Liberalism doesn’t necessarily maintain itself

At dinner last night a friend's comment about "being right and being ignored" reminded me (somehow) of this conversation between Cass Sunstein and Tyler Cowen

In particular,

COWEN: Now, your new book On Liberalism is primarily a defense of the liberal concept, but if someone asks you, what’s the most likely scenario for liberalism being self-undermining, what’s your worry?

SUNSTEIN: Low probability. The likelihood is that we’ll be undermined by anti-liberal and illiberal forces, not self-undermining. I think it’s fair to say or to worry that liberalism doesn’t create the conditions for its own self-perpetuation, so it’s not as if it’s self-undermining, but it doesn’t necessarily maintain itself [emphasis added]. The reason is that a society that is flourishing needs a lot of stuff in it, including norms of cooperation, norms of charity, norms of mutual support. Liberalism, in my view, doesn’t undermine those things, but other forces can undermine them, and it’s not clear liberalism has the resources to respond.

Given the times we are in, I do very much worry about our not having the resources to respond.

I enjoy the "Conversations with Tyler" podcast. The participants mostly assume you know what they know and, since I don't, this results in me very often pausing the audio and searching for a primer on what was just said.

My RIPTA support letter

My letter to my local state Senators and Representatives to support RIPTA.

I am hoping you can help RIPTA get the funding it needs to avoid the draconian cuts to service that are being proposed.

I am lucky in that I can work from home and only commute to my employer's Providence office a few times per month. Nevertheless, I still incur the costs of operating a car here in RI. The golocalprov.com 2022 article reports that it cost over $3000 a year to operate a car here. With average repair costs in the $150 to $250 range (which, given my recent experience, is higher now).

https://www.golocalprov.com/business/rhode-island-is-new-englands-most-expensive-state-to-drive-in-says-report

When I first started working for my current employer I took the 65x RIPTA bus each day. The ticket cost was very low, $2, and the bus was always full over the course of its route from Salt Pond to Kennedy Plaza. If I drove I would have had not only the car operating expenses, but also the $15 a day parking fee. Parking alone would be over $3000 per normal working year.

I can't image what it would feel like to face a $6,000 per year cost of living increase. An increase solely due the state of RI reneging on its commitment to fund public transport for all Rhode Islands. I hope you can help convince our legislators and governor of the importance of adequately supporting RIPTA.

Reneged is the right word because the Transit Forward RI program is less that 5 years old!

Update: RIPTA significantly cut route service freqency. It was already bad and is now aweful. Overcrowding is also causing buses to skip stops as they don't have capacity.