Liberty is great, promoting it is hard
To keep promoting liberty is hard work. It's not popular and is mostly thankless (there are greatly appreciated exceptions, though). In the 20 years since I first got online, many of the writers I have paid attention to have stopped writing. Some died, others just vanished. Did they get burned out? Did they say everything they had to say? One, Claire Wolfe, has cut back quite a bit on posting, but I'm glad she's still around. Others who didn't stop writing found more popular bandwagons to hop on.
One actually started advocating communism, maybe he was trolling but if so, I didn't stay around long enough to find out.
Others got distracted and started promoting Trump or became obsessive anti-Trumpers-- either course made them lose credibility in my eyes and I stopped paying attention. Some went nationalist. Promoting any brand of authoritarianism just isn't going to fly. Yeah, I understand it's pragmatic.
"Social Justice" collectivism seduced a few more. I think that's an easy way for liberty advocates to feel more popular since it can be spun in a way that looks like supporting individual rights, even when it isn't.
But, whatever the reason, when I look back at who I was reading and learning from at the beginning of my online journey, most of them are gone now. Either actually gone, or gone from my sphere. Just like I am gone from the sphere of others who believe I parted ways with them over one issue or another. It happens. Views evolve.
I have to stay true to myself and my interpretation of liberty. Wherever that takes me. I do a self-evaluation pretty often to see where I stand with regards to individual liberty-- to see if I think I'm going off track, and nudge myself back on course when I need it. Sometimes I get that nudge from others.
It might be nice, in a way, to find something more popular to focus on. I'm sure it would pay better. But I just can't put that much effort into trivial things that I see as passing fads. At least, even though this is hard work, it's worth it to me.
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