The chains of habit are too weak to be felt
Until they are too strong to be broken

Eventually, controlled by his habit(s) all reason departs and passion and will alone strive for dominance. Absent reason to constrain them he then brings doom upon himself:

Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself!

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

The Modern is a slave to his own passions, desires and vanity. Civilization is reduced to a construct to satiate passion. Rejection of Logos/Christ has a very steep price indeed.

As for liberalism being Puritanism’s spawn, it is entirely true. Only it is worse than Puritanism. The Modern Liberal Hegemony functions by the exact same principles of moral imposition that the Cronwellian Dictatorship used. The only difference is the MLH has lost its religion. As perverted as Cromwell’s understanding of Scripture was, at least in some twisted way he was genuinely trying to follow the teachings of Christ. The MLH doesn’t even have a twisted and perverted understanding of Christianity. They’ve simply thrown it out entirely.

http://www.amazon.com/Puritans-Empire-Charles-A-Coulombe/dp/0979160057/ref=pd_sim_b_1

But as you point out Michael, “Liberalism” the last of the Modernist theological/political systems, stands alone. Judging by its advocates it is a spent philosophy with no substance anymore.