I never listened to Ben Shapiro before but, in view of the recent upheavals, I watched several episodes of his show. As a result, I can now say with confidence that Ben Shapiro is a very typical neoliberal. Neoliberalism is a variety of liberalism, as the name demonstrates. Shapiro, unfortunately, doesn’t have the intelligence to notice that there’s not much difference between his “just move” and a more self-aware liberal’s “just change your pronouns.” The underlying worldview in both cases is that human beings are endlessly malleable and fluid and that any form of grounding, rootedness and attachment is bad because it puts constraints on human freedom.
Individual freedom as the greatest value is at the core of liberalism. Again, it’s in the name. This is why a neoliberal is always ultimately a liberal, no matter which momentary obfuscation around this term Ronald Reagan created back when I was a toddler.
People get upset when I contradict political self-identification of individuals. But I’m only being consistent. Self-ID is meaningless to me both in terms of biological sex and in terms of politics. Self-awareness is the rarest of traits. If a dude proclaims liberal beliefs, what is it to me that he’s unaware he’s doing it?
Do you believe that any constraints on the human freedom to remake oneself and refashion reality are bad?
You are a liberal.
Do you believe that objective reality should cede to the force of human desire?
You are a liberal.
Do you believe that any sacrifice of individual desire and will to the interests of the community is bad?
You are a liberal.
Do you react more positively to the word rights than to the word obligations? Do you react negatively to the words limits, duty, and constraints? Do you believe that you are the way, the truth and the life?
Liberal, liberal, liberal.
Yes, it’s a very seductive way of seeing the world until the exact second when the unbending reality of frailty, infirmity, or age hits you smack dab in the kisser. Then it becomes less fun to “just move”. But that’s a whole other discussion.
Other than the fact that he’s a sincere, unclouded neoliberal, Ben Shapiro is a great dude.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Do you…. You are a liberal”
To be sure, the… concept of individual choice is kind of new in human history. For a large part of human existence people had little to no say in questions of what they would do for a living (what your family did… or what was selected for you), who you married (who your parents picked for you), where you would live (with familyor where family or someone else placed you) or how much education you could recieve (decided by a bunch of social conventions and/or financial situation).
That all kind of… sucked and some degree of individual choice is awesome. I love that I’ve been able to fashion a life for myself according to what I want and not what was expected of (or pushed upon) me by others. There’s a price but I’m okay with paying it.
And of course there are limits, no amount of choice can change your age, sex and a bunch of other things.
And… freedom of choice doesn’t actually mean anything if it’s divorced from reality and obligations. The problem is that modern obligations are often… poorly defined at least partly because of a lack of any kind of common context.
I’m a liberal in thinking (some degree of) personal choice is great. But I’m very non-liberal in that I realize choices alone can’t change reality.
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Shapiro is sitting there in his kippah, which according to the social contract should have some major brain under it, and what is his solution for the country’s economic problems? The government should remove itself and give freedom to people to figure it out. Which is the logic behind “defund the police.” And open borders. “Let the market figure it out!” Well, the market clearly wants infinity migration and fluid gender that makes you keep buying and buying and buying. The market places no restrictions on fluid gender, how about that?
If this is the best we’ve got, it’s not good news.
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Well Kid, I found this very, very disturbing:
https://roddreher.substack.com/p/what-i-saw-and-heard-in-washington
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Yes. These are very good observations. What I don’t get is these endless complaints about how hard it is to find a wife. If the utterly gay Zohran Mamdani managed to find one, honestly, how hard can it be? And yes, she’s hideous. But she’s rich. It all evens itself out.
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The problem is that for decades Western societies have deliberately encouraged girls while openly disencouraging boys from kindergarten onwards. Well, the hens and capons are now roosting; and to nobody’s surprise, women want husbands that are not only confident, but that earn more than themselves.
Helen Andrews claims the problem can be corrected by removing the female support. Well, okay, possibly, at some future point, but when and how? And what are those disadvantaged and disaffected young men going to be doing in the mean time?
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Chasing after any form of meaning, purpose, or authoritativr male attention that rears its head.
If they get a Mr. Kirk, or a local DirtyJobs boss or even a crusty GrunkleStan (I had one), they’re blessed.
More likely it will be a Jordan Peterson, Nick Fuentes, or some variant of a red scarf or antifa cadre.
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Why would you consider Peterson’s ideas a risk for young men?
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That was a fantastic read. These type of self analyzes and introspection are very valuable.
Unfortunately it is becoming obvious Trump doesn’t really have answers for the impoverished and disaffected young white male. I had some hope maybe he’d be able to do something for them, but all Trump seems to care about is the stock market and Wall Street.
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Actually, on the second day of this administration, his executive action restored the civil rights of young white males.
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That’s great. Of course, as I keep saying, rights only matter if there are institutions willing to defend them.
But absolutely, you don’t have to convince me. Trump, with all his myriad flaws, is amazing and wonderful compared to Kamala.
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Well, he can use the bully pulpit and/or hit the buggers in the wallet by holding back funding.
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True, given the alternative he has done good for them on issues that don’t hurt his bottom line nor those of his fellow oligarchs.
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I was with you all the way until this haha!
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I like Ben Shapiro, partially because founding Daily Wire is such an achievement and partially for his reviews of musicals (I think deep down he enjoys that more than politics.) But he’s worthless in some areas.
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Speaking of neo-liberal, this is an interesting read.
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Thank you, I loved this article! I’m glad people are talking about important things because I’m so tired of endless condemnations of Megyn Kelly for not engaging in enough condemnations of Candace Owens who engaged in too many condemnations, etc
And yes, while capitalism is great, this particular form of capitalism isn’t. Capitalism of things is not anti-human. Capitalism of flows is.
Everybody wants to sell experiences instead of products because you can resell them endlessly, there’s no quality control, it’s all pure feeling.
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What really boggles my mind is how Trump managed to convince people he was good for Union people and factory workers. A quick read into Trump shows he’s first and foremost a real estate developer and business financier. He has way more in common with private capital than any of those workers. He IS an oligarch.
I think looking back at history, Trump’s genius will be recognized as his ability to con millions of people who he had nothing in common into believing he had their best interest in mind. Serious genius to pull that off, that’s undeniable.
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Please remember who he was running against. Harris wasn’t even pretending to have anybody’s interests in mind. Because she failed to pretend she had a mind.
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True. Democrats have not been any better. My hopes are on a Bernie Sanders type; real economic populism would be something to behold for once.
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Mr. Shapiro has a face for radio, a voice for print, and had a prose style for the Saturday crossword. Admittedly, I only read the one book by him.
I find him as tedious as Mr. Fuentes, and almost as repellent.
De gustibus non est desputandum.
I don’t know him from Adam’s off-ox, so cannot speak to his character.
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The voice is definitely not great, I agree. I haven’t read any books by him but based on what I heard on the shows, I don’t need to. I can recite this stuff by heart.
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