Constitutional government advocates ("bigots!"). ~~~ The Constitutional order is an obstacle to progressives like Obama, who believe that government can change human nature if left unchecked.
Posted on 01/02/2013 7:04:08 AM PST by Kaslin
Progressivism in America has always been a thuggish ideology. It rests on the notion that laws require no evidence to support their implementation, that intentions are all that matter and that those who oppose "change" of the sort progressives like are morally deficient. Progressivism requires Americans to separate off certain groups in American life as evil -- the rich ("greedy!"), gun owners ("hooligans!"), traditionally religious people ("sexists!"), Constitutional government advocates ("bigots!"). It requires that certain Americans be cast as good -- racial and ethnic minorities, low income earners and women ("victimized!"), irreligious people ("rationalists!") and big government advocates ("experts!").
Progressivism in America is actually regressivism. Progressivism sends us back to a time when philosophical differences were seen as rebellion against God-given monarchic authority. It sends us back to a time when the law of the community invariably outweighed the rights of the individual, rather than building government on the basis of protection of individual rights.
And most of all, progressivism prevents any possibility of real progress. The goal of the progressive agenda isn't to allow people to live more prosperously, more happily, better. Progressivism has achieved none of that. In capitalist countries, today's poor live better than yesterday's rich; tomorrow's poor will live better than today's rich. In progressive countries, the goal is to obliterate the very categories of rich and poor. In practice, today's poor aren't as poor as yesterday's poor, but they live no better than yesterday's middle class. And the next generation's poor will live the same as today's poor. Stagnancy is the theme of progressivism in material terms.
But material progress isn't their goal. The progressive goal is "progress" in generating a new version of human nature. That is why progressivism embraces and promotes false distinctions between human beings. Progressivism cannot accept the premise of voluntary commitments between human beings -- that would imply that the current state of affairs is relatively ideal since it is based mostly on consent. Capitalism means that the rich aren't rich because of greed -- after all, all human beings are greedy. They're rich because they engage in more voluntary transactions that help both sides. People are people, and they make agreements. There is no possibility of change in human nature.
But this is anathema to progressives. Instead, progressivism must create enemies, opponents to the beautiful change in human nature that must result if we can only excise the evil in our midst. And so progressivism casts certain Americans as the others, who if curbed or eliminated, can be converted into wonderful human beings -- as defined by the left.
Barack Obama is the best messenger of this ideology. His philosophy on the fiscal cliff has been simple: condemn the rich for their greed, cast them out as lepers. Will falling off the fiscal cliff make us more prosperous? Of course not. Even Obama acknowledges that. But he insists that the rich must be taxed, for they are greedy. After all, he is only "asking them" (read: compelling them) to "pay their fair share" (read: foot all the bills associated with reshaping human nature). Republicans believe that prosperity cannot be accomplished by the IRS. But Obama instead casts them as representatives of those greedy rich, and thus fit for excision from the public debate, too.
On the gun control debate, Obama and his allies set up the same dichotomy between good and evil. Those who want more laws confiscating guns -- laws unsupported and unsupportable by evidence in decreasing violence and murder -- are good people. Those who don't are unconcerned about the slaughter of innocents in Sandy Hook. On religion, too, Obama promotes that dichotomy: the religious hate women, and therefore don't provide birth control to their employees. The irreligious love women and want them to have everything they need.
The left's thug ideology finds its ultimate spokesperson in President Obama. True material progress pays the price for implementing his vision of the universe. So does the Constitutional order, which is based on checks and balances designed to preserve rights in the face of non-altruistic human nature. The Constitutional order is an obstacle to progressives like Obama, who believe that government can change human nature if left unchecked.
But if left unchecked, it is the audacious self-righteousness of those like Barack Obama that will destroy the possibility of a better tomorrow for our children and grandchildren.
Down the road this could very well “explode” bigtime.
The progressive goal is "progress" in generating a new version of human nature.
That's exactly what it is. That's why Saul Alinsky dedicated his masterwork to Lucifer.
re: “The Constitutional order is an obstacle to progressives like Obama, who believe that government can change human nature if left unchecked.”
Agreed. The Constitution is a document based on the Biblical reality that all men are sinners and are therefore bent toward sinning. This is why the Founders implemented the three branches of government to divide its power, so that no one branch (or person, i.e the executive) would yield too much of that power.
This was based on the fact that when human beings or a single human being is given absolute power over others, those same human beings wind up oppressing everyone else - why? Because “all men are sinners. . .”.
Progressives. . . or rather Communists, real believers, think that they can wield this absolute power for the benefit of society and create a Utopian world. Practical Communists, like Obama and Lenin, have no illusions about real “belief” or creating a utopian society - they just WANT total power. They and all those like them want to lord their power over others. They enjoy tyrannizing everyone else.
Many of them also feel ENTITLED to tyranize others,
because of their own sense of superiority.
“Conservatives say that they are ready to fight Obama on the still-looming federal borrowing limit. They had better be ready to take it all the way and actually start shutting down the government. The second-term Obama on display in the “fiscal cliff” fight looks like a man perfectly willing to do exactly that.”
Constitutional government advocates ("bigots!"). ~~~ The Constitutional order is an obstacle to progressives like Obama, who believe that government can change human nature if left unchecked.
re: “Many of them also feel ENTITLED to tyranize others,
because of their own sense of superiority.”
Agreed.
Your post contained some of the concepts detailed in Sowell’s “Conflict of Visions”. Have you read it?
re: “Your post contained some of the concepts detailed in Sowell’s “Conflict of Visions”. Have you read it?”
I love Thomas Sowell, but no, I have not read it. Is it an article or a book?
Book. A must read. Followed by Vision of the Anointed.
His new one, “Intellectuals”, has some of the same stuff, some new stuff, but does not contain the “AHA!” moments that “Conflict of Visions” has.
After much hand wringing it has become so clear to me why I am constantly filled with a sense of dread. Beyond the obvious, which anyone with a scent sense of reality can see, I have realized that I AM THE ENEMY. Never before have I felt so vulnerable, so hated, so misunderstood!
Everything barry has on his ‘hate list’, I am.
White
God fearing
2nd amendment supporter
Capitalist
Conservative
and on and on and on.....
my ONLY saving grave may be that I am female.
As much as I loathed the clintons, I cannot say I ever felt I was to be destroyed by them and their vision of America.
I’m on the list too most likely and add in that I have several shortwave radios and police scanners. BTW, having a shortwave radio makes you a kook and a nut in their eyes. I’m also a ham radio operator too. Like you, as much as I loathed the Clintons, I did not have the same sense of fear then as I do now.
We are an entirely different Nation now than we were then, My FRiend. And the change has not been for the better.
re: “Book. A must read. Followed by Vision of the Anointed.
His new one, “Intellectuals”, has some of the same stuff, some new stuff, but does not contain the “AHA!” moments that “Conflict of Visions” has.
I will definitely read that one. Thank you for the info.
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