A Vote for “Progressives” is a Vote for Tired, Failed Ideas

Whenever the media high foreheads or anyone else labels “progressive” those politicians and agendas that any fair-minded person would term way-out-left zany liberal, my ears bleed. Letting liberals get away with pretending they are progressive is akin to wiping out an entire population and calling it, “ethnic cleansing.” Oh wait, thatis what they call it. Yet from the sound of it you’d think it’s some kind of Martha Stewart disinfectant instead of rampant murder. To control language is to control meaning.

Similarly, “progressivism” sounds jauntily forward-thinking but is actually a moldy graveyard of exhausted ideas, cousin to the long-dead tyrannies of the 19th and 20thcenturies. The progressive agenda of strong government control of society and the economy by administration “brilliants” who insist on regulating our lives because certainly they have our best interests at heart has worked out beautifully. Except wherever it’s actually been tried: in the Lenin Administration, the Stalin Administration, the Hitler Administration, the Mao Administration, the Pol Pot Administration, etc. Populations on the receiving end of the progressive agenda of the time—variously known as socialism, Communism and Marxism—rather than thriving, have instead perversely expired in huge numbers due to progressivism in action: 120 million or so of them, according to historians.

Anointing themselves “progressives” is simply a way for liberals to claim intellectual and moral ascendancy over the rest of us, especially Conservatives. “Progressive” is defined by Webster as “movement toward a goal or to a higher stage; advancements in general…continuous improvement; the development of an individual or group in a direction considered more beneficial than and superior to the previous level.” After all, who can argue with “progress?”

Progressives thus proclaim themselves the Fellowship of the Ring; the rest of us are the hairy, slobbering Orcs. They’re the entire enlightened magic faculty at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts; we’re the hopelessly dull Muggles. Interestingly, this is the only arena in which progressives embrace meritocracy instead of social leveling, because here meritocracy promotes their own superiority.

But progressivism is really all about the past, not the future. The first prominent politician to promote progressivism in America was actually a Republican - Theodore Roosevelt who became president in 1901. He greatly expanded the executive power, forcing more government control over the economy with regulation and anti-trust lawsuits. His legislative proposals included employer liability laws, government supervision of insurance companies and, most importantly at the time, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission power to regulate railroad shipping rates (The Hepburn Act) which in 1906 set a precedent for the interfering modern state.

Roosevelt also voiced the philosophy that would become modern progressivism, chastising “the malefactors of great wealth” (although he hailed from wealth himself), instigating class envy, and promoting graduated income and inheritance taxes that would happen later.

Much of the language, policies and thinking in his speeches and writings echo Barack Obama. He called himself the “steward of the people” and insisted he could exercise his executive right to do whatever benefited the nation – which he would decide himself without benefit of constitutional provision. Sound familiar?

As scholar and professor Jean M. Yarbrough in an article for the Heritage Foundation, “Theodore Roosevelt: Progressive Crusader” observed:

Roosevelt’s stewardship theory thus unmoored presidential power from the Constitution and made it directly accountable to the people. It is not uncommon today for progressives to give short shrift to constitutional questions or to cite phrases such as “We the people” and “the general welfare” rather than specific constitutional provisions to justify their proposals.

Today’s progressives feel entitled to determine what kind of healthcare 320 million people should have, to subsidize their favorite types of energy while punishing others, to use the IRS and other government agencies to silence political opposition, to decide which banks will prosper and which to shut down, how many millions of illegal immigrants to grant executive amnesty, to advertise for more people to apply for “food stamps” credit cards, and much more; all for “the general welfare.”

When his term ended in 2008, Roosevelt’s progressivism became even more Obama-esque prior to his third run for the presidency. He advocated emulating Europe in its pursuit of social welfare statism and creating the bigger government needed to run it. Roosevelt began to reject the American idea of “natural rights” and even property rights (“You didn’t build that!) In speeches he said Americans should “progress” beyond their concern with “legal” justice to a more “ethical” justice in which individual rights and especially property rights were subordinated to “duty” – the duty to take care of their fellows: wealth redistribution in Obamaspeak. When his radical ideas failed to win him the Republican nomination, he created his own party, the Progressive Party, and ran for president again in 1912. He lost, and the Progressive Party only lasted a few more years.

But zombie-like, the idea of command-and-control government never dies. Marxism, Communism and Nazism (The German National Socialist Party) are certainly more viral versions, but the foundation is the same: a group of governmental elitists convinced they know what is best for all of us, and willing to use bullets or guile to enforce their belief.

Because progressives exist in a realm light years above and beyond the common herd of humanity, it’s only sensible for the rest of us to allow them to take charge of our world. We are far too feeble-witted to make our own decisions and so they determine what kind of light bulbs we must buy (the squiggly kind that have destroyed American jobs because they are made in China as it turns out, plus they’re stuffed with lots of toxic mercury), what kind of food our kids must eat (sugar and other fatso stuff must go), what kind of car we should drive (whatever vehicle the government will pay us to buy), what kind of gas we use (ethanol, so corn product prices can go stratospheric and as an unintended consequence promote world-wide hunger), what kind of healthcare we must have (the pass-in-the-middle-of-the-night-so-we-can-find-out-later-what-it-is kind), and so on. And welfare checks are another way our benevolent dictators provide for us, demonstrating that government can do anything you can’t do better.

In reality, progressives are “regressives,” taking us backwards a century and more, not forward. But if you think that government’s magic beans will solve everything and long for bureaucrats to run even more of your life, vote by all means for the Democrats and their dusty, failed ideas. If not, go Republican while you still can.

Yes, the writer is correct! "Progressives" are, in fact, regressive and throwbacks to a time before the 1776 and 1787, when some imperfect persons or people were ruled by other imperfect individuals or groups of people.

Distorting commonly-used words and phrases in order to "fool" "the People" into surrendering their liberties is a bit of "chicanery" utilized by so-called "progressives" over the past several decades.

The current Administration and its handlers have become adept at that tactic.

The term "shared prosperity" is another such misuse of the language.

Using a commonly friendly word like "shared" to describe a government policy of force and coercion is despicable on its face. Then, again, isn't that descriptive of how all totalitarian regimes initially present themselves in order to gain power?

In the course of his research for "Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile" (Harper Collins), Joseph Pearch traveled to Moscow to interview the writer. The excerpt below is from that interview:

Solzhenitsyn: "In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion." Solzhenitsyn

Even the current President, at a National Prayer Breakfast, attempted to tie his policy of forced "sharing" to Jesus's appeal for voluntary charity.

Coercive "taking" power, when wielded against the citizenry by either the government alone (taxing), or in combination with another power (unions), is destructive of freedom and prosperity.

The following statement by Sir Winston Churchill, upon leaving office as Prime Minister in 1945, was prophetic for Great Britain, and as it turns out, the United States and the world:

"I do not believe in the power of the State to plan and enforce. No matter how numerous are the committees they set up or the ever-growing hordes of officials they employ or the severity of the punishments they inflict or threaten, they can't approach the high level of internal economic production achieved under free enterprise. Personal initiative, competitive selection, and profit motive corrected by failure and the infinite processes of good housekeeping and personal ingenuity, these constitute the life of a free society. It is this vital creative impulse that I deeply fear the doctrines and policies of the socialist government has destroyed. Nothing that they can plan and order and rush around enforcing will take its place. They have broken the main spring and until we get a new one, the watch wil not go. Set the people free. Get out of the way and let them make the best of themselves. I am sure that this policy of equalizing misery and organizing society--instead of allowing diligence, self-interest and ingenuity to produce abundance--has only to be prolonged to kill this British Island stone dead."

In the early days of America's experiment in liberty, its Founders warned of oppressive taxation by those elected to represent the people. Under their "People's" Constitution, the people were left free, and the government was limited.

The Bill of Rights is, itself, a simple and "common sense" Constitutional protection for "the People's" unalienable rights.

Citizens do not need a reinterpretation of its provisions by those who would use semantic maneuvers in order to pervert the principles and enslave "the People."

" If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the Union, then they will have accomplished all, that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of fife, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Justice Joseph Story (Final Paragraph of "Commentaries on the Constitution. . .. .")

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