[Decathect]

I think you missed my point: all those things can be tools for accomplishing a just society, but they are not sufficient or an end in themselves.

Slavery was ended by war. Labor rights were achieved by fatal street battles. The civil rights movement was legitimized by a growing threat of a domestic insurrection. Marriage equality was established by an unelected Supreme Court. Basically every time significant positive change has happened in this country has been the result of extrademocratic leverage being found and exercised, not going hat in hand to ask an uncaring majority for what you are due as a human being.

Finally, as a moral being with obligations to others I absolutely get to decide who is a bigot, just as you do.

[JoeAltmaier]

To deny any progress happens under democratic rule, is going too far?

[Decathect]

I mean, all those positive changes happened in an ostensibly democratic system and were later ratified by it. They just didn’t happen because ‘moderates’ were convinced by logical argument to grant people basic rights through the ballot box.

That’s the farce, that political change happens through some cosplay conception of an Athenian forum instead of the accumulation and exercise of power. It’s a fact that fascists know instinctively and the left has been waking up to. For liberals, who are enthralled by process and satisfied with the status quo, the threat of change is more serious than the reality of injustice.