Woooo, it's fightin' time! Not really, the overwhelming majority of this is for posterity, and the questions mostly rhetorical. I don't think anyone on the left (except maybe like full-blown tankies?) believes that there should be significantly less "personal responsibility", or that it's not important. There are certainly some issues with the fairness (however you wanna measure it) of our meritocracy, but even a world with e.g. universal basic income wouldn't completely eliminate meritocracy. I'm still not sure we're ready for UBI yet, but I digress. There are plenty of other principled arguments in favor of "personal responsibility", besides. Why attempt a debate with someone who demonizes a school of thought or economic theory that they can't even define, and routinely ignores all self-contradiction? In what scenario, in what medium, am I going to meaningfully change the way that they feel? Because I think you're right, and Haidt, too. It's emotionally-driven, with a huge amount of ego baked in. Not exactly conducive for debate. To most in favor of "greater individual-level rights and freedoms", the actual sentiments behind it are "I should be able to do whatever I want, but not you, you have to do whatever I want, too." Like "libertarian intellectual firebrand", Ben Shapiro, passionately in favor of federally banning abortions. So it's no surprise that Trump, the most selfish prick possibly ever, unified so many of these people and gave them license to further wallow down into the muck of poisonous behavior. Do I trust these people, at an individual level? Some of them, I guess, but isn't one of the main reasons we have a government because we can't trust everyone at the individual level? Do the democrats have problems with how pathetically badly they sell themselves and their policies? LOL, hoooo boy, do they. But the ones doing it best are now the targets of violent imagery and racist hate speech. Does some SJW-ing go too far? Yup. But it seems like more of a grassroots reaction on the left to the ongoing radicalization of Trumpism, which is stoked systematically from the highest levels of power. I truly hate stepping back and realizing that I'm now often forced to argue largely in favor of the status quo. Wouldn't feel the need if fascism wasn't about to kick in the country's front door. I'm sure many people will scoff at this, but I think it's largely already over. Trump will run in 2024, and one way or another, he'll destroy any semblance of democracy. Here's a more immediate prediction: I think Trump will decide to be next Speaker of the House. Why wouldn't he? Right now he's probably exploring whether or not legislation can be drafted that prevents Twitter from banning the official Speaker of the House account or something. Anyway. You're absolutely right, America is incapable of having a productive discussion on anything as top-level and abstract as the relationship between the governing and the governed. Sorry, but I think there exists one side of our political spectrum that bears an overwhelming amount of the blame for that. I am very much in favor of a constitutional convention, in principle, but I can't imagine what the current batch of clowns would try to use it for. Something entirely unconstitutional, surely. They claim it's for enacting term limits, I'd be for that. I imagine the dems would find another way to leave it all up to Joe Manchin, who would vote for going home and maybe thinking about things later. Maybe. Feel free to really tear into me, if you like, btw. It's all good :). I spend wayyyy too much time trying to figure out how to break through the walls of Trumpism, and I'm still empty-fucking-handed. edit: I should also be clear: Trump's base has been lied to. It's partially their fault for not recognizing that, but more than anything else, I pity them. They don't want my pity, trust me. But yes, it's very difficult to put much trust in people operating under a set of outright falsehoods. edit2: I'm not even going to react to Word Salad Dad's speculations on Absolute Godrights, I have to get back to falsifying global warming data and I have a Zoom meeting w/ Soros at 9:30fight me