Thanks for a thoughtful reply adventured. As I said, it gives me an uneasy/weird feeling, which is to say I haven't quite unpacked it myself yet. Your response is helping me.

> It also doesn't speak ill of those values

Well actually it does, at least in that it highlights them as inconsistent. Clearly my issue is that values prone to change according to circumstance are weaker, as generally one holds consistent values higher than fickle ones. However, your further points are interesting and deserve thought.

> You're conflating two separate matters, the values, and the effort required to hold/protect them.

Perhaps in a short, pithy comment I'm not taking time to distinguish the values (which I love and live by, and believe most of my countrymen uphold) and the laziness by which some fail to consistently and robustly stand up for them.

> Liberty requires a persistent effort to maintain against politicians, malevolent actors generally

Absolutely, and would you agree that we've slipped dreadfully in that duty in recent years?

> Just because something of value requires effort to keep or maintain, that doesn't debase its value or otherwise speak or how great or how little the value is.

I am glad you think that, and we agree. I am not sure if you thought I said otherwise?

> Very valuable things often require an enormous investment to acquire and keep over time.

Like previous wars in which my family have fought at great cost.

> At all times entropy is trying to destroy well ordered systems

No. Sorry. That's too simplistic a take. I'm not talking about the constant gardening required to maintain structures of value, I am alluding to the malevolent domestic forces who would sell our hard won freedom, democracy and liberal values down the swanny for their own aggrandisement and profit when it suits them, and sing a different song when virtue signalling calls.

Let me try to be clearer what I am attacking here. It is sloppy and selective values. It is a laziness that lies somewhere between "sworn enemies unite against a common foe", and a prejudiced framing effect.

We're all very happy to cheer on Tor, VPNs or other instruments that circumvent tyranny, so long as it's not _our_ tyranny. All of us have benefited hugely from the freedoms immanent therein. We built these tools (US Navy), and the internet itself (DARPA), in pursuit of spreading the same values that we no longer have the stomach to robustly defend here.

Yet when a tyrant goes crazy in Overthereistan we're all sweetness and light and our digital "doors are always open for freedom". Those double standards are not a good look.

I need more time to think about it, but maybe what irks me here is simple hypocrisy.