By TheYellow&TheGreen
“The sectarian aesthetics once confined to Northern Ireland are re-emerging here at home”
Operation Raise the Colours has succeeded spectacularly. Lampposts across the country now bear the marks of defiance. The campaign has borne fruit, forcing Labour to tighten its grip on immigration by introducing digital ID. That debate deserves its own article.
This one is about something deeper. Something darker. The Ulsterisation of Britain.
Across our towns and cities, dividing lines are hardening, cultural, political and social. The sectarian aesthetics once confined to Northern Ireland are re-emerging here at home.
A new tribalism has taken root. The right has embraced identitarianism and with it the tactics and violence of collective ideology. Our streets are turning into battlegrounds. Symbols rise and fall in daily cycles of retaliation.
The left is no less tribal. It dresses its own divisions in moral language, but its identity politics is equally intolerant, demanding conformity and punishing dissent. The symbols may differ, yet the instinct to sort people into camps of virtue and vice remains the same.
From every corner of the collectivist spectrum, groups are organising, marching, preparing for confrontation. Each claims moral authority. None stands for individual liberty.
“we cannot ignore the material world or the reality of the situation. Individuals are being abused and assaulted, and private property is being targeted”
We are individualists by nature; we have always lacked the perspective or the experience to deal with sectarian politics. Yet we cannot ignore the material world or the reality of the situation. Individuals are being abused and assaulted, and private property is being targeted.
The question is not whether libertarians should take sides, but how we can stand apart, defending freedom and autonomy without becoming another faction in a growing civil conflict.
Regardless of how we feel about the other side or even our own, we must remember that there is a person on the other side, a person with feelings, thoughts and flaws. If we lose sight of that, we surrender to the same collectivist mindset we claim to oppose.
Liberty cannot survive in a world where people are dehumanised into tribes and enemies. It survives only when we recognise the individual, even in those we disagree with, as an equal in dignity and freedom.
That, above all else, is the libertarian line in the sand.
“Regardless of how we feel about the other side or even our own, we must remember that there is a person on the other side”
You can learn more about the Libertarian party at https://libertarianpartyuk.com/.
Originally posted on 24th October at https://www.facebook.com/libertarianuk/posts/the-ulsterisation-of-britain-a-libertarian-perspectiveby-theyellowthegreenoperat/1372713361150263/