I attended two country clubs. Each time, I was a guest of a member.
People can attend upscale country clubs if they have the financial means to do so.
That means either they were born affluent, become affluent, or befriend an affluent person who can bring you in on a guest pass.
It is elite, but accessible to a wide variety of people.
I discovered that the liberal world I grew up in, Brookline Massachusetts, 1970's and 1980's, was an elite, but it was not accessible to all.
Someone always had to lose. There was a sub-movement to desensitize, break down the walls. This sounds good when giving more opportunities to talented members of minority groups.
But this included breaking down the walls of one's personal boundaries, ie, grooming for sexual liberation, and it included plotting offense against conservatives and traditionalists.
The current backlash against what liberalism has become is because we grew up in it and know its goals - it is decidedly not to live and let live, but to desensitize. From the feminist who took the abortion pill on air, to the so called Women of the Wall group who stage provocations at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, liberalism has become an act of provoking anything they declare to be the establishment.
What they cannot fathom is that there is no establishment. That is a myth to keep people in a state of agitation, resentment, bitterness, ready to engage in social activism in opposition to an imagined Other.
The so called main prayer area of the Western Wall in Jerusalem is actually a tiny fraction of the Wall. The whole Robinson's Arch area went unused, there are areas in the Arab open markets that have access to the Wall, and there are underground areas that are used for prayer.
This provocateur group is fueled by the myth that there is an establishment. That the main place of prayer is where traditionally observant Jews have gathered for milennia - but it is only the main area because people have built it. The alternative groups could very well gather at the open Robinson's Arch area, which is actually more visible from many vantage points, or find more private places to gather.
Their leader said that they want to "see and be seen", a voyeuristic attitude that contradicts the inspiration for prayer.
They have been told that their loud hand clapping, yelling, screeching, waving their books in the hair, dancing, is disturbing the prayers of the traditionalists, but those who register this complaint may not fully understand that to disturb is precisely what the modern liberal wants to do.
Eighth grade, Runkle school, Brookline Mass, 1894. Michelle (not her real name) complained that the history teacher would stand disturbingly close to her. Another male teacher would joke with her that when she grown up, he wanted to marry her. She was bothered by this. But that was the point, to desensitize the boundaries between men and women.
According to the feminist who took the abortion pill on camera, she admitted that she is at odds with pro-choice feminists who at least admit that abortion is a serious decision to make, she declares that abortion should be absolutely no big deal, not disturbing at all.
Here is her quote: "There seems to be a concern that the process of taking the pill was not done with grave contemplation. People think it needs to be something that’s hard to do (ie - disturbing), and is traumatizing in some capacity. Some folks have been upset that it was “so callous.” It’s interesting that there are people who totally support abortion but believe it should be something that’s private and serious (read - disturbing) with your doctor. There’s this culture around what abortion should be like, and how it should feel that really dictates the narrative about the procedure."
She knowingly disturbed in order to desensitize. Dull the emotions that declare that a boundary has been breached.
She adds that it should be just fine to use abortion as a form of birth control.
To cause disturbance is to desensitize basic decent boundaries - of modesty between men and women, of respect for holy sites and ritual, of respect for human life.
That is what liberalism has become, and that is why there is a backlash headed by those who grew up in it.
So to be a liberal today is to think that you are part of an elite, but it is not the elite of a country club, but of a clique that disturbs, provokes, and offends.
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