What I feel following the assassination of Charlie Kirk
When your enemies have declared an open war against you, when they have vowed to overthrow your way of life, when they openly hate you with their words and actions - then no, you do not need to keep appeasing them. You do not need to keep trying to win them over. And you do not need to keep respecting their free speech and mental degradation.
The far left and radical muslims are like children who need to be shown the consequences of their actions because they are incapable of understanding it like adults. I think enough time has been given to centrists and liberals to sort out the problems with far left but instead it has become worse and worse.
It feels to be that the time of talking is over and the time for action is now. That action does not need to be beyond the required, it needs to be appropriate, and definitive. Something that will return us to normality after a period of strife and difficult choices. We do not have to go overboard but we also do not have to keep playing the game with our hands tied behind our back.
I also want to challenge something when a lot of liberals and libertarians are saying that we should allow free speech for our opponents. These are not your opponents. You have opponents in games, and you have enemies in wars. These are your enemies. They don’t just want to win an argument, they want to destroy your way of life, they want to shoot you in front of your kids and celebrate it. These are not your opponents. You are facing an existential threat and you need to get real about it. Opponent is someone who after a debate or a disagreement will still consider you their friend or their kin, and maybe have a pint with you afterwards, who would allow enough mental flexibility so you have an opportunity to change their minds. These are not your opponents, these are your enemies. The spawns of demon.
The allowances that you give your enemies to make yourself feel good and comfortable in your cowardice will be used by them to destroy your way of life and your civilisation.
“The end [or goal] of politics is the best of ends; and the main concern of politics is to engender a certain character in the citizens and to make them good and disposed to perform noble actions.” - Aristotle
This cannot be done by the extremes of liberalism and materialism, where nothing matters and everything is permissible. Where there is no good and bad there are no noble actions.
Now, to make people be and do good, does not mean that you always have to revert to over regulations, laws, and authoritarian attitude like UAE does to keep its Muslim population in check or how Singapore conducts itself. It can mean that you do not promote a state of hedonistic materialism and moral degradation. That perhaps you show a good pathway, promote good Christian values and traditions, that encourages the citizen to be good of their own free will. Show the consequences of bad behaviour with appropriate actions so it acts as a deterrent and not as a challenge to overcome by the corrupt foxes in the society.
For me values of liberalism to an extent might be fine to incorporate within your personal life and even then I would ask people to practice some temperance, but as a government you cannot be too liberal, otherwise you invite your enemies, within or without, to take advantage of you. And this is the end point problem with liberalism, not so much of the problem in itself, but from it what is allowed to prosper and the good that is discouraged. Because good requires discipline and practice, and it needs a person to sacrifice the temporary pleasure for a delayed gratification.
