I continue to use nostr to flesh out ideas in real time. For a while this has been the case, but I want to express the following.

If I’m being intellectually honest, I can’t call myself a progressive anymore.

Labels (such as that one) are tools. When a tool no longer describes your thinking, you don’t owe it loyalty. I don’t fit with that group anymore. I’m more in the left libertarian/anarchism camp for sure. And the modern progressive movement has gone far more faith in technocratic regulation, redistribution via bureaucracy, “expert”-driven solutions, moral language without material empowerment, than ever before. I don’t believe in its solutions, or its leaders. Progressives used to be hyper focused on anti-war, occupy, and suspicion of concentrated power. Now it’s like the opposite.

For the record, I didn’t move right, I didn’t stop caring. I just stopped outsourcing my ethics and what I’m supposed to say or believe to institutions I no longer trust. I think more of us should do this, whether the “right” or the “left.”

That’s not regression imo, that’s maturity and following my intuitions as I navigate life and its social complexities.