City life in Canada these days is not what many people experienced in their childhoods. I’ve written pretty extensively about the infiltration of public and private infrastructure by a surge in homeless and drug addled populations. The mall that once served as a social gathering point for people has become vacant. The seats in the mall have been removed and what used to be colorful decorations and pop up shops in the holiday seasons has been reduced at best and in most cases eliminated. The feel of the local mall has become hostile to the consumer, buy your goods get a lunch in the food court and get out. Your public library, paid for by your tax dollars, has become not about the joys of education but a day camp for ex-cons, welfare recipients and homeless people. The modern librarian is less concerned about late fees and instead has to act as a pseudo Warden controlling an unruly convict population. People cannot even travel to a local park without the risk of being harassed or even assaulted by a mentally ill person or sex offender. Like I said, I’ve written about this before in my previous article, “Hostile Public Spaces”. However time has passed and these issues have not subsided but only have become increasingly dire.
My thoughts on the issues have also somewhat changed. Through my interviews on my Podcast with new guests, as well as additional learning in right wing philosophy and sociology new perspectives have emerged. Of those perspectives I have struggled to tie it all together. There are several bad ideologies colliding together into a mass of bad ideology. I have come to the conclusion that in Canada we’ve taken the route of what I like to call “End-State Liberalism”.
What is End-State Liberalism?
In my view, this concept is a twisted version of Western Individualism. In normal individualism we view that dysfunctional people are individuals and through voluntary association, charity and minimal Government interventions we provide interventions whereas they build themselves back up into the best people they can be. Should they refuse then we take measures to ensure the proper functioning of society with their absence. The responsibility remains on them to take control of their life but there are means to assist along the way, should they choose too.
End-State Liberalism infers that the personally destructive & socially destructive behaviours of individuals is the highest purpose these individuals will achieve in life, and we have minimal right to interfere with them as long as they pose no legitimate threat to the State. Therefore, the State dedicates laws & resources to protect these individuals to the detriment of the overall society.
In End-State Liberalism(ESL), the State has decided that the worst behavior is the highest that we can hope from the individual and that it is their right to live in this way, that we need to adapt our lives to them. We strive to protect their dysfunctional living and enforce sanctions against those that oppose them. The State goes out of its way to protect the criminal, the mentally ill, the drug addict, the terrorist, etc… engaging in their worst behaviors. We’ve already seen it occur in Canada innumerable times, I don’t think I need to pepper this post with specific examples, one only needs to flip to the crime section of their local news source.
Some particularly egregious general examples of how we have enabled this behavior is providing free drugs and free drug use kits to addicts. You see to the leftist who has embraced ESL, we are doing the addict a great service, we are allowing them to act out their greatest purpose in life. We are protecting their rights. When the drug addict becomes violent or destroys things, it is up to us to adapt to their behavior. We need to show compassion and understanding, just “Be kind”. If you are assaulted it’s because you got in their way, you…yes you!…have a responsibility as part of the social contract to be empathetic and understanding. It is expected because if you are not, you will face consequences that range from prison if you take action against their behavior. Even the lightest resistance verbally can result losing your job if someone posts a video of you not being kind online and the camera phones are always out to enforce those social norms. This behavior is now expected in society, our judicial system has embraced it. You can be a ranting and raving meth addict breaking things and beating people up and well that’s just expected. However protest against Government mandates and you’ll spend seven months in remand. We are already living this reality, you may not even see it as it is simply the new normal. It goes far beyond anarcho-tyranny or two tier policing, this is a complete re-imagining of the social contract and a dark bastardization of individualism.
“Your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief’s. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn’t know any better. But for you to have one was ‘terrorism.’”- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Crime is another general example. Who are we to judge the criminal’s motivations? They are just looking for food, acceptance, they’re bored, they don’t understand our culture, they had a bad childhood…the excuses never stop rolling on because of the suicidal empathy espoused by ESL. We are held to a standard that we would do something similar if we were in their situation, that our moral and ethical constitution is weak, ready to collapse at any moment to the depths of the worst aspects of criminality. It is completely antithetical to a normal social contract but that is the point. ESL takes the blame and culpability off of the criminal and puts it back onto you. The criminal is only acting out his highest purpose and you must respect it. Then if you take action to try to stop it, the State comes crashing down on you for refusing to conform to the social contract. Who are you to stop this individual from achieving their life’s highest purpose? The State takes the stance that the rights of the criminal is the most important set of rights.
But why is it like this? Why is the right of these groups that are doing so much damage to our society held in the highest regard while our rights are treated like an afterthought or a burden?
End-State Liberalism is the leftist atomic bomb dropped on individualism. This ideology rejects that the individual is a sovereign being capable of choice and change with individual consequences for bad actions. It infers that our worst behaviours as humans are our final, most capable form and should be protected from outside interference. It implies that we are guilty for assuming that people who behave badly should have to change their behaviour, that it is us who needs to change to adapt to their self destruction.
A big thanks to everyone who reads the content!
Fantastic essay.
Good theory. For social groups, this may be understandable. For the police and all state actors to adopt this speaks to something more planned and will leave western societies broken until someone can figure out a way to fix it.