Posted on 09/02/2017 7:06:31 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Society is society. Government is government. They are two entirely distinct, and completely separate things.
Not in the land of Progressivism, however. For progressives, society is government and government is society. They are equally the same and there is no possible distinction. You can routinely see the rotting husk of this when someone proceeds to inform you that "they believe society should do x or y" but when talking of x or y they are instead referring to government action. "I believe that we as a society should take care of the poor, and that's why I support {insert name of welfare program here}".
But sir, you're not talking about society when you made that statement. You specifically excluded society from that statement, and you inserted government.
How can it be that progressives get this so wrong? It all goes back to the word "social". That's the key. Progressives are collectivists, which means that they are incapable of truly interpreting individual action and moreover, they suspect individual action. They have contempt for it. How often have you heard that one man cannot make a difference?
In the progressive's mind, humans are a "social" animal. Now, a progressive wants you to believe that when they say humans are "social" animals, that they merely mean you like to sit at Starbucks and shake people's hands, talk of sports and trifle things, exchange stories of yours and others' families and friends. You're being sociable! That's not what they mean. They have a dual word definition here. They mean collectivism, which is far more sinister. And you can easily prove it. So by "social justice" what they mean is "Starbucks justice"? It's a nonsensical thing. Of course they do not mean that. But if you were to say, "collective justice" - Now you're on to something.
Now, how do I know all off this is true? It's all in the progressives writings. Some progressives are more descriptive than others, but one progressive, Lester Ward, really sums this up well. In his book "Applied sociology: a treatise on the conscious improvement of society by society", he writes the following: (page 337)
When we say that society does anything we mean of course that it does it according to some settled method of social action. Society of course is an abstraction, but it is one of those abstractions that are always doing something. Society always possesses an organization, and it is this organization that acts. It would be as reasonable to object to the statement that an army does anything. An army is an abstraction in the same sense that society is such. It is an organization capable of doing much, and this is all that is meant by the action or the work of society.
Now, note how many times you see the word 'society' in his paragraph. I count 5. That's just one paragraph! But note what the title of this section is (for those of you who clicked the link) - Attractive Legislation!! And more of page content talks about representatives, he talks about the Russian government, autocracies, and much more.
He is thoroughly using the words 'society' and 'government' interchangeably here. All progressives that I know of do this. This is one of the biggest issues of all why progressives cannot understand and do not like America.
So, here is the formula: (Note again, the passage I quoted from Ward)
Society possesses an organization. Society's organization is an organization that acts. Therefore, government is society. They are one in the same. There may not be anything more foundational than this for progressivism. This also explains why progressives get so much other things wrong.
Why does a corporation exist? Well obviously, a corporation exists to create jobs. It's a social organization, and society has organizations in order to do things. Society has organizations that act. But, but, but! Let's not forget, that all corporations are subjugated to the one true societal organization that acts. That's why government must control corporations. Society's acting organization makes proxies out of these other little acting organizations.
And what of non profit organizations? How many of them do nothing but political activities? In order to build up the organization of all organizations, government, non profits are completely justified in organizing dead voters, organizing illegals, Mickey Mouse and Mary Poppins are registered voters; - did you vote three times? Vote again! Whomever and whatever and however the big organization of society can make the big organization bigger, it is all justified. Big government is purity.
What of churches? Or should I say, social churches/social religion. No, churches are not places for you to worship your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! That's bigotry. The real magic of churches is that they are a great club! Yeah, and from churches we can make government bigger! It's the big organization of society. Churches don't need to do anything, they don't need to be charitable, we can have government do it all.
And what about individual charity? Why is it that progressives are the least charitable individuals on the planet, but act as if they are the most charitable and YOU are the greedy sob? It's because you only gave a couple thousand dollars. The progressive? They gave millions and billions and trillions of dollars in charity. You couldn't have possibly have given more than they did. But if you would just give all of your money to society, to the big organization that acts, you could be charitable too.
This also explains how it is that progressives come to see all of us as groups. You Christians over there, you unemployed over here, you have groups of hispanics, and the this group and the that group and the Rotarians, the Moose and the Elks, there's the gays, the employed, union members and non-union members, and any other group you can name. All groups are equal you know. We are all groups in the big organization of society.
It all stems from the fact that they, the progressives, do not see society as distinct from government. They see them as exactly the same.
What of our Founding documents? To a progressive, our founding documents are a great contradiction. Perhaps, the ultimate contradiction. You want "we the people" but you also want government limited? This cannot be! For the progressive, government is the people. Government is society. Government is everything. "We the people" means to the progressive that the American government needs to be the biggest government ever known in the history of mankind.
But those of us who are not collectivists, we see "we the people" and we realize "yes, ---------->I<---------- must do these things. Me. I should not be lazy, I should get off the couch, I should not wait for someone else to do it. I shouldn't connive some trick to get government to do it. I should do it. Right now. Because me, because I, because of my individual action, I am making society better".
And you can see this in play in real life. What happens when progressives protest? The scene gets trashed, people get raped, graffiti painted, and police cars get defecated on. Heck, even sometimes bombs get thrown.(See Weather Underground) Who cares, government will clean the paint off, put the fires out.
But what happened at the Tea Parties? The grounds were cleaner when the Tea Partiers left than when they first arrived. Why is this?
It's because of the individual making society better, despite government. I can speak to this first hand because I did this myself. I didn't wait for some park ranger or government official to walk by and clean up that empty paper cup for me. I bent over all by myself, picked up that paper cup, and I walked over and threw it in the trash without having to be told to do so.
I did it because it was the right thing to do. It wasn't my trash. But so what? It needed to be done. Progressives do not think this way. That's society's job. (That's government's job. See what I mean.)
"We the people" wasn't a celebration of the biggest government ever known for the Founders, but for progressives it is, because society is government and society "has an organization" that acts. For myself, I agree with the Founders, "we the people" was and is an indictment of government. Government merely gets in the way and only makes things worse.
“It’s because of the individual making society better, despite government. I can speak to this first hand because I did this myself. I didn’t wait for some park ranger or government official to walk by and clean up that empty paper cup for me. I bent over all by myself, picked up that paper cup, and I walked over and threw it in the trash without having to be told to do so.
I did it because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t my trash. But so what? It needed to be done. Progressives do not think this way.”
I was walking with my leftist friend in DC after a storm.
I picked up some branches partially blocking his street and put them in a pile by a curb.
He became angry.
He as a renter didn’t directly pay a cent in property taxes.
As he sees it, having the city pick up branches is a “free” service that also provides local people with jobs.
The fact that his neighbors would have to drive carefully for about a week to avoid the branches didn’t matter.
Liberals deny God and elevate the state to its place. When the state is your faith, your source of all good and morality, of course you don’t want anything else to exist as a competitor or outside of it.
And how is it that some social 'conservatives' confuse "society" and "government"? Some argue that government must ban certain vices because those vices are harmful to society.
I know a farmer who did exactly that. Said he was just gonna build a fence to keep out the noise. He was also the man living next to them. Lol.
Some ancient income taxes:
“some specific instances of the Mesopotamian tithe, taken from The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Vol. 4 ‘E’ pag.369,:
[Referring to a ten per cent tax levied on garments by the local ruler:] ‘the palace has taken eight garments as your tithe (on 85 garments)’’...eleven garments as tithe (on 112 garments)”
“The tithe is specifically mentioned in the Books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The tithe system was organized in a three-year cycle, corresponding to the Shemittah-cycle. These tithes were in reality more like taxes for the people of Israel and were mandatory, not optional giving. This tithe was distributed locally ‘within thy gates’ (Deuteronomy 14:28) to support the Levites and assist the poor.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe
Then you would be incorrect. Some of those listed items are the jurisdiction of local and state governments.
Imagine you live on a $1.2 million five-acre estate backing to farmland
Not the business of the Federal Government but zoning is the business of local government.
Imagine if your farmer neighbor decided subdivide 10 acres that lovely farmland into a 30-tarpaper shack per acre subdivision
Not the business of the Federal Government but zoning is the business of local government.
Many of your new neighbors would have kids
Not the business of the Federal Government or state government.
If you had a public school system it would become vastly overcrowded
Not the business of the Federal Government but public school education is the business of state and local government.
Maybe the new neighbors might have motor vehicles
Not the business of the Federal Government but vehicle registration is the business of state government.
They might consider auto insurance a luxury
Not the business of the Federal Government but mandatory liability insurance is the business of state government.
Many might also be lousy drivers. One might make a big impression into the back end of your new Mercedes
Not the business of the Federal Government but vehicle operation is the business of state government.
Madison in Federalist No. 45: The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
The left you observe today didn't exist in 1913. Who, in 1913, would object to a 1% tax on income over $20,000 when the average income was less than $1,000 a year?
Few would. But voters in the Northeast weren't that crazy for it because they were the people who had the most money. They saw it as a plot to take away their money.
It was exactly that, the first "soak the rich" agenda. Who is rich and who decides who is rich was the question then and is a question now.
Earners considered rich in 1913 earned around $3,000 annually.
Earners considered rich in 2013 earned around $300,000 annually.
None of the $3,000 of the 1913 earners income was subject to tax.
Virtually all $300,000 of the 2013 earners income is subject to tax.
Keep in mind, only the amount over $20,000 was subject to the 1% tax. The next bracket after the 1% tax bracket on incomes over $20,000 was $500,000. Income over $500,000 was subject to a 5% tax.
The IRS administrating America's tax code currently collect 97% of taxes from the top 50% wage earners.
Not only do the wealthy pay their fair share, they pay everybodys fair share.
Back in the day, a Civics teacher gave a homework assignment intended to teach - as the teacher smugly said the next day - that “society” meant nothing other than “government.” At the time, I did not accept the teacher’s notion, but I did not then know that the very start of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense puts paid to that idea:SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Socialists love to use euphemisms - society when they mean government,liberal or progressive" when they mean socialist, and so on.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .
I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.
And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.
So, you didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen? Yes - but that somebody else was not government. The somebody was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly.
Government planning is merely interference in societys subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government planning is a paper tiger.
Their writings from that time period prove otherwise.
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