I don't think there are many broad lessons to learn beyond aiming for peace and liberty, but "European governments didn't collapse" is hardly a powerful argument. The area is notorious for collapse, it is still in living memory when large chunks of Europe fell apart, sometimes quite comfortably so. It could easily happen again.
The fact that the government cannot create a regulation that works for everyone, everywhere, all at once across time and space is not a winning argument for me since that limitation applies to all actors. We go through cycles where we either change what society generally considers "ok" or we discover that something we thought was ok was actually a great evil after some forerunners on moral thought convince enough people of the righteousness of their belief.
That doesn't make regulating bad behavior not ok.
I think we realised as society that regulating most behaviour, no matter how distasteful we find it, is not a great idea for various reasons - 1. it's subjective, 2. people get tired of prudish cultures and act out in various ways, 3. you end up on the wrong side of history. As a society we're becoming a lot more liberal about letting people do their own thing, as long as they aren't actually hurting others. Playing music out loud is not hurting others, neither is wearing a bikini at the beach, etc.
Of course there are always the hall monitors that want to control other peoples behaviour and they often use the excuse that they're regulating bad behaviour for the sake of society. Thankfully it seems like we are beginning to reject those people and push them out of power.
It could be either
> I think we realised as society that regulating most behaviour…
I did not mention anything close to regulating “most” behavior, and I want to call out to you, since you are respectfully laying out your point, that this seems to be a common knee jerk reaction to a large number of people bemoaning any particular issue if I bring up government regulation. That knee jerk reaction specifically being the assumption that being for any government regulations means you are for regulating most or all things.
> Thankfully it seems like we are beginning to reject those people and push them out of power.
It’s only thankful if you prefer the situation. If you are someone who does not want to experience pot smoke and loud music blaring in your ear when someone chooses to do so because they have the freedom to, then maybe you prefer the hall monitor.
I’m not even advocating for one option or the other. This thread started with me pointing out to someone who was upset at people engaging in anti social behavior en masse, that the solution was government regulation.
If you don’t like government regulations in general, or you just think that on net they are a detriment, then the solution is to make peace with the fact that other people are going to use their freedom in a way that you don’t like
the UK has A.S.B.O.s, Germany has many laws and regulations against speech and being part of extremist groups. Both countries seem to be doing fine compared to the global competition
What is the reason it's not allowed?
