Burke's Qualifications for Liberty...

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For those who came in late...

Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish MP, ardent supporter of the American revolution, harsh critic of the French revolution and all around canny political scientist/analyst.

Despite the fact that both revolutions were propelled by the same ideas, Burke knew the French revolution was destined to fail, and in his Reflections on the Revolution in France he even predicted how it would end--

Furthermore, in his followup work, "A Letter from Mr. Burke to a Member of the National Assembly; In Answer to Some Objections to his Book on French Affairs" he explains WHY it will fail in very simple terms--



In these two works, Burke reveals the secret sauce essential to all free republics. You simply cannot have a free society made up of factionalized, greedy, narcissistic, fools. Eventually, and usually after much bloodshed, this sort of society will enslave itself under some ironfisted bastard.

This was true for 18/19th century France, was true for 1st century BC Rome, Germany in the 20th century, and is proving to be true for 21st century Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

It makes me wonder about Trump's recent successes in the US. While I don't think he has a chance in hell of winning a general election, I do think this reveals some pretty disturbing aspects about American culture.

Trump is definitely a flattering knave as far as I can tell...

C'mon people, nobody's got any thoughts on this?

I think Burke's on to something here... It wuld certainly explain why so many revolutions fail to establish free societies and usually just swap one dictator/dominant group for another...

Sorry GoonSquad I meant to reply. I have get in to the right frame of mind.

I think Burke's ideas have merit, and generally prefer them to Taleb's black swan events. Though both have relevance.

In the case of Burke I think the ideas can be further expanded upon. It is very true the factionalism in the middle east is a real problem and it has been that way since the Battle of Karbala or before. There is kind of inter-generational neuroticism of mutual suspicion. If you think of what Nasserism / Ba'athism turned out to be in practice, these long dead secular projects created a facade of a free society, but the proponents were well aware of the existential threat that each of the tribes and sects felt for each other. Therefore likewise, they felt they had no choice but to rule with iron fist. No different in that sense from the Sheikhs or Ayatollahs. Quite often it is minority rule, especially Ba'athism in Iraq and Syria, and in Bahraini Sheikhs. It is rule or be ruled, that is how they see it. Even the two Ba'athist states fell out of with each other becuase of sectarianism, despite supposedly mean to replace sectarianism.

Where Burke's ideas apply with regard to failure of the Arab spring, is even when the structures and ideas of free society are established, they don't trust each other long enough to implement them and allow them to succeed. Sooner or later somebody jumps the gun and takes thing into their own hands. Then all hell breaks loose. Or alternatively they they wind down the cooperation and apply exclusivity with their new found power.

What democratic countries, that have endured, have in common a specific memes around the principles of a free society and why maintaining this core is important for that aim. Therefore they got to a stage where they were persuaded. Whether this can happen over night is debatable.

Where people like Trump fit in i my opinion, is in exploiting the propensity for people to forget these principles and why they are important, plus a general lack of education.

Regarding Black Swan events: It isn't a predictive model by Taleb's own admission. However it is a sort of flip side to Burke. Those societies with pseudo/enforced stability are prone to black swan events, however quite when it will all blow up is anyone's guess. Places like North Korea they keep a pretty light lid on things, so it is more likely that a coup within the ruling elite will happen than a successful popular revolt.

A better way of looking at it, is all the imperfections and messiness of democracy are actually an important factor in keeping those societies free. Where there is an impression made of a perfect and harmonious democracy, that is when you really should start to worry. Democracy is much more than voting, and all the bust up, scandals, vigorous discourse is what is indicative of a functioning democracy. This constant activity is much healthier than having a black swan event or living under a front of fake pluralism. The most important thing in a democracy is a turn over. It is not quite how politicians talk idealistically of "change" but simply the possibility an likelihood of a turn over.

Good post. Lots of interesting ideas to mull over...

I think you're dead right here. In spite of France's rough start, they finally figured it out. However, it was less a revolution and more an evolution over a few generations...

Education (and a certain type of indoctrination) is also extremely important. Modern republics/democracies developed from the enlightenment and the enlightenment was completely informed by study of the classical world. Montesquieu's ideas on separation of powers comes directly from Polybius' analysis of the Roman constitution, for example.

People really need an understanding of the classical world and its history to appreciate WHY our system works the way it does.

Most Americans don't know anything about the classical world or the enlightenment these days. I think that's a big problem.


I gotta say, I'm not all that familiar with Black Swan Theory, so I haven't thought about this stuff using that frame...

But, I think the great success of America's revolution is something of a black swan.... What makes it such an outlier is economics.

Economics is a pretty common practical driver of revolution. What makes America so unusual is that our revolt was headed by the wealthy rather than the poor.

Revolutions lead by the poor tend to be much more destructive. Wealthy revolutionaries tend to be much more restrained because any stuff they might break would probably belong to them or one of their fellows. Also, wealthy revolutionaries can afford to be idealistic.

George Washington is often called the American Caesar, but he's much closer to Cincinnatus. I think many 18th, 19th and even early 20th century politicians (like the Roosevelts) saw themselves as patricians and tried to exercise a certain type of Civic Virtue...

These days few Americans of any class know what patricians are, let alone civic virtue...

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Last edited by 0_equals_true on 12 Dec 2015, 8:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think anything that breeds neurosis is going to produce a volatile situation. Poverty certainly does that, most of the time.

Poverty is relative that is the point. It is disparity more than absolute poverty the breeds contempt. Khoisan Bushmen are mostly self sufficient their overall standard of life is ok, they even have a higher life expectancy than surrounding Bantu. They have a surprising amount of free time. They are fine so long as they are largely left alone, they would have no reason to revolt. I don't think that anarcho-primitivism is a viable solution for all, but we can admire these groups. Their only currency is ornament they make of materials from foraging and hunting, which they use to trade with the Bantu for a few things. However this is not something they have to rely on to survive. They are just incredibly skilled hunter-gatherers. They also smoke a strain of marijuana.

Having lived in Angola, they US were terribly naive is supporting the proxy war. For one Savimbi was not better Dos Santos. It was also stupidly against their interest. Cabinda Gulf (Ceveron Oil) is the second biggest oil field in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. It is massive, I been there.

The Bolsheviks managed to hold thing to together they succeed the more educated and middle class Leninists. One of the way it can be done is by having a common enemy. The US probably did more to extend the USSR than anything else.

In the case of modern Russia, there is a shared interest in corruption. The Oligarchs toe the line becuase the get to keep their wealth. "Anti-corruption" is more a by-word for falling out with Putin. However all of them know invest out of Russia becuase even if they are on side they could fall out of favour easily.

Putin is by far the most wealthy world leader. He must be rewarded so his associates can be rewarded. This is largely kept out of the public eye, becuase the Russia have never been taught to think of how this is is creaming the Russian economy. Russian politic is less about debating policy or freedom of information, but more vague concept like "strength".

What you don't know doesn't hurt you sort of thing.

A knave he may be, but that says more about American politics than it does about him. He hasn't invented these issues out of nowhere, they are real concerns, both real in the sense of a disappointed populace who feel their government cares more about creating a lefty utopia than it does about them and real in the sense of what will happen to America's demographics and culture in future. That an unthinking and rude twit like Trump is the only one saying these things shows how debased American politics has become. Some choice quotes from the recent book "Cuckservative":

There was no magic dirt. There was no shining city on a hill. All that was required for irrevocable change was the arrival of sufficient numbers of people with a separate culture of their own who were both willing and able to hold onto it in the face of native opposition.

Import people, and you import their culture. Import them on a small scale, as with the Normans, and they may assimilate, but in doing so, they will still influence yours. Import them on a larger scale, and they'll keep their own culture, which will conflict with yours. Import them on a large enough scale, as with the Saxons, and your culture will be the one assimilated. And if that happens, you find yourselves at the mercy of whatever the newcomers decide to do with you.

Trust us. We know. Both of our Native American cultures have been all but eliminated. Our tribes were forcibly expelled from their lands and forced onto reservation, where they still live today. Neither of us knows more than a few words of the languages our forefathers used to speak before the arrival of Spanish and English immigrants.

The Magic Dirt won't save you.

The thing is, even if an intelligent, wise man could take on these issues in a civilised way, the media would treat him in exactly the same way, as though he were some throwback to chimpanzee thought, not well versed in the reality of human tribal existence. For people concerned about these things, it's a begrudging alliance with Trump or do nothing.

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As for Burke, his writings always interest me, people who read him rarely apply his words to their own culture though, the "controlling power upon will and appetite" in the West was Christian morality and values. People wonder why our governments are getting more and more controlling, spying on you incessantly as though your choice to break the law is a matter of when, not if. They can't make the link between that and the cultural revolution of the 60s that painted moral restraint as "repression", somehow unhealthy and the continued ceaseless assault upon Christianity.

On liberty in general, an important factor often left out is time. You cannot change cultures overnight or with a short war, liberty must be grown like a forest, it cannot be imposed. Revolutions seeking "freedom" if that is their true purpose (it's often sought solely for the selfish reasons of the revolutionaries) are doomed to fail because the populace cannot deal with it and set about using their new imposed freedom to destroy themselves.

^^^ Okay, the first half of your post is just nativist BS. The US has been extremely successful in assimilating immigrants and we'll continue to do so. The biggest immigrant group we have right now is hispanics. I live in a city comprised of about 30% 1st/2nd generation hispanics.

For the most part they work hard, start small businesses, and grow strong famiies. They're an asset to the country.

As for the second part of your post, you aren't wrong about judeo-christian ethics being the foundation of our moral restraint. However, erosion of that restraint doesn't just come from the left.

Look at the bit where Burke talks about valuing justice over rapacity. That, in the form of income inequality, is a HUGE problem in the US and many other western countries, and that comes from the right.

We are not overthrowing a government to gain our Liberty, but one that wishes to take our Liberty.

We have assimilated a lot of immigrants, and hardly a one still speaks German, French, Dutch, Polish.

Mexicans are Christians, we start with a lot of common culture.

Muslims cannot change one thing for everything is tied to the Koran, and any change is a one way ticket to hell.

God Speaks Arabic, God gave Laws, Islam does not play well with others.

We have the same problem with Leftists, first they were sure the Communist International would cover the world. When it went bankrupt everywhere it was tried, they blamed Western Social Ideas.

Social Marxism has been working on overthrowing that ever since.

All they managed to do is what they are good at, screwing up the economy.

In the Leftist Utopia Economics is abolished.

Making Liberty work takes delivering a high quality product for everyone, and making the numbers work on paying for it.

Shoddy products in Health, Education and Welfare, ever rising debt, are sings of Leftist Policy by Hope and Wishing.

Reality is that, that no matter what you think, is still there.

I bolded the important part of your post for you. The US is no longer even trying to assimilate immigrants, it's been taken over by the same multicultural fanatics that plague Europe, it is almost a bilingual country now. A bilingual country, absorb that for a second will you. A shared language is the absolute bedrock of a shared culture and it should be obvious that American culture is changing more to suit the newcomers, than the newcomers are being changed to suit America.



No arguments here. Conservatives in your country and mine gave up being conservative a long time ago, the term is now confused with economic liberalism thanks to era of Thatcher and Reagan. The big political divide these days is supposedly about economics and wealth redistribution, actually a secondary factor in determining the future of a country. If you protect the culture, encourage self-contained patriotism, encourage a strong morality that transcends class and personal wealth the country will survive any economic problems that present themselves.
The real divide in politics has always been morality and cultural values and the conservative side of that died decades ago. Almost everyone is on the side of the moral and cultural left. Leftists are in favour of mass immigration for the same reasons I am against it, it divides and destroys cultures that stand in the way of their utopian fantasies. So-called modern conservatives like mass immigration because they don't care about the culture beyond their own pleasant gated communities, they view people only as economic units and potential tax payers, and more immigration means more taxpayers in their dog-eat-dog economic utopia.



He wasn't talking about social justice.

NO.

I live in a neighborhood where at least three different languages are spoken and the melting pot is working as well as ever. Sure lots of the older folks don't speak english, but ALL the kids do.

Sure the culture isn't static they change us and we change them. But it's not bad or anything to fear. The most profound effect for me has involved breakfast. In the old days, I'd stop for coffee and a donut or bagle on my mmorning trike ride. Now, I stop for hot chocolate and tamales.

I'd say european pluralism has failed mostly because it's used as an excuse to segregate and discriminate.



BS. Justice is justice.

You spent half your post moaning about economic exploitation and then you write this?

Considering your cyrpto-racist views, all I can say is SUCK IT UP CRYBABY. You're just another wog to the ruling class.

Good for the kids, but if any citizen seriously cannot speak English that signals to me the melting pot has failed dismally. How can someone integrate with their neighbours without a shared tongue?



It depends on your viewpoint, on whether the culture that is being phased out is worth protecting or not. Smarmy leftists do not like the culture that is being phased out, so they approve, they don't care what culture is being brought in to replace it, they are sure they can destroy it when the time comes.



It failed because pluralism is fundamentally flawed. "Multicultural society" is almost the perfect contradiction in terms. Segregation and discrimination arise naturally when two disparate cultures, groups or tribes come in contact with one another. We favour our own, we indulge in nepotism. It will be so as long as the two groups are allowed to exist in close proximity.

You used the term melting pot, originally that was about (primarily European Christian) immigrants melting into American society, discarding their old way of life and embracing their new American identities. It was not about American society melting into the immigrant hordes. Surely you can see the difference between that idea and current multicultural farce.



Not the way Burke would have understood it. I only took ire at your attempt to paint Burke as a forerunner to the modern SJW. His justice was of a personal moral and legal sense. In that sentence you could substitute "honesty in your dealings" or "love of the law" to understand his meaning when compared to rapacity. He was not talking about aggressively redistributing the wealth of the great, the good and the lucky to the envious worker class.



Confusing my viewpoint with racism is an easy mistake for an uneducated mind to make. Indeed, many of our ancestors made the same mistake of confusing the problems of cultural friction with racial friction, but we are wiser now. The final nail in the coffin was the Japanese governments attempt to import a large number of Japanese Brazilians to solve their worker problem, they assumed being ethnically Japanese these workers would have no problem integrating back into the island culture of Japan. Short version: they were wrong. Only a few generations away from home and they were, as a group, unable to fit in and suffered many of the problems afflicting minority groups in western cultures today. To my knowledge they are still paying these people to return to Brazil if they promise not to return for a while.


And now your true colours show.

The death of the high street is very topical in the UK. That is something you can't blame on immigration. Go to Tooting South London, this is one of the areas the high street is alive an well, thanks in part to migration. Not only are the South Indian trader creating a great market place and buzz, they are pretty well integrated. They have no problem competing side by side with supermarkets and certainly given them a run for their money. You get much better veg for cheaper. Maybe some people are scared to go into their shop but their is no reason to. The area support a whole range of different backgrounds.

My butcher a traditional English butter 8th generation, a proper old school butcher with red an white awning, sawdust on the floor, chopping board counter, none of this glass place nonsense. He would be completely out of business if it wasn't for the migrant. Both in keeping the local economy going, and actually a solid customer base from restaurant an caterers. This may surprise you but it is true. His sons aren't interested in continuing though. His apprentice is Norwegian. If that is a problem, though.

Too often economic decline is blamed on migration, when I reality much of it is self inflicted. I'm not from the left I'm competitionist and anti-EU, in case you wondered.

People are blaming other cultures for their own lack of interest in their own culture. These people need to practice a culture first before they talk of loss of one. Take responsibility for it.

Migration will become irrelevant in the future. People do not have to migrate to compete with me in my field. I do not cry about it, if you can't compete then you need to come up with something better. Too often lack of initiative, creativity is blamed on migration.

When I talk of pularism, I'm talking of political pluralism. That is necessary, even UKIP want it, they would have more influence. I don't agree with Jeremy Corbyn on most things, however as counter balance, given our propensity forrushing into conflicts around the world, not thinking things through, we need that to spur more rigorous debate. In fact I would have preferred if the Liberal Party had not merged with the SDP. So there would be separate Social Democratic, Socialist, Classical Liberal parties, and likewise why not Social Conservative, Economic Conservative, Nationalist parties should represent their own interests. There are structural limitations to doing this, based on the current political system.

Which era of Conservatism are you talking about? Are you talking about the era of Aristocratic non-Constitutional Monarchist Tories, who were heavily in favour of protectionism? I hate to break it but Conservative party in the UK has been influenced by classical Liberalism since Robert Peel way before Regan and Thatcher, even prior to that the Whigs and other groups were assimilated.

"Conservative" is a pretty meaningless term anyway. People can just about work out what is meant by social Conservative, but that is about it. There is no "true" Conservative. Much of the rhetoric on the subject (i.e. Old Right) is historical revisionism.

I don't recall blaming that on immigration. Economically there is a benefit to mass immigration. If you continue to stuff 300000 people a year into your economy, with nothing else going on to negate it you will see a small rise in the GDP of the country. Something the Tories love taking credit for. What they don't tell you is that GDP per capita decreases at the same time. So the country as a business is a little better off, but everyone who lives in it is on average worse off and that's ignoring the unemployment problem.

The economy is not zero sum. If you have 10 unemployed people in the country, 5 unfilled jobs in the country and you import 10 immigrants. The left seem to believe that the 10 immigrants are all entrepreneurs and will create 20 more jobs and everyone has a happy time.
In reality it's more like 1 immigrant becomes an employer, 1 extra job is created, 1 of those jobs is filled by the original unemployed, 5 are filled by immigrants and the 9 original people remain on benefits joined by 4 new immigrants. In 5 years time the immigrants bring their families over adding to the strain on public services, thank you very much ECHR.

There might be a much much stronger case for the economic benefits of immigration if we were selective about who we allowed in, but that is against the egalitarian ideology of the left. All this is an aside for me anyway, economics is a secondary concern to cultural destruction.



I must distinguish between two types of immigrant, there are immigrants who come here to be British - something I approve of, of course. And there are immigrants who come here to improve their lives in material ways only, who couldn't give a monkey's about the culture, or integrating, some of them are actively hostile to Britain for her imperial past. The second type take what leftists say about multiculturalism to heart and happily build their cultural solitudes, spikes facing outwards.

The immigration from our former commonwealth, perhaps counter-intuitively, is mostly of the first type. Immigration from poorer parts of the EU and muslim countries is mostly of the second type.



On the jobs front, people are in two camps at the moment. Do you eat in cheap restaurants or work in them? It's easy to look down on the poorer sections of society whose futures really have been direly affected by the import of cheap labour and say they lack initiative and creativity. But what course is there really? Some people just don't have the brains for genuine innovation, they don't have the wanderlust to up sticks and leave (even if they did many countries in the world actively protect their working class from being supplanted by immigrants). The reality is being hidden at the moment thanks to a very generous welfare state, but if you read the news you will know that is unsustainable in the long term. When immigrants actually start replacing the jobs of politicians, the media and the upper middle class I imagine their unsympathetic globalist meritocratic view will change.



That's a different topic, I would say that if we must keep democracy an old style adversarial government would be preferable. Since the Major era at least, probably some time before that, we've lost that adversarial edge to politics. As I said in my previous post they argue about economics, not the culture, not social issues (unless it relates to money or lack thereof). New Labour was extraordinarily radical, but they somehow painted themselves as "on the centre right". A falsehood people still believe to this day. On moral issues and more the current Tory government IS New Labour in all but name.

If you are suggesting that a more European style of government with proportional representation will fix this problem, then I disagree, if anything it would help the Blairite factions maintain power. Combine a proportional representation system with the tribal nature of voting at general elections (which more often than not destroys the minor parties who go into coalition at subsequent elections) and all it will do is shut out the "fringe" parties forever, the same way referendums are cynically used to shut down discussion of a topic for a generation or two.



It's hard to pin down. The foundation of social conservatism must be encouraging the creation and maintenance of the married family. A hundred years or so ago not even the left (who sometimes openly supported the Soviet Union) would have dared touch marriage.

There are some problems talking about eras, firstly many of the things social conservatives would seek to protect or rebuild, were never imposed by government as we would understand it, they were inherited from many centuries of undemocratic civilisation.

Secondly, in democracy, parties don't stand on honest platforms. To my knowledge no party has ever stood on a platform saying: "we are going to destroy marriage, make divorce trivial, we are going to destroy education, we are going to inflict graphic sex education on children, we are going to import millions of immigrants, we are going to effectively decriminalise drugs, and cripple the criminal justice system in general" Yet somehow these things have happened, without the people's consent or even knowledge. To this day no one in politics talks seriously about these things, beyond bland leftist idealism, mainly because their jobs and livelihoods depend on doing so.

Thirdly the words "conservative" "left wing" "right wing" are almost without meaning these days. New Labour got into power by promoting the delusion that they were on the right of centre, the only way to win in a primarily conservative Britain at that time. Things have taken yet another step in that direction, now the Conservative party itself is carrying the torch. The Conservative party, legitimised mainly by (often grey-haired small c) conservative voters. One of its major "achievements" was legalising (bordering on outright promotion) of gay marriage, which for the record was not mentioned prior to the election. Is this really what its voters had in mind do you think? Perhaps their voters were more concerned about the UK's looming bankruptcy... but...

Even economically they are more in bed with New Labour than the small government economic liberals. They pick on a few disabled people, cutting their benefits and enjoying the shitstorm that follows, they relish protesters calling them Tory scum because it helps them appeal to the grey-haired voters who vote for them. Simultaneously they do next to nothing about the welfare state as a whole, nothing about exorbitant spending on public services, nothing about the black hole that is the NHS. The deficit is still not fixed, and our national debt continues to climb, their spending practices in this time of crisis would make most true socialists blush with embarrassment.

Not really. I would not want something as bloated the European parliament. I would only support small PR, which where you have sensible cutoffs. I would keep the Westminster scale it doesn't need to be bigger than that. Have a few extra parties in the mix is a good thing.

Sure "Blairites" aren't something I want, however rejecting a political system on the basis it might benefit a certain group rather than on the merits of the system defeats the purpose of doing so. Also Blair was elected three times, before Iraq he was one of the most popular leaders in British history. Not a fan of Blair myself, but Cameron is pretty weak, and is only party leader let alone PM becuase opposition is so weak. Weak opposition is generally bad for everyone.



This is where we split paths. Marriage is none of the government's business. In fact we shouldn't have legal marriage at all . This is to protect your right to practice cultural/religious marriage as you wish without interference, they have no right to tell you how to define marriage. If you have a Conservative definition from a Conservative Church or group, they have no right to tell them or you how to practice, or who to accept. Likewise you have no right to dictate how other groups paractice.

Government has no business in people's private life. You are conflating the nuclear family with marriage. If marriage made for successful families, we wouldn't have so many divorces. The legalization of marriage hasn't brought families together. Commitment and responsibility are different concepts from marriage an on doesn't necessarily follow the other.

Take my cousin he has been happily no married for years with a strong family unit. It really has nothing to do with marriage. They are hardly some avant garde family. He is cardiologist, she is also a doctor. The grew up in the wake of Franco, social Conservatism and ultra-Nationalism isn't all it is cracked up to be.

If you are really as social conservative as you say, then I'm afraid to say you are at a loss in a developed country. People just don't want it. Even those that say they are socially conservative make all kind of exceptions, and everyone has a different definition.

There is no set English or British culture. In term of values what is important is that we reject those values which destroy the principles of free society.

This is probably the finest argument against democracy one can make. Never underestimate the power of propaganda, lies and shady deals made with the media behind any major party today, not to mention the short term selfish thinking of the electorate.

Regarding marriage: Chat to someone from 100 years ago about the right to get married they likely would have laughed at you. Marriage was not a right, it was a rather overbearing social pressure, and for most respectable people the only way to procure sex and intimate companionship. There were rules, if you broke them, you faced serious social and possibly even legal consequences. These rules didn't pop into existence overnight, they evolved, through much trial and hardship, outliving empires and building new ones.

Monogamous marriage and by extension the married family is one of the very pillars of civilisation as we know it. There is a reason children of broken homes do poorly in life. There is a reason slaves were allowed to breed as much as they pleased, but not to marry. It is the best way to raise children, to transmit culture and heritage from one generation to the next.



It is the business of whoever has power over the institution. It was largely left to the church until recently, with minimal government interference except when it came to things like inheritance and property etc. That was fine while the church remained a serious group of people, not the clowns they are now and a major part of our lives. The church for better or worse no longer has any real power over anything let alone marriage, things limped on for a while until in the 1960s the government made an enormous crass intervention into marriage and family life.
It has been summed up brilliantly in the following way:

If one person in a marriage no longer wishes to honour the oath of marriage they have made, the government promises to take the side of the person who wishes to break the marriage contract. Worse than that they promise, if it comes to it, to remove the person who does not wish to break their oath from the family home by threat of violence and imprisonment.

The government have certainly made it their business. I wonder if you think that if marriage is not the under government's purview did they have the right to intervene in the way they already have? Should we tolerate Sharia courts that laugh at abused women asking for divorce because it's not our business?



This is nonsense, an invented right with no moral grounding, made to sound like a moral absolute by the last dying defenders of multiculturalism. We don't really mean it in practice either.



Rulers have every right to do so, as much right as they have to define murder as a crime, though in a society where marriage is so devalued people cannot understand why this is so. Our past rulers didn't have to because the church took care of it.



Ok, but then you also must say the government should not have allowed no-fault divorce.



No there are so many divorces because it is trivial to get one. Marriage is a difficult thing even when perfectly matched, it's why so many people run away from it.



Works for some, but not the majority. If you license this behaviour for him, you license it for everyone and I am sure you don't wish to tell me that everyone is doing what your cousin is doing.



Indeed I was born in the wrong time. People don't want it? You sound as though there is really a choice in the long term. I am afraid there is no correlation in history between sexual liberty and the traditional liberties or "development".

The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs. -- Joseph Daniel Unwin

That is the long and short of it. If you care about any part of this country's culture and heritage or indeed "free society", you are on the wrong side.



There used to be, if you are suggesting there isn't much left now, I am inclined to agree. Part of me does think it is too late to reverse the process, but the least I can do is throw this ancient wisdom in your face before the end, and say "I told you so" as we sink into the sea together.