But in this case we're rather going in quite the opposite direction! For instance broad opposition to free speech has no place in any sort of formulation of liberalism, and so you find yourself in a scenario where a certain brand of liberal today would hold values deemed quite conservative, even by the standards of the past.

But this is also not particularly unprecedented. In the early 20th century the Republican and Democrat parties largely swapped roles. There was no formal agreement or acknowledgement of such. It happened quite organically, spurred along by decades of relatively significant events. I think we're seeing the outlines of such happening again, in much the same way.

When one debates aforementioned 'certain brand' types today, it often feels like a blast to the past. They share many of the characteristics of the die hard conservatives of times past - self assuredness bordering on divine authority, seemingly blissful ignorance of their numerous self-declared 'enemies', that trademark rabid intolerance, and more. The main thing that's changed is the dogma of choice.

Or, perhaps people can see the same evidence and come to different perspectives and conclusions. All without it being some malicious conspiracy, insanity, stupidity, or however you would like to frame it. If you look at society on a holistic level, it looks pretty bad. Mental illness rates are skyrocketing, testosterone is plummeting, IQ is declining, obesity is skyrocketing, and so on and so forth. The status quo isn't doing so hot.

Why? Well it's fairly obvious that some things like the internet are having some sort of a role, but in general nobody knows for certain. And so it's, at the minimum, quite reasonable to suggest that something, or more likely - some thingS, that we believe are completely safe, are not.

In living memory we believed that lobotomy was a great idea as a cure for various mental issues, that DDT was perfectly harmless - to the point that you'd have children playing in the large DDT fog clouds from neighborhood sprays, and so on. To imagine we now aren't doing the same thing, in ways that will seem equally absurd in the future, requires quite an unreasonable degree of arrogance and/or ignorance of the past and present.

If this is a team sport issue, Glenn made it that way by ranting with little substance about wokeness: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-tactic-of-aoc-and-her-a...

Yep, exactly. People who aren't super familiar with American propaganda often don't appreciate this enough, but every stupid network here will feature you if you pissed off the other team, and when Biden's necrotic ass is overseeing our waning genocidaire state, anyone who speaks out against his baby annihilation tendencies is going to end up having to slum it up on Fox because they're desperate enough to feature you.

I disagree with you. It’s important to understand the perspectives of people actively involved in politics. Even (perhaps especially) those with fringe beliefs.

I think actually discussing and debating things is precisely how you get an informed society. We only need be concerned when people 'begin by denouncing all argument, or forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments with force.' That certainly doesn't seem to be the case with RFK, to say the least.

Your comment reminds me of a joke from the Soviet Union: "This is Armenian Radio; our listeners asked us: Was it possible to criticize Hitler? We’re answering: Sure. The same way as you criticized Stalin. You had to lock yourself in your bedroom, hide under two, or better three covers, place a pillow, or better two pillows on top of the blankets over your head, and then whisper whatever your soul wishes about the dictator, strictly adhering to a five-minute limit." [1]

The USSR had constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech: "Article 50. In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations." [2] But there are rights, and then there is ability to exercise those rights.

[1] - https://johndclare.net/Russ12_Jokes.htm

[2] - https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02....