Excellent Article From Real Left About The Primacy Of Individual Rights

An excellent article from Real Left (formerly known as Left Lockdown Sceptics) makes an excellent case for the primacy of individual rights, and how without individual rights, there can really be no common good worthy of the name.  This is a very important and necessary corrective for a grave and perennial error that has long plagued the political Left (both genuine and phony) for at least two centuries (on and off) to one degree or another.  Namely, the specious idea that group rights > individual rights is essentially a form of moral relativism that ends up hurting not only the individual, but the collective/community as well.

(Quite frankly, this is one of the very, very few things the Left could and should agree with Ayn Rand on.)

If we can't hold onto our hard-won civil and human rights and liberties in a crisis (whether real or manufactured), then we cannot hold onto them at all, as they would thus not really be rights, but mere privileges doled out by the powerful, with more strings attached than a spider's web.

Genuine rights and liberties are NOT conditional, after all. 

Now, this does NOT mean we should endorse hyper-individualism either, as in "I got mine, screw everyone else," or, as Margaret Thatcher said, "there is no such thing as society".  That's the essence of neoliberalism, which is, in a word, evil.  No man or woman is an island, after all.  But affirming the common good need not, and must not, mean trampling individual rights either.  The false dichotomy between individual and community is exactly that, false.

Without the primacy of individual rights (and the rule of law, to back up such rights), any attempt at democracy ultimately devolves to oligarchy, tyranny, and/or most likely of all, ochlocracy (mob rule).  It basically becomes like two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.  Natch.

The key takeaway:  If the genuine Left ever wants to rise again in any way, shape, or form, they had best take heed!  Or else, the phony neoliberal pseudo-left, the right-wing (including the far right and "alt-right"), and/or the "tankies" on the extreme authoritarian far left, will all gladly and eagerly vie with one another to fill in the moral vacuum left by the grave error of hyper-collectivism.  And yes, hyper-collectivism is just as bad as hyper-individualism, if not worse still.  They are two sides of the same ugly coin.

Long article, but definitely worth a serious read.  We ignore it truly at our own peril.

P.S.  In case the reader wants to trot out that old chestnut, we are well aware that shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater is not, and should not, be protected as free speech, for example.  Duh!  Indeed, there are nuances and edge cases, to be sure.  But these are essentially the exceptions that prove the rule of (largely) absolute individual rights.

In Defense Of Liberalism

A recent Vox article basically said out loud what so many people have been thinking lately.  The (largely right-wing) self-styled enemies of liberalism have indeed been having some serious second thoughts after seeing first-hand and up close exactly what happens when the key pillars of liberalism are dismantled piece by piece.  In fact, liberalism itself can best be defined by its three key pillars:

1. Individual rights 
2. Democracy (particularly with universal suffrage)
3. Rule of law

That is the very essence of liberalism, that some might call the True Spirit of America.  Like a three-legged stool, if even ONE of those three pillars are taken out, the whole edifice collapses.  And all three are currently under attack by the Trump regime, as until now we took them for granted.

(Ironically, we actually already got the "free trial" of illiberalism during the pandemic, when you think about it.)

Winter is coming, basically.  And, like the song says, we only miss the sun when it starts to snow.....

Of course, this is NOT to be confused with neoliberalism, which is best defined as "capitalism on steroids".  That is a completely amoral ideology, to the point of being practically a secular religion of sorts, one which serves literally no real purpose at all except to rob from the poor, give to the rich, and torpedo what is left of the shrinking middle class.

Yes, in case you were wondering, economic progressivism, social democracy, organized labor, and a robust social welfare state are all perfectly compatible with genuine liberalism defined by its three key pillars above, unlike neoliberalism, which loathes all of the above and seeks to dismantle them.  Don't let anyone tell you differently!

And for the love of all that is good, stop using the word "liberal" as a slur.  It does NOT mean weak, spineless, milquetoast, squishy centrist, nor does it mean one who is hopelessly addicted to identity politics and ideological purity tests to the exclusion of all else.  Seriously!

(Mic drop)