Berlin Approves New Expansion of Police Surveillance Powers

Spit balling now ... I just feel like the years have rolled on by so quickly now, that we've aged out of all of the lessons we had to learn before. And now we're going to have to learn them all over again.

Classical liberalism is a rare blip of an exception in the history of civilization. As Milton Friedman says, and I paraphrase, it's quite remarkable it happened in the first place, but there's no real guarantee those conditions might ever arise again and no real expectation that it's realistic to think it will be recreated again in any particular desired timespan.

So is most technology, widespread literacy, health, freedom, etc. In fact, everything since we were nomadic hunter-gatherers is a blip - should we go back to that? The argument makes no sense; what force is compelling us to go back to hunting and gathering? It's absurd to raise this argument for inevitability, rather than do something about it - which has worked overwhelmingly for generations.

Is-ought distinction. Mothballed and Milton are describing how things are, not how they should be, which latter seems to be your interpretation.

No, that's part of their nonsense.

I'm describing how things are. Liberalism, including the Enlightenment is, and has been overwhelmingly successful in adoption (every corner of the globe, though not 100% of the globe), and success. It really does rule the world.

Mothballed and Milton are describing how they think things ought to be, or inevitably will be (I believe for many, the former is their goal, disguised as the latter). But that's just theory with no basis (as I pointed out earlier).

The idea that the latter is 'real' is laughable. Look at the world. The people who built a liberal world order had to contend with argument like this - there was little precedent. They had to invent much of it in the face of skepticism (like every innovator).

But it's absurd, now that it's built, institutionalized, and successful and status quo - now that you were born in it, fed on it, and live in it and breath it - now that all you need to do is pick up the tools that your predecessors did the hard work of creating, for you to argue that it's somehow not real. Just pick up the tools and march forward.

I mean, wow, that is some effective propaganda. It's like saying at noon that there's no star in the sky, like telling a fish in the ocean that there's no water.