… is from page 126 of the late, great Roy Childs’s June 1982 Inquiry essay, “The New Authoritarians“; it is reprinted in Liberty Against Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs, Jr. (Joan Kennedy Taylor, ed., 1994):
But in any case this cultural civil war is not so much an inevitable warfare over lifestyles as it is the result of two groups, liberals and conservatives, each trying to impose their own values by government action – that is, by force. In the past, conservatives tended to be in favor of laws enforcing segregation and establishing “separate but equal” schools, controlling sexual behavior, and banning abortion and even birth control. When the liberals came to power, they promoted sexual activity, bused school children to achieve “racial balance,” established affirmative-action programs and offered taxpayer-funded abortions. Neither side stopped to consider the simple solution to their cultural conflict: respect for individual freedom and individuals rights, which would permit anyone to live as he or she chose, but not at anyone else’s expense.
