Reddit reviews The Tyranny of Liberalism: Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, Inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command

For anti-liberal books you may have to go far and wide, all the way back to Plato and Aristotle in some cases. I've read The Tyranny of Liberalism, which covers some of it, and these posts may have some hints; much of it comes from Thomistic thought which doesn't attack liberalism under that name. This one in particular is very apropro this year, as we see the Republican God embrace LBGT++ and gay marriage.

As for freedom of speech - we (in theory) have it in the USA, but as your examples show, it's not doing much for us. I think you've got the idea though - distributism is applied subsidiarity, and subsidiarity results in lots of authorities in different areas and spheres. So freedom of speech shouldn't be extended to prevent a Bishop from forbidding his priests to say Mass incorrectly, or to prevent you from throwing someone off your property who is yelling at you.

I do think that the correct response to "bad" speech is often going to be "good" speech. And sometimes good speech will result in death.

I should note that I think Aristotle is right about the size of a polity - about 100k max. I think distributism would lead towards that. More than that breeds all sorts of problems.

According to many traditionalist conservatives, the central tenet of liberalism is autonomy. Happiness doesn't really factor in so much because the highest good for the modern liberal, according to the traditionalist view, is the pursuit of individual preferences and desires insofar as one's pursuit does not infringe upon that of other autonomous individuals. Which explains why liberals are waging a secular jihad against all the received tradition, particular loyalties, and identities that are not freely chosen or are otherwise in conflict with the goal of equal satisfaction of desires.

This is clearly not the way to order a society. The logic behind liberalism doesn't distinguish the value between pursuing a lifestyle that leads to a happy outcome versus one that does not, as long as those outcomes are the result of autonomous decisions. If my choice is to cut my self off from all the meaningful social attachments that have traditionally been understood to lead to happiness and pursue a life of atomized hedonism, what liberal argument can stop me? I'd be miserable, but who are you to tell me what to do, shitlord? Unfortunately millions of people are doing just that and the consequences are plain to see. As James Kalb in his essay The Tyranny of Liberalism writes, "in the name of giving us what we want liberalism denies us everything worth having."

I found these books helpful in improving my understanding of liberalism:

The Tyranny of Liberalism by James Kalb

Against Liberalism by John Kekes

The blog I linked to is a good start, but for physical books The Tyranny of Liberalism might be a good start.

One of the things you'll find is that older works may use words differently - for example freedom now doesn't mean what freedom means for Aquinas. (For us freedom is license - ability to do whatever you want; for Aquinas it is the ability to choose and do the Good.)

> I'd love to have a list of references or at least critical works that led you to this then.

The Tyranny of Liberalism by James Kalb is the best reading I can recommend. Also, the author of this blog was my teacher IRL. He has a series of posts that gives Liberalism a much more comprehensive treatment than my paper.

> Also it seems your excruciating detail has left you emotionally invested in the thinking to the point that even with an unsolved case you can't admit you might be in error.

It's not that I'm emotionally invested. It's that Liberalism doesn't stand up to logic. I don't believe in Liberalism for the same reason I don't believe in square circles.

> "Objective evidence" is physical, observable, and measurable. It's used in scientific research and criminal investigations, rarely in philosophical discussions.

Objective is not a synonym for physical.

> Solve the above ambiguous case and we'll talk more. Until then your argument is refuted.

Except it's not. Lacking logically positivist verification criteria doesn't refute anything. Logical positivism is, after all, an error.

What I can tell you for sure is that you didn't tell me anywhere near enough about the situation to come to a right judgement. Where are the men? Who is the closest to death? How much chance of help is there? These are important considerations.