Posted on 12/22/2016 2:22:21 PM PST by ProgressingAmerica
Specifically, the science that progressives are rejecting is Newtonian in nature. I'll explain:
In the book Constitutional Government in the United States, Woodrow Wilson wrote the following:(page 57)
Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Fortunately, the definitions and prescriptions of our constitutional law, though conceived in the Newtonian spirit and upon the Newtonian principle, are sufficiently broad and elastic to allow for the play of life and circumstance.
To be even more specific, what Woodrow Wilson is doing as he is actively inventing the concept of the "living constitution", is holding up Darwinian science over Newtonian science. Darwinian, as in, "making progress", as in, it can be changed at will depending upon circumstance or interpretation. Most people falsely believe that "evolution" is confined to battles between the religious/irreligious and/or about the small changes that occur in biological animals. All of these things are true, but the most important aspect here is ideological evolution.
The idea that evolution is the opposite of revolution, is the least talked about aspect of evolution.
If you want to achieve a totalitarian state, you simply don't need a revolution to do it. You can have ideological evolution and do it. A revolution moves you from A all the way to Z in one step. Ideological evolution, however, moves you from A, to B, evolves to C, evolves to D, to E, to F, G, H, I, J, etc etc etc until you find yourself at Z.
That's progressivism. They "make progress".
Now, I went a little further in explanation than I originally wanted to, but that's ok it's important information. As to what I quoted from Wilson on page 57, he writes something nearly equally as important on page 55, which allows me to drive this point home.
The government of the United States was constructed upon the Whig theory of political dynamics, which was a sort of unconscious copy of the Newtonian theory of the universe [see: Newtonian government]. In our own day, whenever we discuss the structure or development of anything, whether in nature or in society, we consciously or unconsciously follow Darwin; but before Darwin, they followed Newton. Some single law, like the law of gravitation, swung each system of thought and gave it its principle of unity. Every sun, every planet, every free body in the spaces of the heavens, the world itself, is kept in its place and reined to its course by the attraction of bodies that swing with equal order and precision about it, themselves governed by the nice poise and balance of forces which give the whole system of the universe its symmetry and perfect adjustment. The Whigs had tried to give England a similar constitution.
Now, make no mistake: This is Wilson complaining. He is whining about the fact that the Constitution was founded using the Newtonian theory; that it has checks and balances using the Newtonian model. As a progressive, they want something they can mould and remould any time they please. Also, his use of planets as an example is huge. Wilson is more offended by the checks and balances than anybody will ever know, and I include myself in that. He wrote about it repeatedly.
But at the end of the day, he is rejecting science. A science denier. Woodrow Wilson is saying that Newtonian physics, gravity, etc., that's not good enough as a role model for governmental structure.
Woody Wilson was one of the first high level pols to support the left wing, Communist, agenda. He pretty much initiated the Marxist plan to overthrow our Constitution that was kicked to the curb last November 8. One hundred years of scheming and planning shot to Hell by an avaricious harridan with only personal power on her mind.
Woodrow Wilson and his “Progressives” were no more than Marxists in disguise. This was the government that gave us the 16th, 17th and 18th amendments, all of which are trash.
The 18th was repealed but we still need to repeal the 16th and 17th to return our nation to a Republic.
The real difference between left and right here is that our side wants to improve it slowly and carefully through the prescribed means, understanding that there are unintended consequences and perverse interests that are likely to make things worse if one cheats and rushes the process through legal fictions and what not.
That's more or less where Wilson ended up, but that's not where he started out.
19th century Europe identified the abstract theories of natural rights (Newtonian, Whiggish) with the French Revolution and its violence. They (Burke, Hegel) wanted to get away from a mechanical theory of society and move to an "organic" developmental or evolutionary model.
The idea was for society to evolve naturally according to its own inner nature and not be forced by rationalistic or mechanistic efforts to remake society. Wilson's teachers thought that way and the young conservative Wilson picked up on their thinking. Society was supposed to evolve naturally and not according to some rationalistic blueprint. Darwin was another influence pointing in the same direction.
At some point, though, Darwinian and Hegelian thinkers like Wilson and Dewey began to think that intellectuals could influence and shape the direction of evolution, and what was a conservative way of thinking became progressive and activist. Wilson's present day critics pit him against the natural rights thinking of the American Revolution and find him wrong or deficient, but the debate when he was young had more to do with the French Revolution.
This is the reason, the reasoning and the method by which the left can easily find the right to murder, the innocent unborn but not the right to self defense & bear arms.
Our Founders understood the nature of themselves and their fellow mankind far better than we appreciate. Society flexes, waxes & wanes within trends, customs and fads; this is nothing new. What was novel, was the formation of government, impervious to the lust/greed/desires of the electorate, itself.
More importantly, we believe in government by consent of the governed, and they believe in government by decree.
of the enlightened, as evidenced by beliefs similar to theirs.
They certainly have no use for the opinions of those scruffy plebes.
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