Desire
Neoliberals present an asymmetric threat because they are driven by desires, not by principled beliefs.
Democrats who scream about "democracy", the "rule of law" and "nobody is above the law", are now shilling for two black representatives in Tennessee who broke house rules, telling Biden to ignore the Texas judge's ruling about the abortion drug, mifepristone, and have already convicted President Trump even before a trial.
Normally, one would think these are examples of hypocrisy.
I would argue they are not.
Webster defines hypocrisy as "behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel".
The operative concept here is that there is a belief system with which to act in contradiction.
With these neoliberals, they are acting entirely in accordance with their desires - which is not a belief system at all. Desire is subjective, principles are objective. Desires change with the day, principles do not. This is why policies or regulations based on the assessment of people’s “strongly held beliefs” cannot be understood by the neoliberal left – because they have no strongly held beliefs.
This is also why they can’t process a belief in God, how anyone can be a Christian, or a member of any religion for that matter. Believing in God requires faith and sacrifice – neither of which can be understood by anyone driven by their own desires.
Since they can’t comprehend the strongly held beliefs of Christians, they just reject them as superstition.
Dismissal just makes it easier to process their hatred and lack of understanding.
Their desire is fulfilled by doing anything that leads to power over others. There is no moral, more, principle, regulation, or law they will not violate if that act of violation ends with an advantage - and it doesn't matter if that violation contradicts some position, one they may have held just minutes ago.
And that means any time we hear the words and phrases "democracy", the "rule of law" and "nobody is above the law" from the mouth of a neoliberal, they can be ignored because they have no concrete meaning. They can only be understood in the immediate context of what desire is being expressed by that person.
What we see in their behavior is not a defense of principle, it is merely an emotional need to satisfy the incredible inferiority complex they feel due to their opposition to everything natural, logical, rational, and real.
Take the neoliberal reaction to the Covenant Presbyterian murders. They have evidenced a distinct economy of words when speaking of the six victims, not so much about the transgender shooter and taking away guns. When their rhetoric is examined, there is no bedrock principle here to protect children, none whatsoever – but they are driven by their desire to legitimize a narrative about transgenders being victims and an overwhelming desire to take guns out of private hands.
Unless they are psychopaths or sociopaths, there is not a human alive who doesn’t experience a glimmer of awareness, no matter how infinitesimally small, when they do, say, or believe something they intuitively know is wrong. It is called having a conscience. People can ignore it, but it is there.
The one consistency about the average contemporary neoliberal is their inconsistency - but it is consistent in the quest for advantage.
I know this is confusing.
Are they consistently inconsistent or inconsistently consistent?
It is maddening, but it is also a means to an end - that being the establishment of a state of chaos.
If you think this state of chaos resembles the formative years of childhood, you aren’t far wrong.
Like the behaviors of contemporary neoliberals, behaviors of children are not driven by belief systems, but by desires. The two words “I want…” are perfect descriptors for the behavior:
Like real children, these adult babies get terribly upset when they are told “no”.
The tantrum is typically worse when breaking a rule of which they were already aware but contradicts what they want to do.
After the screaming ends, children often find ways to rationalize, exonerate themselves, and blame someone else.
Often, other children (and sometimes adults) while attempting to soothe the hurt feelings, will commiserate with the upset child, validating the tantrum and soothing the child’s need to be right.
From the soothing, children learn they can get what they desire if they are just loud enough.
Looking at current events, one can legitimately make comparisons to the tantrums of AOC, the two expelled Tennessee Democrat legislators, Schumer and Pelosi in the wake of the SCOTUS decision in Dobbs, the BLM protests/riots/looting/arsonfests, and just about any Democrat on social media.
When you remind yourself that these are people driven by desire rather than principled beliefs, it all makes sense.
And it presents an asymmetrical threat, one that is very, very difficult to counter.
We start to correct this by doing what we to to children - by telling them no – and not backing down. The minute we back down, we lose.
It's unfortunate that these people are imposed upon a civil society but fortunately they are limited in number. I'm re-reading Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer," and have Gustav LeBon's "The Crowd" and William Lederer's "A Nation of Sheep" ready to re-read next to try to get a better handle on what's going on right now and some insight into the pathology of these mobs.
It will be more interesting to discern what causes such outbreaks of irrational and destructive behavior. It seems similar to some of the mob actions that occurred in Athens after 30 years of warfare with Sparta. Just before the Spartan victory there seems to have be a mass psychosis in Athens and no one has satisfactorily explained it. Maybe the same thing is happening here. If it is we'll then have to look for causes, then remedies. Or we can sink into oblivion like the Athenian culture did.