eyes, and the usefulness of fascist thugs becomes increasingly attractive to Western elites, not just abroad but potentially at home.

Because the US is okay with bans on media in Ukraine, it is okay with bans on media at home. Because the US is okay with a war on terror abroad, it is okay with a war on terror at home. Does the US's support for fascist thugs on the streets in Ukraine mean that fascist thugs will be accepted on the streets at home?

Now, some will want to stop me here and attempt to make the case that groups like Black Lives Matter (BLM) or Antifa are the local variants of fascism. They are similarly lionised to the Ukrainian nationalists, and excuses are made for their violence in the US. Others will say this is different, because these are the anti-fascists. But are they? Anti-fascists may be expected to use reason, and explain exactly why fascism is wrong. The BLM and Antifa movements are not rationalist movements. Their followers are just addicted to the dopamine rush they get from being supported in the media and in the currents of social media. The ideology matters not.

Swastikas of freedom

It is not unrealistic to estimate that if the media began to fly the swastika, at first pitching it as a maligned anti-Russian "freedom" symbol, a fair majority of the self-styled advocates of BLM, Antifa and other social justice causes would steadily convert not just to fascism but to Nazism. Moreover, the amount of effort needed to convert a majority of Western society to Nazi ideology would require one week to one month of television broadcasts, social media hashtags, and some entertainment and education-related boycotts and products being cancelled by certain key companies. In total, it would only require the staff at the top of several organisations such as CNN, Facebook and Twitter to collaborate on achieving it.

What if Western policy elites responsible for backing extremists abroad should now decide that establishing full fascism at home is the way to mobilise the United States and the West to defend their hegemony? They are disturbingly well-equipped to do it. They have so far been able to pressure the previously mentioned types of organisation into adhering to their strategy. The informal hierarchy placing the US foreign policy elites and spooks over the media lackeys is obvious in the shocking speed at which propaganda is disseminated everywhere, and, as Chomsky said, we can be made to goose-step on command.

Regardless of the passing novelties of culture, falling like leaves in the autumn, there are indispensable riches that transcend even a dead civilisation or social order, to persist. The essential heirlooms of a civilisation are protected and planted again, like acorns.

The origin of the term "radical" came from the Latin word for "root". Those who were radical would hack at the root, or get to the root of the problem. They would, to use an expression favoured by Jean-Paul Marat, bring the hatchet (or ax) to their root.

Inevitable moral decay?

Far from needing to be hacked down, trees eventually die by themselves. If nothing else brings illness to the tree, its death can occur when it becomes so large that it can no longer support its own weight. Then, however majestic it may seem, it will collapse. A tree may even rot while it stands, such that its great size and apparent triumph over other trees may mean nothing.

There have been successive civilisations that were at the centre of the economic life of the world. Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the more vaguely defined "Western civilisation" of the present day, with its multiple centres in London, Washington DC, Paris and elsewhere. There is no disputing that each of them collapsed, nor can we dispute that the collapse was necessary for the continued excellence of humanity, although the modern one cannot countenance its own ultimate fate as anything similar.

Many people of a conservative persuasion believe they see things rotten about our society, things that are continuously changing for the worse. They may point to increased sexual liberty and rights that were not typical of the higher and more accomplished stages of a civilisation. It has been argued that a higher civilisation adopts puritanical moral structures and a focus on scientific and artistic accomplishments in order to impress, and that denying excessive sexual liberty assists in this because it helps to keep humanity focused on human excellence rather than primitive joy. Those of a liberal persuasion, on the other hand, welcome any increase in personal liberty, and will only laugh at the above, but their response likely isn't any newer than the views of people during other declines.

It is difficult to form a rational case in relation to the idea of the moral corruption of society, because the outcome depends on one's pre-existing values. The very process of analysing flaws in the moral character of society requires first of all adopting values without rational justification, such as the view that excellence and intellect are better than laziness and pleasure.

How to detect decadence

Decadence, the steady loss of what gave a culture its value, may manifest in worsening cultural products and art forms that are not worth saving, in contrast to the creations of what would have been considered the works of a higher civilisation in its golden age. Everything is just a passing, worthless thing. This may result in a decreased ability to identify with any kind of culture and eventually, with other people in society. Even still, we may still have powerful governments, reminiscent of empires of old, dependent on the inertia of past accomplishments, up until the moment of their failure.

The idea of decadence implies that those who succumb to it either don't recognise it or don't recognise a problem with it, maybe instead being pleased with it. The concept suggests that a society can become sick without even realising it, because its own capacity to recognise goodness or judge itself is also being corrupted, succumbing to the same cultural and intellectual sickness it cannot see.

Decadence also signifies age. If it is a real sickness, it is inescapable and everyone is somewhat infected. Where the conservative is wrong might, then, not be in his dismay at the diminishing of moral or cultural value, but in his delusions that he can do anything to reverse it. A dead tree cannot be restored to a living one, and the clock cannot be turned back on society. Only a fresh acorn, planted elsewhere, has any potential after that.

To fell the tree

It is possible to appreciate both the progressive and the conservative, to see their roles in history.

The believers in progress perform a necessary role in the life of a civilisation, allowing the adoption of new ideas, new scientific models, and new technologies, but any kind of utopia may ultimately prove impossible or harmful, and so the reactionaries also have a valid role. If indeed a civilisation collapses, those who depended on its present state are not going to be the seeds of a new tree; only conservatives could create new civilisations or establish the next outposts of progress. Think what you like of them, but they bear with them a tried and tested formula for how to construct a society and civilisation, whereas the modern liberal only bears faith in the progress of the existing model and will refuse to go back to past traditions or simplicity.

The conclusion that necessarily follows from identifying what is considered decadent is that a thing is unworthy of respect or loyalty, once it is sufficiently debased that you no longer identify with it. It follows that a decadent culture or civilisation imperils those outside of it, like a rotten tree that threatens to fall when it might be inconvenient and should therefore be felled with all urgency. Its destruction, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible, can eventually be justified.

Although it should be used extremely sparingly, death should exist as a penalty for some crimes in some circumstances.

Death is already a punishment the state can use on you, in the sense that it has the power and, if it gives itself it, the right to employ lethal force against you. When we speak of the death penalty, the only thing we are really talking about is one of many circumstances in which an authority exercises its right to kill you.

If you are a threat the state deems unacceptable to it or you present an imminent threat of killing others (hot pursuit), the authority in the land gives himself the option to kill you. So, why is this power not extended to other situations where the ruling authority might require your death for the safety of innumerable others and the protection of society? The answer is that liberal absolutes dictate the law, in the case of the UK, and these absolutes cannot adjust to changes in society and the behaviour of the citizen.

Capital punishment as a moderating influence

The killing of a defenceless captive by an authority, an execution, may be justifiable if the alternative is known to involve a greater degree of unrest, suffering and death. Some crimes are so severe, for example, that not executing the perpetrators encourages acts of vigilantism that cannot be contained.

Take, for example, those who are found guilty of sexual assaults on children. The perceived inadequacy of the punishment for that offence has given rise to vigilantes who actively hunt such offenders, as well as legions who, with modern social media, may be prepared to falsely accuse and shame individuals who are merely suspected. Happening because of the perceived inadequacy of the legal authorities, this can push the falsely accused into undue distress or even suicide in larger numbers than the potential executions that would be required to calm the situation. As such, failure to kill the perpetrator presents a continuous risk to the lives of others even if the perpetrator is detained. In contrast, a state in which those guilty of this crime are executed would not experience as much vigilantism and distress, and things could be handled always in a more orderly way.

On the inevitable innocent victims

One could argue that an innocent suspect's death may also placate society and avert deeper tragedy under some circumstances, and that my argument above is therefore absurd because it would encourage random executions when the state feels they will placate the crowd. The killing of innocents is yet another thing destabilising to the social order, and therefore bad for the same reason as leaving alive those who have been confirmed to have monstrous guilt.

Even when applied sparingly, the death penalty will sometimes take innocent lives, but it can be used in such a way that it results in fewer innocent lost lives than the chaos of never applying it. It is likely that the number of executions that are truly necessary for the reasons outlined above is extremely low, but capital punishment should still be available to a ruling power in the same way that lethal force is to be employed in situations of immediate peril.

The European Union's attempt to impose a liberal monoculture on all member states risks destroying the entire EU project.

Unelected EU authorities, in this case foreign judges at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), have clashed with the parliaments of sovereign states that represent nations comprised of millions of people, threatening them with funding cuts.

Progress forced

Far from "democratic values", what the EU says it wants to impose on Poland and Hungary using funding cuts as a weapon amounts to some specific cultural changes. It is in the hope of changing their stubborn attitudes to LGBT content and immigration, that resistant countries are to undergo this forced conversion to the Euro-liberal ideology. Even if one supports this ideology and considers it to be a fulfilment of social progress, funding cuts seem like an awful way of achieving it.

The EU wants the power to ensure that the next generation in places like Poland are educated and inculcated in such as way that they will share the EU bureaucrats' cultural opinions, and will help stamp out their own local Catholic traditions and values. Without the monolithic liberal monoculture, which the Pope referred to as one-track thinking, the ideological righteousness and uniformity of a superstate can be in jeopardy.

Siege against the majority

What is happening is a basic failure of statecraft that creates significant division in even one country, let alone a confederation of multiple nation states. It is a rejection of the sovereignty of a people, which always leads to the oppression of that people. One cannot impose compliance with a set of cultural norms on a region or nation without oppression, such as as this financial siege the EU now threatens on disobedient countries.

Action by the EU is also unlikely to improve the situation for minorities the EU supposedly wants to make life easier for. They too will be hit by indiscriminate financial punishment of a country. As well as being morally problematic, financial punishment of a country due to the majority sentiment against a minority is folly from a pragmatic point of view. It may only increase acts of hostility by majority against minority, with the latter being now associated with a foreign siege against the nation, thereby having the opposite effect to what the EU hoped, even if the nation eventually yields.

Disregard for sovereignty

The utter disdain for the self-determination of nations, the very basis of democracy, being displayed by the EU is yet another manifestation of a familiar colonial arrogance. This disdain is part of the same mindset that brought Western armies to Afghanistan, only to cause more suffering and problems before falling back in retreat after twenty years of failed vision.

Many people value their national culture and identity more than any economic benefit, which drove Brexit against unheeded warnings of empty shelves and queues. Rather than give in, people in places like Poland should be prepared to endure significant hardship to resist and abandon an imperious confederation

If the Poles eventually decide they have had enough of the EU, they can always look to the seas, learn from Britain, and count on us as a trading partner. In addition, it would not take long for other countries to leave.

The prevailing reactionary and liberal camps within the Western liberal democratic model of state are equally incapable of accepting Muslims, and the best display of this failure is in France.

The French decision to close the French Council of the Muslim Faith because of perceived undue foreign influence reflects a desire to create an alternative Islam acceptable to Western liberals. What Western countries want is a local sedated, liberal-friendly Islam that is okay with cartoons of Islam's Prophet and supportive of Western wars on Muslims.

Macron's Islam

What Western countries would prefer to see is a completely reinvented Islam with an edited and redacted holy book, to support their interests and only attack China and Russia at the behest of Western diplomats. This is consistent with prevailing political sentiments in the West, which emphasise eliminating unacceptable views by cancelling them and are not interested, in the slightest, in how dear such views are to people from other civilisations.

We are seeing what will culminate in the complete failure to construct a multiconfessional state along liberal lines in the West, even as the West's population declines and migrants from other cultures become essential to economic performance. The requirement that it must be okay to offend culture and faith will never be able to coexist with being welcoming to people from other cultures, no matter what desperate policies are pursued by countries like France.

Countries that want to rectify other cultures when offended by them, yet at the same time wanting freedom for themselves to offend such cultures, are pursuing a doomed model. There is no example of any multiconfessional state in history that was both defiantly liberal and accommodated very different religious communities successfully.

Multiculturalism can work, but not with liberalism

Multiculturalism can succeed, but must be done within strict constraints that preserve the autonomy of the cultures concerned and treat them with the utmost respect. France's desire to assimilate and make sure that every cultural change comes at the expense of other cultures rather than France's is a mistake, when France was the colonial power and France made the decision to govern members of other cultures. That comes at a cost, and France must pay it by allowing its own character to change as a result.

Neo-colonial France's arrogant domestic policy against Muslims is matched by its arrogant foreign policy against Mali, demanding this country adhere to its political values and model, although the real goal is to exploit the country's gold and uranium. However, cancelling Islam and declaring cultural superiority won't help France escape the consequences of its own decision to become a multicultural empire.

With all kinds of disinformation circulating on social media since the start of the pandemic, it is important that people do not believe reposting it is devoid of consequences. In fact, it is very much like killing people.

I will start by saying that I do not oppose alternative medicine or even faith-healing, provided that the patient also has access to every form of conventional and science-based medicine too. I also believe in freedom to choose to refuse a medical treatment, but I do not necessarily believe in freedom to misinform, and that is the subject here.

Delay and doubt can be fatal

Distrust in the medical authorities leads to delays, and can be fatal. Without going into specifics, I will say that this has affected my own life. In that case, there was hesitancy by certain parents at letting doctors operate on a child, due to the parents succumbing to some disinformation and paranoia about medical safety. It almost caused a child to die, and the delay might have led to permanent damage.

The opponents of medical authority are absurd because we literally have no alternative other than the medical services to turn to for help in case of illness or injury. Even these idiots will in fact limp to the same hospitals they would have condemned, if they are injured.

Even if medical science is absolutely ineffective, it is probably still your only hope. To try to threaten medical workers and researchers and accuse them of malicious intent literally is the same as inciting people to leave others to die and delay or prevent treatment that is urgently needed.

We know, on the authority of everyone, the vaccines are safe

In the case of vaccines, I cannot analyse them from a medical standpoint as I know nothing of medicine. However, I do know International Relations (IR) quite well and can confirm the vaccines are safe from my own disciplinary background.

We have almost every responsible international actor on the face of the Earth - even the Taliban - accepting that the coronavirus is dangerous and pleading for vaccines to help combat it. Donald Trump is another example, much to the dismay of some of his fringe anti-vaccine supporters who can't accept facts.

If people so diverse all agree that vaccines are necessary, and the only thing they have in common is that they were or are in positions of power and responsibility and had access to the best information, a rational person will concede that taking the vaccines is the best-informed choice. Similarly, all the world's scientific bodies devoted to studying viruses attest to the existence of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines in combating it. The only people asserting the contrary (anti-vaxxers) are fringe individuals and groups that are tasked with giving no essential aid or counsel to anyone, and are accountable to no-one for whether their information is right or wrong. The latter point is best illustrated by the fact anti-vaxxers can't even agree with each other on what the problem is (e.g. whether the germ theory of disease is even valid, or if viruses exist), other than that they all hate the vaccines and those administering them. In contrast, the world's governments all agree about vaccines, even if they have severe disagreements on almost every other issue.

Governments could lose patience with disinformation

The more medical disinformation complicates the work of healthcare authorities, the more likely it will eventually be eliminated by government intervention (currently only very mild), possibly with consequences for all online publishing freedom. People spreading false medical advice or paranoia are therefore hindering, not improving, the work of any political opposition and dissidents.

Because harmful people exploited the ease of achieving online influence, we are likely to see a significant decrease in the ease of any and all dissidents achieving such influence in future, if the decrease has not happened already. The well may have been irreversibly poisoned by medical pseudoscience and we may be faced with the ever-declining reach of alternative media, as the state acts legitimately against it to protect public health.

Health services such as the UK's National Health Service (NHS) should not be fair game for criticism by those whose interests are solely political and not medical, especially if these medically unqualified dissidents are going to try to provide uncertified and illegal medical advice. In fact, there should be dire consequences for such interlopers who try to complicate the ability of medical workers to provide accurate information to potential patients.

It is the job of the state to safeguard the population's health, even if it means overriding the freedom of individuals the state deems to be a significant threat to the health of the population. The state has significant power over life and death, and it ought only to tolerate freedom insofar as it contributes to the health and wellbeing of the population.

Liberty misunderstood

Freedom for freedom's sake is absolutely unacceptable. If people are making use of their freedoms to harm others and cause injury and death, their freedoms should be curtailed through any means including completely pulling the plug on something like the internet and denying all press freedom. Hopefully, such a step will only be very rarely needed, but it may be necessary to save the lives of the afflicted and the children whose parents succumbed to fatal irrationality.

Rampant anti-authority sentiment of the American variety is based on misreading and misunderstanding the nature of liberty. What is advocated in this post may seem like extreme statism, and be opposed by anti-statists, but they should remember that what the proponents of unlimited liberty advocate is even more extreme punishment for medical quacks. In a stateless society, medical quacks who caused the death of a child or relative would be at risk of not just being silenced by the restrained authorities, but being killed under the slow tortures of an unrestrained angry mob.

That's right. The peddlers of medical disinformation should, rather than accusing any authority of suppressing freedom, thank those same authorities for preventing the mob from seeking justice against them for the harm they do. If you have a hand in killing someone's child because you were blabbering paranoid and ignorant thoughts about doctors in a published form online and it created hesitancy among readers, think not of your curtailed freedom and just thank the state that you don't have some parent's hands around your neck.

Liberty, which is solely an exercise of the state or the incumbent power's restraint and generosity rather than an inalienable right of man, is fatal when misunderstood to mean the right to cause rampant harm without repercussions. Liberty is good only insofar as it forms part of the life and flourishing of the public, and those who jeopardise either of those things deserve none.

Movies, shows unfairly bashed in a culture war before being released

Entertainment media needs to be given a chance and actually watched before it can be rejected or boycotted.

In recent years, a very unfair trend developed among political commentators, the worst offenders most likely being those of the "alt right", whereby movies and television shows are condemned often before being aired, due to being supposedly politicised (ironically, such commentators are most responsible for bringing politics into the discussion of such entertainment).

Politicisation, which is very likely unwelcome for the production companies themselves, who want to sell to all audiences, begins with commentary from those of a liberal persuasion. They will usually, innocently and likely thinking themselves apolitical, praise some form of inclusion in terms of casting or story-writing. They then face some counter-commentary from conservative figures reacting by condemning Hollywood in turn for its apparent political radicalism.

The latest 007 movie went through this, at first with liberal commentaros suggesting the titular British spy would be replaced by a female or minority actor. This was met with outright condemnation from conservative commentators. The final product apparently had some nod to inclusion, but otherwise was just a normal Bond movie. It turned out this was a false alarm.

We see this with Amazon's upcoming The Lord of the Rings (not actually The Lord of the Rings but other prequel tales from the same author), expected apparently to feature a more racially diverse cast than previous iterations.

We know nothing of the specifics of how this new J. R. R. Tolkien-inspired show will be cast, or how, if at all, a diverse cast would possible undermine its ability to represent the author's vision. It may be that the diverse cast is well-intended and well-chosen and manages to still properly represent Tolkien's world. It may be that it has no effect at all on the entertainment value of the series.

When you haven't seen a thing, you are in no position to judge it. However, thanks to pre-emptive attack, many tend not to watch a new show or are intent on giving it a bad review without even watching.

Sometimes, preachy and political dialogue can definitely undermine a story set in a fantasy world. Casting decisions can also be poor. However, whether such issues are present and undermine entertainment value isn't known until you see something. Instead of politicising entertainment in protest against the politicisation of entertainment, just watch it and then explain the problems you find, giving at all all times specifics.

If entertainment is genuinely poor, the biggest losers will be those who produced it. They are invested in it, quite literally, more than any "fan".

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