Throwing off all moral conventions, the counterculture believers of the 1960s and ’70s thought that they were embracing freedom. Instead they have turned into the establishment of the 21st century, and their calling card is tyranny. Mike D’Virgilio writes.

My, what a difference a few years can make. The once-mighty counterculture, which reflexively questioned authority and wanted to die before they got old, now demonizes anyone that dare question their authority (see The Rush Limbaugh Media Lynch Mob) and will do anything to live forever. But there is a new counterculture in the land, and their calling card is liberty, as James Hudnall at Big Hollywood argues. And a persuasive case he makes:

The counter-culture wanted to be free of what they considered a constricting, conformist society. Yet what did they turn it into when they got old and assumed power? They created a society more restrictive and conformist than that “evil” repressive 50s culture they love to vilify. They have become the new scolds. They have ushered in an “Age of Unreason” where you have to do what they say or else. They tell us what we can eat, what we can say, what kind of car to drive, what kind of light bulbs to use, on and on. They lecture us about our “carbon footprint” and “sustainable lifestyle”. They claim that the government, which they have spent the last eight years railing against, can solve all our problems if we abdicate what’s left of our personal freedoms, without question.

He puts it at its concise best here:

It’s not a conservative vs lefty argument. It’s freedom lovers verses the statists. It’s liberty vs tyranny.

Indeed it is. And the answer is not to sit on the sidelines and criticize, which conservatives have done since, well, since the original counterculture reared its drug-addled head. Instead, it is to encourage young liberty-minded individuals to feel free to make careers in professions of cultural influence, as Mr. Hudnall has done as a writer.

 

We’ve founded an organization, The Culture Alliance, toward that end. Imagine some of the energy and money and focus that the right has poured into politics over the last 50 years focused on culture. We’d better, because if not, tyranny’s noose will only grow tighter.

–Mike D’Virgilio