There's a tendency for social liberals to see their view as the only legitimate one. Sometimes they are right. But this is an area where there is lots of international push back from undeveloped, developing, and even many developed socially liberal countries.
Then I realized that it was all wrong, countries accept western liberal democracy only as long as the free aid keeps flowing. And the libdems were in for a rude awakening if they ever ran out of kibble.
Hence comments about the U.S. being extremely puritanical, when anyone can look at laws throughout the world and see that the U.S. is more open on most of these issues than the vast majority of countries.
It’s a very strange form of self-loathing. I’ve discussed it with a lot of people from non-Western countries, and they find this behavior extremely confusing.
He thought of undeveloped places as filled with “noble savages” uncorrupted by the evils of modern society.
This is why many people believe that anti-gay sentiment only exists because of American or European influences.
While it’s true undeveloped counties often have very different sexual ethics, that does not mean humanity’s default is liberal individualism sanctioned by custom and community.
That's getting somewhat off topic though. In the context of this thread it's merely the observation that attributing this to "puritans" or "christianity" or "US history" is rather misguided. The US and western Europe are very much the outliers here.
It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable.
To be clear, I'm not accusing you of promoting these practices, just asking you to clarify your position.
I think it also follows from such a principle that in general the relevant reasoning should be explicitly articulated when discussing the topic.
> It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable.
Suppose that a thing is explicitly chosen by the majority of the world's population, or dictated by the majority of governments, or imposed by the majority of cultural norms. I am suggesting that dismissing it in favor of your own reasoning is fine, but that doing so lightly is arrogant and misguided.
See the Steven Donziger[1] case. It was just done more Americanly. Private corporation threw their full weight at a lawyer defending an indigenous population who had their water supply poisoned. Chevron hired a private prosecutor who had him locked up on house arrest for years.
Similar to this porn case, the censorship and suppression is coming from market interests rather than government, but they're nearly equally untouchable and even more difficult to hold accountable. You can't vote out the leadership of mastercard or chevron.
I’ve been following the case closely. This is the first time anybody has claimed he’s a journalist, AFAIK.
Am I missing something?
Edit: according to Wikipedia he worked as a journalist for three years before attending law school. So I guess he’s an ex-journalist, and ex-lawyer for that matter.
But calling the persecution of journalists is false. Maybe persecution of environmental lawyers, but lawyers, unlike journalists, are heavily regulated, and face much higher liability for bad acts.
I used Steven as an example if private prosecution, where a private organization can take away your freedom outside of public prosecutors.
Steven did similar work to an investigative journalist at a high level, he brought attention to, and fought for a marginalized group. He did it through the court system rather than through publication. Despite doing it legally.
I don't see much of a difference. As recent times have shown, much of the legal system(and legal protections) depend on someone enforcing. Without that, there's little difference between the government boot and the corpo boot.
