contemporary liberal democracy has shockingly little to do with the liberalism espoused by the likes of john locke et al. i wouldn't even really call the modern zeitgeist "liberal" in any meaningful sense of the word, as few "liberal democracies" actually care for the concept of natural liberties these days. the united states really is one of the few exceptions here, and even it is struggling these days. it isn't helped by the fact that the two responses to this tend to either be the adoption of a dumb meme ideology like neofascism or some variation of communism, or just complete and utter apathy. i wish more people actually read people like hobbes, locke, rousseau, beccaria, etc, we'd probably all be in less shit if they did.
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