Slippery slopes are real, and one of the great fallacies of our time is the communists convincing us that slippery slopes are fallacies. They are not, they are real. But they and good-time, can't-see-the-long-term-effects libertarians took over on vice issues.
Most healthy societies historically did the following: banned or strictly controlled the use of drugs/alcohol; banned and prosecuted homosexuality, gambling, and prostitution; banned abortion; did not allow marriages to dissolve; harshly stigmatized and punished slutty behavior and single motherhood; banned men and women from wearing each others clothing; strictly banned all non-modest dress and arrested people for lewdness in dress; and censored/banned arts that attacked these prohibitions or otherwise promoted degeneracies, and required arts to promote good family images.
Although its not glamorous, we need to bring back censors. We need to start arresting folk again for causing very real, long term, quality-of-life crimes. Broken windows theory in policing worked because it was based on the same principles: attack the smaller quality of life crimes harshly and you'll stop a cascade effect of bigger crimes.
In short, bring back the vice squads. Because slippery slopes are real.
EDIT: As a current-day example, I heard that the famously race-realist late leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, crusaded hard against vices in his country. He believed (as do I) that vices had a dysgenetic effect on the lower classes in particular. The result? The lowest classes in Singapore consistently out pulled other countries' lower classes in GDP/accomplishment. No vices, nothing harmful for a poor kid to throw his money away on or get addicted to, and thus he can have a better chance at improving his lot and being productive.
I agree with most of your comments, except banning or over regulating alcohol. I am glad you enjoyed this essay. Hopefully you will check out some of my other writings.If so inclined, please consider giving it a "like," share, and subscribe.
Most of what we think we know about Prohibition comes from Hollywood movies (acting and boozing are best friends) and from post-Prohibition alcohol execs panicked about it ever coming back. So there's been a lot of propaganda against Prohibition after the fact, and propaganda from the winners is never the truth. If the news today is fake and gay, how much of history is?
Also, as Mike Cernovich and others have pointed out, most people when prohibition hit never bought the illegal alcohol and kept sober. There was a massive drinking problem in the country then (the liquid lunch and the liquid breakfast and liquid dinner were commonplace, especially among the Ellis Island immigrants). And The politicians in Washington and locally (most of whom didn't support Prohibition) refused to enforce it thoroughly, so gangsters grew powerful and rich off the obvious sales of it. But had the people voted these pols out and installed crusading pols and demanded strict enforcement, it would have destroyed Capone and company (as Elliot Ness and Thomas Dewey showed, it was possible to take down powerful crime bosses who'd gotten powerful off Prohibition).
Fun fact: Al Capone's brother was a Prohibition Agent.
Americans really have a much graver problem with alcohol than many other cultures. Perhaps you could justify American prohibition on that ground, but I'd be more interested in seeing a reengineering and reorienting of American alcohol culture centered around responsible usage and public courtesy.
It is because of that puritanical bullshit that alcoholism is such a problem. At the very least it is a major factor. Teenagers and college kids binge drink because of the stupid 21 age requirement. Moral fagging and kvetching about alcohol is ridiculous and I have very little patience with any of it .
Yeah, I'm with you there. Teen drinking spiked dramatically when we raised the drinking age. Moralizing about alcohol in the greater scheme seems silly when even Christ Himself drank wine and served it to others.
This is like an arrow piercing to the heart of the issue. We must establish our moral boundaries and defend them from environment with extreme prejudice.
I think the truth is even more sinister here. The whole idea of 'live and let live' and 'let people be themselves' is merely a fig leaf. Wrapped under this messaging there exists an entire zeitgeist that actually urges people to engage in those types of destructive social behaviours, whereas as a form of liberation, self-reward, individuation etc. So, this dogma obscures the ethical question under the mantle of 'neutrality', whereas in reality it urges people to engage in he types of behaviours that you describe. There is however no neutrality on ethical and moral issues- every type of behaviour is either right or wrong from an ethical standpoint. This is what I find most destructive about this sort of mentality- it has us thinking that we are independent and ayutonomous actors, whereas, in reality, the decision has already been made for us and programmed into our brains. This is not freedom.
Too right. This is becoming more and more apparent as time and politics speed up. And as it becomes more easily seen, I'm wondering more and more where our societal critical mass will be and if there will be any way to survive it.
"Gambling often leads to divorce or disastrous break-ups of long-term relationships."
The gambling industry has resorted to the euphemism "gaming" -- games are fun, wholesome and just another way to relax, while "gambling" has, you know, those associations with organized crime, prostitution and the like.
You're over an important target. I would add the angle of the acceptance of artificial insemination for single females and females belonging to a homosexual coupling. Add further, the adoption of children by homosexual (male or female) or transsexual-person-containing couples. What is the potential negative impact on the children who find themselves mired in such situations? The potential carnage boggles my mind.
Indeed, one could extend the same exercise to any number of evils in the modern world. The baby surrogacy experiment is wild, and was greenlit with hardly any thought as to what long-term consequences might be. In ten or twenty years it will be easier to show how this also pertains to the law of unintended consequenes, just like single motherhood, everthing since the 1960s, or really 1945.
Over the target again. Let me further add that --stripped of medical jargon -- the concept of artificial insemination via sperm donor can be particularly wild from the perspective of the child produced by it if that child reflects on the method by which the sperm supplied could have been produced in the first place. This, beyond questions about the identity of the father. Potentially troubling thoughts and psychological trauma.
Children require a masculine and feminine parental influence. It's quite curious that liberal academia will admit that single-motherhood (and less often, single-fatherhood) are detrimental to the development of a child and their future adulthood because of this stripping of one parental influence, yet that same academia often refuses to admit that raising a child with two mothers or two fathers could be equally as detrimental for the same reason that they lack one or the other parental-sex influence. Nonetheless, a few studies have revealed that children raised by same-sex parents are more likely to be plagued by mental illness; graduate to an adulthood of poverty, joblessness, crime, and overall failure; identify by a sexuality other than straight; and contemplate or commit suicide.
Excellent thoughts here.
Slippery slopes are real, and one of the great fallacies of our time is the communists convincing us that slippery slopes are fallacies. They are not, they are real. But they and good-time, can't-see-the-long-term-effects libertarians took over on vice issues.
Most healthy societies historically did the following: banned or strictly controlled the use of drugs/alcohol; banned and prosecuted homosexuality, gambling, and prostitution; banned abortion; did not allow marriages to dissolve; harshly stigmatized and punished slutty behavior and single motherhood; banned men and women from wearing each others clothing; strictly banned all non-modest dress and arrested people for lewdness in dress; and censored/banned arts that attacked these prohibitions or otherwise promoted degeneracies, and required arts to promote good family images.
Although its not glamorous, we need to bring back censors. We need to start arresting folk again for causing very real, long term, quality-of-life crimes. Broken windows theory in policing worked because it was based on the same principles: attack the smaller quality of life crimes harshly and you'll stop a cascade effect of bigger crimes.
In short, bring back the vice squads. Because slippery slopes are real.
EDIT: As a current-day example, I heard that the famously race-realist late leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, crusaded hard against vices in his country. He believed (as do I) that vices had a dysgenetic effect on the lower classes in particular. The result? The lowest classes in Singapore consistently out pulled other countries' lower classes in GDP/accomplishment. No vices, nothing harmful for a poor kid to throw his money away on or get addicted to, and thus he can have a better chance at improving his lot and being productive.
I agree with most of your comments, except banning or over regulating alcohol. I am glad you enjoyed this essay. Hopefully you will check out some of my other writings.If so inclined, please consider giving it a "like," share, and subscribe.
Most of what we think we know about Prohibition comes from Hollywood movies (acting and boozing are best friends) and from post-Prohibition alcohol execs panicked about it ever coming back. So there's been a lot of propaganda against Prohibition after the fact, and propaganda from the winners is never the truth. If the news today is fake and gay, how much of history is?
Also, as Mike Cernovich and others have pointed out, most people when prohibition hit never bought the illegal alcohol and kept sober. There was a massive drinking problem in the country then (the liquid lunch and the liquid breakfast and liquid dinner were commonplace, especially among the Ellis Island immigrants). And The politicians in Washington and locally (most of whom didn't support Prohibition) refused to enforce it thoroughly, so gangsters grew powerful and rich off the obvious sales of it. But had the people voted these pols out and installed crusading pols and demanded strict enforcement, it would have destroyed Capone and company (as Elliot Ness and Thomas Dewey showed, it was possible to take down powerful crime bosses who'd gotten powerful off Prohibition).
Fun fact: Al Capone's brother was a Prohibition Agent.
Americans really have a much graver problem with alcohol than many other cultures. Perhaps you could justify American prohibition on that ground, but I'd be more interested in seeing a reengineering and reorienting of American alcohol culture centered around responsible usage and public courtesy.
It is because of that puritanical bullshit that alcoholism is such a problem. At the very least it is a major factor. Teenagers and college kids binge drink because of the stupid 21 age requirement. Moral fagging and kvetching about alcohol is ridiculous and I have very little patience with any of it .
Yeah, I'm with you there. Teen drinking spiked dramatically when we raised the drinking age. Moralizing about alcohol in the greater scheme seems silly when even Christ Himself drank wine and served it to others.
This is like an arrow piercing to the heart of the issue. We must establish our moral boundaries and defend them from environment with extreme prejudice.
I think the truth is even more sinister here. The whole idea of 'live and let live' and 'let people be themselves' is merely a fig leaf. Wrapped under this messaging there exists an entire zeitgeist that actually urges people to engage in those types of destructive social behaviours, whereas as a form of liberation, self-reward, individuation etc. So, this dogma obscures the ethical question under the mantle of 'neutrality', whereas in reality it urges people to engage in he types of behaviours that you describe. There is however no neutrality on ethical and moral issues- every type of behaviour is either right or wrong from an ethical standpoint. This is what I find most destructive about this sort of mentality- it has us thinking that we are independent and ayutonomous actors, whereas, in reality, the decision has already been made for us and programmed into our brains. This is not freedom.
Too right. This is becoming more and more apparent as time and politics speed up. And as it becomes more easily seen, I'm wondering more and more where our societal critical mass will be and if there will be any way to survive it.
"Gambling often leads to divorce or disastrous break-ups of long-term relationships."
The gambling industry has resorted to the euphemism "gaming" -- games are fun, wholesome and just another way to relax, while "gambling" has, you know, those associations with organized crime, prostitution and the like.
Choose your tribe well. It will be your Round Table to make Camelot possible.
A badly needed essay that needed to be written 30 years ago. Great points.
More like 65-100 years ago, but yes....Please consider k subscribing and above all please share far and wide.
I shall!
You're over an important target. I would add the angle of the acceptance of artificial insemination for single females and females belonging to a homosexual coupling. Add further, the adoption of children by homosexual (male or female) or transsexual-person-containing couples. What is the potential negative impact on the children who find themselves mired in such situations? The potential carnage boggles my mind.
Indeed, one could extend the same exercise to any number of evils in the modern world. The baby surrogacy experiment is wild, and was greenlit with hardly any thought as to what long-term consequences might be. In ten or twenty years it will be easier to show how this also pertains to the law of unintended consequenes, just like single motherhood, everthing since the 1960s, or really 1945.
Over the target again. Let me further add that --stripped of medical jargon -- the concept of artificial insemination via sperm donor can be particularly wild from the perspective of the child produced by it if that child reflects on the method by which the sperm supplied could have been produced in the first place. This, beyond questions about the identity of the father. Potentially troubling thoughts and psychological trauma.
Children require a masculine and feminine parental influence. It's quite curious that liberal academia will admit that single-motherhood (and less often, single-fatherhood) are detrimental to the development of a child and their future adulthood because of this stripping of one parental influence, yet that same academia often refuses to admit that raising a child with two mothers or two fathers could be equally as detrimental for the same reason that they lack one or the other parental-sex influence. Nonetheless, a few studies have revealed that children raised by same-sex parents are more likely to be plagued by mental illness; graduate to an adulthood of poverty, joblessness, crime, and overall failure; identify by a sexuality other than straight; and contemplate or commit suicide.
The only westerner I’ve ever seen understand this.