And there you have it folk. Liberalism is coming to its own.

“Liberalism has failed, not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. As liberalism has become more fully itself, as its inner logic has become more evident and its self contradictions manifest, it has generated pathologies that are at once deformations of its claims, yet realizations of liberal ideology.

A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and of course expand liberty in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.”

― Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)

Reminds me of what someone said. Liberalism delivered what it promised, but it was the opposite of what most expected.

"Western civilization is a story of full bellies and starving hearts. Of a feast of information and a famine of truth. Of conveyor belts churning out processed food, conformity-enforcing media and power-serving culture. Enough food to stay alive but not enough sustenance to live."

"This is no civilization. It's a slaughterhouse. A fake plastic performance staged to funnel human life into the gears of an insatiable machine."

“Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”
― Gore Vidal

“Irony and cynicism were just what the U.S. hypocrisy of the fifties and sixties called for. That’s what made the early postmodernists great artists. The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates. The virtuous always triumph? Ward Cleaver is the prototypical fifties father? "Sure." Sarcasm, parody, absurdism and irony are great ways to strip off stuff’s mask and show the unpleasant reality behind it. The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, "then" what do we do? Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has now been done and redone. Once everybody knows that equality of opportunity is bunk and Mike Brady’s bunk and Just Say No is bunk, now what do we do? All we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing the stuff. Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving. There’s some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage.”― David Foster Wallace

“A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.”
― Robert Frost

Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide. When once this initial and final sentence is understood, everything about liberalism - the beliefs, emotions and values associated with it, the nature of its enchantment, its practical record, its future - falls into place."
― James Burnham, Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism

“America's political system used to be about the pursuit of happiness. Now More and more of us want to stop chasing it and have it delivered.” ― Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Hey, ChatGPT Write a poem about the irony of liberalism.

In the halls of grand Enlightenment, a spark was born,
A flame of freedom, fairness, lit to guide the forlorn,
A noble quest for liberty, a beacon 'cross the land,
To bind the chains of tyranny, with liberalism’s hand.

From lofty dreams of progress, they tore the veil of night,
The voice of reason, justice, sang in harmony and light,
And yet, the irony of fate, a twist of cruel design,
For within the heart of freedom, darker forces did align.

The seed of hope that bloomed, in liberal hearts it grew,
Gave way to strife and discord, as selfishness it knew,
We fought for rights and fairness, but shadows soon were cast,
The very freedom sought, now tethered to the past.

In markets free and open, the wealth of few did soar,
While countless souls were left to toil, their dreams locked in a drawer,
From lofty goals of equity, a bitter truth unveiled,
The irony of liberalism, a ship once strong, now sailed.

For in pursuit of liberty, we bargained and we sold,
The very essence of our hearts, compassion left untold,
And so, we find ourselves adrift, in seas of discontent,
The irony of liberalism, a tale of good intent.

Yet in the darkness, there remains a flicker, still alight,
A hope to mend the fractures and reclaim the noble fight,
To reunite in common cause, our dreams to re-engage,
The irony of liberalism, a story to rewrite on history’s page.

So let us forge anew, our bonds, our hearts, our fate,
To cast aside the shadows, and the greed that lies innate,
For in the heart of irony, a truth we still may find,
That liberalism’s spirit can yet heal the hearts and minds.