richlind33: And only the immature equate freedom with an absence of restraint or consequence, because such a thing is impossible in an open system that is subject to the dictates of time and space
Except that alt-right imbeciles keep referring to this "free speech" absolute absolutely any time they face consequences, or have restraints imposed to them (laws against racist propaganda, etc). In fact, any criticism or sarcasm about any cultural product they identify to is perceived as an infringement on their "freedom of speech". So yeah, you may call immature this usage of "freedom of speech" as a justification to anything in any context, but don't imply it is marginal. It's being used as an absolute in this very thread.
richlind33: Rousseau addresses the "thugs" you reference in Political Economy -- our "leaders", who hold themselves to be above the law, and consequently fail to perform their most important function: to lead by example -- which is the source of the corruption you also reference. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you are so preoccupied with petty thugs, rather than the ones who are truly responsible for the deplorable state our world is in, because the answer would be of significant benefit to you.
In another thread, GOG's favorite neonazi is gloating about :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/20/suspected-far-right-thugs-attack-mayor-of-thessaloniki-greece-at-rally But apart from this, the problem is that 1) Rousseau's philosophy is generally wrong, because man is not particularly "good by nature" (and neither is the Noble Savage or whatever), 2) The leading thugs do not emerge in a void, they are validated by the petty thugs and those who justify them. Hitler is not nazism, nazism is the part of the population who supported him sufficiently to legitimize his reign and make it function. The ordinary people who went "hey he's not that wrong and anyway the others are worse". All the people in all of Europe who were enthousiastic about the rise of authoritarian nationalist governments in Italy, Germany, Spain, etc. It's a whole cultural climate, the normalisation of a certain outlook on life, identity and society. Without followers, a king is naked.
The world is not controlled by evil geniuses in secret lairs, or whatever narrative sounds familiar (and therefore believable) to videogames or comics nerds. Not by some big convenient dragon à la Soros, whose decapitation would bring peace and prosperity to the world. The world is simply what emerges from our collectivity. It's lead by the very products of our socioculture, by what we praise and offer sustainable legitimacy to. If anything, the big bad boogeymen are the conspirationist fantasy (à la "elders of zion") that distract us from what we are doing. The real problem is the continuity between us and the governments that represent us.
And by "us", I do of course mean the street creeps à la golden dawn (go tell their real life victims not to worry about it), but also the rest of us, the ones who echo and carry the worldviews that excuse and justify to various degrees their deshumanizing violence (institutionalized or not) towards people of selected skin colour or sexual orientation. The ones who justify obscene differencial of powers by praising a capitalist system which validates and glorifies inequality to an extreme (or a clunky alternative to this, which creates a bureaucratic but just as spectacular hierarchy of powers). The ideological breeding ground that normalizes a system of which inhumane leaders are just epiphenomenal manifestations.
But keeping a reflexive eye on this cultural environment seems too complicated. So people keep their eye on what they can grasp, what feels simple and alien. Oh noes, my new neighbour is a darkie. Oh noes, the gays are kissing. Oh noes, my videogame is mocked. Oh noes, the evil genius is pulling the strings of a world gone bad, we'd be so well without him. All of this avoids the simple mirror of "hey, how come I'm saying the exact same thing as the baddies were saying right before ww2" ? Nevermind. The baddies weren't ever amongst us. People are just the innocent victims of randomly popping evil leaders that probably nobody voted for. Or voted for reasons completely disconnected from the contemporary popular discourses. Or because of the hypnotic chemtrails of occult islamojewish trotskoreptilians.
And this is immensely exploitable, and exploited. All you have to do is ride it. Go either "look, huniepop is destroying the souls of our kids" or "look, the them they are censoring our huniepop's free speech rights" and follow with "this is super serious, vote for us, i understand how very serious is your very important concern, also trump putin sjw because cultural marxists transkillary, by the way". And we end up yet again with the leaders we deserve : our echoes materialized, their self-criticism bypassed.
All it takes is to believe that the real issue is not at our own level (the "petty thugs" level, the "public discourses" level), but either below (my videogaaame) or above (Ernst Stavro Soros, or whichever is fashionable), and follow those who point at them.