{"id":39381,"date":"2017-07-18T03:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=39381"},"modified":"2020-07-06T10:43:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T14:43:37","slug":"signs-of-the-libertarian-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/18\/signs-of-the-libertarian-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Signs of the libertarian revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

L. Neil Smith<\/a> explains how some clearly libertarian trends are being misinterpreted in the latest Libertarian Enterprise<\/em>:<\/p>\n

… primarily as a result of the Internet turning human communications completely sideways, depriving those who have falsely believed they own us of their lofty perches, the 10,000-year-old Age of Authority is ending. Communication between human beings is now lateral, egalitarian, even Tweets from the President, and it doesn\u2019t matter at all how much governments stomp their jackbooted feet or scream and shout. Their kind of social structure is doomed as humanity enters a new era.<\/p>\n

One set of consequences of this change is examined, if a bit superficially, in a June article on Breitbart.com<\/em> by one Liam Deacon, who informs us that a new study finds that \u201cTraditional Views on Same Sex Marriage, Abortion, Pornography [and sex before marriage] in Britain [are] Rapidly Diminishing\u201d. These are trends of the last four years, and to the extent they\u2019ve also occurred long since in America \u2014 add in the legalization of marijuana and the increased tendency of individuals to arm themselves against crime and terrorism \u2014 it means that most academic and official analyses of socio-political events from, perhaps, the Tea Party Uprising of 2009. through the election of Donald Trump to the triumph of Brexit are dead wrong. We are not undergoing any merely conservative or populist (whatever that means) swing of the pendulum, but an all-out libertarian revolution. I think I know one when I see one: I\u2019ve been doing my best to arrange one for my entire adult life.<\/p>\n

According to the study, conducted in 2016, the latest edition of the \u201cBritish Social Attitudes\u201d survey, resistance from organized Christianity, even the Roman Catholic Church, which used to form a bulwark against social changes like this, is now crumbling, with 64 percent in favor of gay marriage, and 75 percent favoring pre-marital sex. Seventy percent of Catholics believe that abortion is within a woman\u2019s rights. Pornography, too, is now approved by a majority.<\/p>\n

Researchers somehow, irrationally, believe that these changes are in opposition to other events, such as \u201cBrexit, Trump, and Le Pen\u201d but they\u2019re wrong. The object in all cases, is self-determination, which is the very heart of libertarianism. Increasingly, people \u2014 of all ages, the article observed with a note of amazement \u2014 are unwilling to accept dictation from once-respected leaders and traditional social, political, and economic structures. I\u2019d like to believe this is because of the conspicuous failures of authority over the past century or so, but, entirely without condescending \u2014 most people are just too busy earning a living and living their lives for theories \u2014 I\u2019m not certain that the average person\u2019s thinking is that informed or organized.<\/p>\n

More likely, the soap-opera of everyday living has taught them far better than the pompous pronouncements of the fat-heads in power. And for those of us who never believed in Authority, that\u2019s very good news.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L. Neil Smith explains how some clearly libertarian trends are being misinterpreted in the latest Libertarian Enterprise: … primarily as a result of the Internet turning human communications completely sideways, depriving those who have falsely believed they own us of their lofty perches, the 10,000-year-old Age of Authority is ending. Communication between human beings is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,28,53],"tags":[360,431,550,1382,424,506],"class_list":["post-39381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-liberty","category-media","category-politics","tag-christianity","tag-conservatism","tag-libertarianism","tag-lneilsmith","tag-morality","tag-revolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-afb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58456,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39381\/revisions\/58456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}