Also, as usual Charles has things precisely backwards.
He suggests, in effect, that if people abandon the tendency to governmentally enforce their whims on political minorities who behave differently, political conflict will increase.
He cites as evidence for this the fact that there is today less local discretion (or something), ignoring that correlation does not imply causation. I would argue, in contrast, that whatever the status of legislation and legal precedent, law enforcement in general has become more hyperactive than ever before, which means that even as some laws are "nationalized" and subsequently liberalized, more and more people are being prosecuted for violating the remaining laws than ever were in the past. And, each one of these people who is prosecuted and convicted not for a
malum in se offense, but for a
malum prohibitum, represents a victim of one group enforcing their whims upon another.
The modern development of the idea that the law must be a self-actuating and self-justifying instrument is partially responsible for the hyperactivity in law enforcement. (This idea, by the way, is fundamentally evil.) I think the secondary mechanism is obvious: people striving to take control of a single device by which they can simultaneously impose upon others,
and protect themselves from such imposition, inherently pits tribes against one another, and increases factionalization and discord in society. Of course, all this adds further to the "hyperactivization" of police, thus creating a vicious cycle.
So, I do agree with Charles that there is conflict within society. But what he tacitly proposes -- to amplify the power of local majorities to impose their whims absent meaningful aggression -- will serve to encourage the problem we've identified. And really, all of this because he's terrified of copulation in the park.
(What was that word again? Oh yeah: puerile.)
Notice I did that without a wall of text or other forms of windbaggery.
