PorcelainLark wrote: Fri Apr 24, 2026 3:18 pm
Well, I'd see it as relating to the decline of censorship in general. The publications of Henry Miller and the decline of the Hays Code. The general trend has been to see the impingements on individual freedom as unjustified. Hence you see gay marriage. However, today we have a backsliding into irrational conservatism.
Though one can very much argue that the decline in censorship was: 1. related to a WWII progressive moment, first, as a popular/intellectual opposition to the fascist Axis powers, and then, in the post-war era a wider anti-fascist legacy that emerged within the popular consciousness in the countries liberated from Axis fascism 2. the challenge of the USSR/east bloc countries,the recent Maoist revolution in China and the strengthening of the world communist movement generally. The West was under a lot of pressure to prove it was better than the USSR and that the Soviet/communist critique of Western society was wrong. In particular, in the United States which had a very strong free speech tradition and a strong plank in favor of free speech rooted in enlightenment ideals in its constitution. Now, while I will say that the US has generally been pretty good on speech in its history compared to many other countries, I do not claim it lived up to the ideals on speech or even the law as written in the constitution. What one has to bear in mind is it was competing with the USSR and was looking to make the case the "American way" was better/more free and one of the places it chose to make that case was on speech. This plus the rebellions and outside it within US borders during the 50s-70s, explains to a considerable degree why the US elite chose to expand its interpretation of protected speech in the 50s-70s, and to a large extent it was done by legal fiat by higher courts and SCOTUS. The fact it was done through SCOTUS, which is the most elitist and anti-democratic institution in US politics does add more evidence that it was a ruling class choice influenced by the factors above. However, the US population/voters didn't really have a negative reaction to this loosening, basically it probably could have been done at any time, so the question becomes "why then?" and also "why hasn't there been a further loosening of speech at the legislative level?" if there is more to do. The issue of child pornography itself implies there is but I'd have to give more thought on what other unexplored avenues are left.
What's needed is a modern day Solon,
Not to get off-topic but does this imply a modern day jubilee or debt-forgiveness program? Certainly, you saw that arise with OWS and the prominence of David Graeber as intellectual hero of that movement; Michael Hudson is the foremost economist arguing for it today but I don't think its in the cards given the many trillions of financial assets held by the ruling elite that are dependent on debt-service...
I disagree, I think the trouble is that they have lost the courage to lead.
But, this is begging the question,
why did they lose the courage to lead? That is not explained anywhere in your post with sufficient rigor.
If people were trying to abolish it today, the populists would prevent the abolition. The injustice we face is a popular injustice, like lynching in the South.
I don't really disagree. In fact, I think it actually adds strength to my argument, we see many demands for reform that are far more popular that are completely blocked by the establishment. So if far more popular progressive causes can't be implemented then what chance do we have within the confines of liberal democracy? I brought up the issue of daylights savings time, there's not really an entrenched constituency against it, its not particularly popular and abolishing it wouldn't cost either the elite or the government a dime. Proposals to abolish it have been brought up but never go anywhere. The political system has become scelerotic and incapable of reforming itself. That's quite a different picture then the just-so story you tell of helpless liberals and helpless elites who are captured on the pequod of populism... as I said, change can still happen if its bad and reactionary. If its good or helps the common person in some way, represents even a slight disruption to business as usual? Not so much.
I'm not convinced the contemporary populist left is self-reflective enough to avoid treating pedophiles the same way conservatives do.
I don't disagree. But then the question becomes if we actually have an interest in helping to bring down "MAGA populism" (which actually seems to be transitioning to a very elite-centric fascism)? Most MAPs
do want that but if it falls and MAPs help we won't get credit for helping, MAPs do need assurances before entering any coalitions. Even broken promises would imply legitimization on some level. My recommendation would be to let these forces exhaust itself. Since the anti-MAGA coalition is a collection of forces with even more contradictory interests and ideological disagreement then MAGA, the best thing that could happen would probably be for the Trump regime to fall, as the anti-MAGA coalition is tearing itself apart beneath the weight of escalating class conflcit and divergent class interest, ideological points of difference etc. That would probably give us more room to influence what comes after but right now MAPs arent organized enough as a force in our own right to extract any sort of concessions from anyone. Before we do this, the talk of alliance is somewhat useless, politics is very quid pro quo, I don't see us getting anything before we have something to offer. I would say the best bet for maximizing our limited manpower and resources is highly organized and militant MAP movement.
Regarding Disco Elysium (great game by the way, even if I disagree with the views of the creators and it's messages), there's another quote from the deserter: "I do not collaborate with murderers and pederasts of the liberal regime."
I think your reading of the game dialogue is very selective here.If you challenge the deserter on this and say its as if your talking to a conservative he will readily admit that the party legalized pederasty before taking power and
not the liberal regime itself. I was actually surprised/impressed that the developers were aware and chose to draw from this aspect of real world communist history. The deserter will say that pederasty isn't so bad in itself but when the bourgeois engage in sexuality its bourgeois people doing bourgeois things.That matches his worldview but its important to realize the deserter is an old man who lives on the fringes of society and is actively being poisoned by the Insulindian Phasmid which makes him both hyper-sexual and hyper-active at the cost of neurodegeneration, the phasmid's presence is really the only reason he can talk to you and do the things he does to set the game in motion given his advanced cancer.
I'm not convinced the contemporary populist left is self-reflective enough to avoid treating pedophiles the same way conservatives do. I think they leap on the idea of the "Epstein class" because it ties class analysis to "sexual degeneracy".
I'm honestly not even sure what you mean by "populist left." You do realize the term "Epstein class" was coined by Jon Ossoff, a Jewish democratic senator from Georgia who isn't exactly a radical leftist or even typically included as a star of its progressive wing such as AOC, Sanders, Omar etc.? I don't really dispute that the term has taken on a life of its own and you'll see followers of harder leftist tendencies on X using it but the source itself is odd. The democratic party as a whole, is using the Epstein drama to help bring down the Trump regime, they know or perceive at least it is a weak point, especially given how badly Trump/Bondi handled it.This includes the democratic party center/right-wing, who I suspect you would consider yourself more in alliance with. We know the record of centrist democratic administrations on MAPs since the 80s, Clinton (very bad), Obama (bad), Biden (bad, possibly not as bad as the others). The type of liberal admins that would be more positive on MAPs are from the 50s to possibly the 80s and these people generally can be classed as social democrats, closer to the new deal tradition then what gets official representation in modern democratic party politics. The use of the term "populist left" here to describe modern left currents but not older ones whose achievements you seem to praise strikes me as odd. The mechanisms and political machinery that helped bring FDR to power were certainly more elitist but FDR was far closer to being populist in both the sense of having a popular program and being within the actual historical tradition of populism itself, castigating "economic royalists" and even southern elite "feudalists" and "fascists" in the 1936 election if memory me correctly. FDR even carried over some of the worst aspects of historical populism, much like Wilson, another figure centrist/intellectual liberals love to praise, such as devaluing the dollar against gold, gold confiscations, moderately inflationary policy etc, etc. The buffoonish specter of William Jennings Bryant with his "cross of gold" who so badly embarrassed himself as the prosecutor for Snopes trial that he died mere days after the ruling, whom the liberal intelligentsia loved to mock got a kind of makeover in FDR-- a far more capable, intelligent and compelling figure, no doubt, but still. But still without FDR you don't have the stacked liberal Supreme Court, the Truman, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, without which its hard to imagine the post-war reforms you praise, and even Carter is elected as a kind of last gasp of the New Deal coalition, as the unelected presidency of Gerald Ford fails electorally under the weight of the inflation/unemployment surge. It seems to me that your evaluation of "populist leftism" is very selective and self-serving it includes neither mid-20th century social democracy which was more progressive on these issues then liberalism today, especially when viewed in historical context, nor the hard left adequately. On the latter point, Marxism-Leninism wasn't populism it required at least nominal adherence to the doctrines of Marx-Engels and Lenin, your party had to affirm that the only path to socialism was revolutionary civil war to become a member of the Comintern. It was not enough to be a popular left of center party that paid lip-service to socialism, or even Marxism as the SPD did, and appeal to whatever vague ideas that the public or even common workers had in their heads at the time.
Ironically, the center/right of the democratic party seems to be closer to what you seem to be mean by "populism." If you know anything about the democratic party and particularly the Biden administration then you might be familiar with David Shor and his concept of popularism. Shor is a data-scientist who argues that the democratic party should appeal to popular prejudices to get elected.For Shor, the data shows the median voter and the median democratic voter is more conservative then left-wing activists believe and that the party should prioritize their ideas, however incoherent and unprincipled, over those of the Left. The center of the democratic party has even acted in alliance with these ideas, agreeing with Sanders in 2020 to abolish the caucus system and implement a direct-vote system nationally precisely because the caucus system was slanted uniquely in favor of groups of highly motivated activists, which allowed Sanders to sweep states with them in 2016. They also agreed with Sanders to let South Carolina vote first, which is a black majority state primary, but South Carolinian voters are more conservative than democratic voters elsewhere, so you can see why they did it. There are some left-wing data scientists who do agree with this take and argue that the Left does
better in periods of low voter turnout. While not completely writing off non/general voters, it is the opinion of some that changing minds here will take time and resources better spent elsewhere and that non-voters do not really have a different voter profile then voters. The surge in voter participation in 2020/2024 seems to bare this out. Where shorism has run into its limits with the party center and right wing was the issue of Israel, which the party was not willing to negotiate on and chose to lose the election to Trump over moderating their support for Israel or even just having Kamala make huge promises on it she never intended to keep. So "populis... errr... I mean popularism where it helps me and not where its my vital interest" that appears to be the neoliberal credo.
The only "populist left" party/coalition that has won since the 1990s appears to be SYRIZA as they challenged the austerity imposed on Greece by the EU. They were neutered by the EU/IMF, their government collapsed, and they've been consigned to history, Varoufakis went on to be the Western Left's "rockstar economist" and that's all that's left of the "populist left" that attained power that establishment shills love to piss and moan about.
This is where I disagree. I don't think the modern liberals have as much power or influence on contemporary events. I feel that at least since Reagan, mob mentality has undermined people who actually care about principles
So, is this a "no true liberal"/"liberalism" argument? You have to ignore those liberal governments in power today in Canada and Europe, not to mention the recent Biden administration. I can grant that liberalism isn't what it used to be and liberal leaders aren't of the same caliber as liberal leaders of the past but this seems to have evolved for definite historical and materialist reasons. You are at least somewhat correct that since Reagan the system generally becomes more reactionary regardless of whether its the leader of a nominal liberal/social democratic party in power or not. This also tracks with the political requirements of the late Cold War, the rise of inequality, and the crises of Western capitalism that have unfolded since then. Again, I would say that someone like AOC/Sanders/Corbyn is closer to the liberals of the 30s-70s that you admire then that type of politics and politicians you seem to favor today. Are they the same calibre of intellect, capability, relative ideological consistency and vision? No. But then you can't undo the past and the historical degeneration that's occurred.
The center has been a disaster for MAPs as far as I'm concerned. Maybe as bad or worse then the right-wing itself. The right wing at least has its collection of cultish chuds/gen Xers that will believe anything that right wing influencers put out and will vote for the Right regardless. The center has a much harder time motivating people at the ballot box or inspiring people/confidence. Pedophilia is one of the few things that centrists can demagogue on and it doesn't cost them, their donors, or their voters a single dime. It is a collection of cowardly opportunists united only by their desire that nothing should fundamentally change. The typical centrist voter is an ageist middle class parent who might screech "I hate the left AND the right!" but weeps with indignation hearing sentimental stories of "child abuse" and violence against women. Where are the pro-pedophilia centrists? Mu? That seems to be it as far as I'm concerned. Yet I can make out definite factions softer on these issue in the left and right then the center.
I actually can't think of a centrist soft on pedophilia/MAPs in the current day. To me its not about whether le bourgeois democracy or communism is better for MAPs, the destabilization of the center is just plainly good for us, that is where the pedophobic majority resides.
And, on speech, we are seeing digital censorship and ID being coordinated with the center in Europe and Canada across the Western world. If our oppression is one supported strongly by the vast majority, and I don't disagree, then there are two explanations 1. censorship doesn't really matter bc this is what the vast majority of people strongly believe and won't change their minds on 2. the speech issue is still live but instead of direct government suppression of MAPs (outside the "liberal" Netherlands) it is one done by corporations staffed by the PMC you champion and controlled by the elite. Most 21st century liberals don't want more speech, the defining characteristic of being liberal today is opposing self-expression on the grounds it will normalize "dangerous ideas" and "disinformation" or thinking there needs to be greater control over slop content churn. I'm not so sure I totally disagree on the last point, but it was liberals who generally defended "cancel culture" in the 2010s and justified social media censorship. On the latter points, that was because they thought it would always be on their side but as the social media giants took a more right-ward direction under Trump II they either dropped that concern altogether, moved to different platforms to stagnate in irrelevance, or simply failed to update their script. A mid 20th century liberal would argue that the venues where speech is expressed be a private entity is dangerous for speech. That is why you had the equal time requirements on TV and radio in the 60s because a normal person couldn't easily "start their own TV/radio station" it had a higher barrier to entry than newspapers or printed media; social media is much worse in that way, undoing the lower barrier to entry/opportunity the early internet offered. I remember when libertarians could argue about the age of consent on facebook under their real names. That got shut-down under "child safety" concerns. Liberal normies seem to overwhelmingly support this stuff until perhaps it affects something they like. We may need more censorship/McCarthyist campaigns from people like Trump/Musk until they are forced to value it again.There are signs but we are nowhere near there yet.
Well, I am an idealist. I think historicism is self-defeating.
Genuinely, I don't know how to respond to this. If you are not a materialist or a historicist (and the two go hand in hand) then you might as well believe in God. I don't see how you arrogantly look down on Muslims or moral majority Christcuck types with that type of outlook. You might as well be one of them, and "there but for the grace of God" you probably would be if you were born to different parents with different experiences. I just don't see that as an outlook capable of explaining the world. You might as well start talking about Apocalyptic Doomsday prophecies and how God and/or his faithful believers is directing the trajectory the world is going in.