In my opinion, that culture has been rapidly dying, chipped away by a very sizable and growing chunk that doesn't value it at all, seeing it only as a legal technicality to be sidestepped.
Liberal values are liberty/freedom, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. All other liberal values build off of these three as a base. This implies that Non-liberal (or illiberal) values are the opposition of liberal values through censorship, gun control, etc like you mentioned.
Liberals in the modern US political sense refers to Neo-liberals. Neo-liberal and liberal are two very different things which is why the term liberal value doesn't necessarily correspond to neo-liberal beliefs.
Additionally, "the left" by and large does not support neo-liberalism. "The left" is violently against the aforementioned censorship, gun control, etc. Reading any socialist or communist literature will make this abundantly clear.
Examples:
- George Orwell on the Right to bear Arms: "The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do, they cannot give the factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see it stays there."
- George Orwell on Freedom of Speech: "Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen."
- Karl Marx on the Right to bear Arms: "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary"
- Karl Marx on Freedom of Speech: "The absence of freedom of the press makes all other freedoms illusory. One form of freedom governs another just as one limb of the body does another. Whenever a particular freedom is put in question, freedom in general is put in question"
- Karl Marx on Freedom of Speech: "Censorship has outlived its time; where it still exists, it will be regarded as a hateful constraint which prohibits what is openly said from being written"
- Karl Marx on Freedom of Speech: "You cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences. You cannot pluck the rose without its thorns!"
If you want I can dig up more quotes but those are the ones that were easy to fetch and any more risks turning this into even more of a wall of text.
My point being, your issues with "the left" are misdirected and are better focused towards Neo-liberalism and/or Neo-conservatism. "The left" does and has always been one of the primary guardians of liberal ideology. Hell "the left" is where a significant portion of the liberal ideology that the United States is founded on originated from.
- Mao Zedong
Marxism prescribes the atrophy of the state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withering_away_of_the_state
The left as it stands in its current dominant form, is a hypocrisy of incompatibles.
True liberalism as you describe it, doesn't exist in any first world country. It's been bundled into larger and larger government creep which inevitably tramples on individual rights.
A tip: These are not chips.
Owning a laptop is perhaps a very tiny investment in capital, arguably, but it certainly won't provide enough passive income to replace your job.
If you own the means of production and receive the full fruits of your labour, you are part of the bourgeoisie.
Self employed programmers are bourgeoisie, employed ones are not. And of those that are part of the bourgeoisie, there are levels and not all of them are bad (even in the scope of socialist theory).
- The petite bourgeoisie are your small self employed shopkeepers, artisans, and tradesmen. These are the people who live by their own means and without exploiting anyone else's labour. Rising the proletariat to this level is the entire point of socialism.
- The moyenne bourgeoisie maintain largely the same lifestyle as the petite bourgeoisie but with strong financial establishment. They are effectively the upper end of the petite bourgeoisie and whether they are considered part of the problem or part of the end goal depends almost entirely on whether they are supported solely by their own labour or if they are unduly exploiting the labour of others. This class may lend money in some capacity however normally if they are doing so, they are doing it collectively.
- The grand bourgeoisie are largely where the problems with the bourgeoisie begin. These people have an established financial status from a few generations of wealth. This class is the one running larger businesses and their wealth is almost entirely derived from the work of others rather than their own.
- The haute bourgeoisie are the "true" bourgeoisie. You can only make it to this class through generations of wealth aggregation (unless you ride an industrial revolution) and once you are here, it is almost impossible to lose your financial status regardless of spending or financial failings. These are the eternally rich and their existence is only sustained by exploiting the labour of others.
Socialist theory considers the petite and moyenne bourgeoisie to be the "end goal" for society. They are nearly entirely sustained by their own labour and may use their excess funds to invest in the community (normally with some expectation of return but not any life sustaining amount). Marx warned that through the natural progression of capitalist society, these classes (primarily the petite but also the moyenne in some capacity) would wither while the wealth collected in the hands of the grand and haute bourgeoisie.
---
Additionally, many socialist and communist nations have strict gun control not because they are socialist or communist, but because they are authoritarian. Gun control is a sign of authoritarianism more than anything else and any nation that falls towards it is going to see the population disarmed.
How can you seriously believe that these corporations (who are not subject to the first amendment, and cannot be challenged in court) won't extend and abuse this technology to tackle "domestic extremism" but broadly covering political views?
It's laughable that a man who can call a press conference at a moment's notice and get news coverage for anything he says can be "silenced" because private companies no longer choose to promote his garbage.
Even Fox has stopped running his events: https://deadline.com/2021/06/donald-trump-rally-networks-ski...
The largest pro-Trump network has seen major declines in ratings: https://www.thewrap.com/newsmax-fox-news-six-months-ratings/
Free speech didn't seem so important recently when the SJW crowd started mandating to censor certain words because they're offensive.
That was true of private spaces long before HN existed. If you're a jerk at a party, you might get thrown out. I'm sure that's been true as long as there have been parties.
The only thing "the SJW crowd" has changed is which words are now seen as offensive.
Well, that, and also bullying thousands of well-meaning projects into doing silly renamings they didn't want or need to spend energy on. Introducing thousands of silly little bugs and problems downstream, wasting thousands of productive hours.
[1] e.g.: https://www.wired.com/2017/06/diversity-open-source-even-wor...
It’s not like they have a curated App Store for apps they like; there’s literally no other way to add software to the device.
Speech not happening because Apple didn't go out of it's way for it to create a route for it to happen without Apple being involved, isn't really that shocking or similar to Apple scanning private files. (Apple being allowed to prevent you from installing what you want on your phone is shocking from an anti-trust perspective, but not from a speech perspective).
If you want some concrete examples:
- Trump's attempted coup, the range of support it received, the lack of condemnation it received.
- Law's allowing things like running over protestors
- Law's with the transparent goal of suppressing voters
- Widespread support (not unjustified IMO) for stacking the supreme court
- Police refusing to enforce certain laws as a political stance (not because they legitimately think they're unlawful, just that they don't like them)
- (Justified) lack of trust in the police quickly trending higher
- (Justified?) lack of trust in the military to responsibly use tools you give it, and support for a functional military
- (Justified?) lack of faith in the border guards and the ability to pass reasonable immigration laws, to the point where many people are instead advocating for just not controlling the southern border.
Generally these (and more) all speak towards the institutions that make the US a functional country failing. The institutions that make the rules for the country are losing credibility, the forces that enforce the rules are losing credibility. Neither of those are things that a country can survive forever.
The support for packing the supreme court is mostly at the fringes of the party, and there’s always been some support.
There are almost no laws with any kind of support that have transparent goals of suppressing voters. Election security laws are clearly necessary after the doubt the democrats had it was secure in 2016, and the doubts the republicans had in 2020.
Laws absolving drivers of hitting protesters don’t exist. Laws absolving drivers of driving through violent rioters do, and such laws are necessary. I saw a a riot with my own eyes where a half dozen cars were flipped and destroyed, and anyone trying to drive through the intersection had people jumping on their car and smashing the windows. These laws are good.
> I bet you, after the next election in the US your device will be reporting you for spreading far right or deep state lies, depending on who wins.
The US is becoming less stable, sure [1], but there is still a very strong culture of free speech, particularly political speech. I put the odds that your device will be reporting on that within 4 years as approximately 0. The extent that you see any interference with speech today is corporations choosing not to repeat certain speech to the public. Not them even looking to scan collections of files about it, not them reporting it to the government, and the government certainly wouldn't be interested if they tried.
The odds that it's reporting other crimes than child porn though, say, copyright infringement. That strikes me as not-so-low.
[1] I agree with this so much that it's part of why I just quit a job that would have required me to move to the US.