A theory.

[Scam of God]

I've been drinking a little, so I'm not even going to attempt to go into this with any real intricacy, but I've been thinking about something pretty heavily recently:

Like Roosevelt, I too believe in a "mysterious cycle in human events", though I do not believe it to be nearly so teleological as, say, orthodox Marxist historicity. In brief, it seems to me, democracies cycle through phases of extreme social oppressiveness and social permissiveness - for instance, the German during the Weimar era was undoubtedly more free than he was a mere ten years later, but probably no more so than a German of the 1960s.

It seems to me that this serves a purpose: the conservative era standardizes the radicalism of the liberal era, so that, rather than being something liberatory or radical or new, the "permissiveness" of the liberal era becomes an accepted part of the norm in the post-conservative era.

I've been thinking about this because it seems to me that America itself is about to enter a dark phase in its history, one which we today find repressive beyond measure. And the more I read about current events, the more it seems likely. But the thought comforts me, at least: though I may be dead when we reach the new permissive era, what seems against the grain today will be fully normative tomorrow. For every action, a reaction.

[Scam of God]

I see where you're coming from, but I tend to think we're entering a permissive phase really. Things like marijuana and gay marriage aber becoming much more accepted. The "dark age" were the 80s and 90s, IMO.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that reaction against Obama engenders a backlash so severe that it totally destroys at least all forms of cultural liberalness formulated post-1968.

[Scam of God]

Don't expect the next liberal re-alignment to look anything like the first.