Who are the Progressives?

This is going to be a humdinger of a rant, so if you’re not interested in listening to me go suborbital, you may want to skip this one.

Who are the Progressives?  They are the far left, extremist, even fanatical, wing of the Democratic Party, more or less.  Lacking the courage of their convictions, so unwilling to simply call themselves Socialists, they nibble away like termites at the studs and joists of America.  In pursuit of the goal of undermining America, destroying the structure so they can tear it down and built the shanty town they so desire, they use common ploys.  For example, a common ploy of Progressives intended to redefine “rights” is to misquote the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, cleverly omitting “by their Creator” from our universal declaration of rights.

I’m sure there are many good, decent, honorable people who consider themselves Progressives.  I have no use for the movement, or for most of those who call themselves Progressives.  I called them termites, now I’ll call them parasites on a society they hold in such contempt, yet want so much from.  In just a second, I’ll describe who these Progressives are, but first their relationship to the Democratic Party.

I was a born and raised Democrat, never even considered voting any other way until 2004.  From that point forward, the building drumbeat of omitted “by their Creators”, the increasing crescendo of “health care is a right”, the rising chorus of “we’ll have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it”s have taught me the lesson.  Progressives orthodoxy is not honest, at all.  They will not say simply what they believe (listen closely from 1:20 onward:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmiOEk59n8, then show me a Progressive who will give a straight answer to whether he agrees with President Kennedy, or rejects President Kennedy’s beliefs).

Finally, I am repelled by the Progressive orthodoxy on Israel and the Jews.  In declaring their anti-Zionism, these Progressives march right to the edge of the abyss, then fight with themselves whether to take the next step, to the point of flailing arms, trying desperately to regain their balance before they topple into the endless darkness of outright anti-Semitism.  Some of the more enthusiastic Progressive do topple over the edge, and even the most rabidly Progressive websites have to delete their posts, or risk exposure of their underlying agenda.

So who are these Progressives?  They fall into three groups.  First, the elites, including all the well known names.  These are the fame-traders of academia and entertainment who live above it all, but need more power.  These elites find their constituency among the next two groups.  Second are the genuinely befuddled liberals who have ignored the lessons of history and earnestly believe that government can just fix things up right quick for everyone.  Or are so guilt-ridden to the point of insecurity that they pitch in with the elites on the one hand, and the next group on the other hand.  Finally, the third group are the unfortunates who’ve made a hash of their lives, believed what they were told by the various Progressive Pied Pipers, and now believe that the only way to prosperity is if government arranges it for them.

There you have it, the 5th Generation of American Progressivism in a nutshell.  I have a current favorite example of how this all comes together.  Today, A. Huffington, posted the following:

“There will be many foreign policy takeaways from Egypt, but here’s an obvious one: invading a country, toppling its regime, destroying civil society, and then trying to put all the pieces back together with a ten-year occupation and a few trillion dollars turns out not to be the only way to increase the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Wired was more effective than warred.”

In this post, A. Huffington demonstrates the full range of Progressive orthodoxy.  First, she is now well and truly a media elite, depending on the guilty and the needy for her constituency (read the comments at her website some time; one guy told me that he could get Al Jazeera on Dish Network if he moved back home with his parents but that wasn’t worth it … omg … did you mean to write that, Dude?).  Second, she completely fails to consider that the overthrow of S. Hussein and the rapid institution of democracy in a nation with no history of self-determination may have set the stage for the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.  This may have been inconvenient to a predetermined conclusion, but failing to voice this thought is intellectually dishonest.  It turns an editorial into propaganda, and Progressivism and propaganda go hand-in-hand (write your own version of history, then repeat it incessantly).  And finally, the inevitable dishonesty of Progressives in inflating the cost of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ($1.1T over 10+ years, not “a few trillion”).  Progressives seem to be inherently incapable of honest accounting (and I’m not saying that Neocons are any better, but one does not excuse the other).

I’m not here to defend or attack our policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, only time will tell whether those were good decisions or not.  But to fail to acknowledge what is obvious to any objective observer is not an honest way to write the news.  And to misreport the cost is pernicious dishonesty.

If you are a Progressive and you disagree with these tricks and deceptions, then you are being used.  Do what you want, and I will do what I see is right and true and correct.  I will reject 5th Generation American Progressivism, not because it’s ineffectual, but because it’s dishonest.  There’s plenty of room in America for Socialists, even bigoted and ignorant Socialists.  That’s no worse than being a bigoted and ignorant Capitalist.  Just don’t think you’re going to fool me about what’s really being said.

G’nite all, and may God continue to bless America!

The 10th Amendment and States’ Rights

The ugliest era and bloodiest episode in American history swirled around claims of “States’ Rights”.  The States that would become the Confederacy claimed the inherent right to decide which federal laws to obey, and which to ignore, and further claimed to right to secede from the Union altogether.  Again, in the 1950’s, these same States used the “States’ Rights” argument to resist federal mandates for racial integration, and ultimately racial legal (if not socioeconomic) equality.  That is the history, and for a large segment of Americans, the 10th Amendment and the concept of States’ Rights is irredeemably ugly, threatening, and harkening back to a time of government approved atrocities.

For anyone intending to argue the case in favor of the 10th Amendment and States’ Rights, that is a mighty wall to climb.

Daunting as that task may be, it is essential for the survival of the United States.  Because a USA run from Washington, DC is doomed to failure and collapse, just as the USSR run from Moscow collapsed.  Both unions are simply too big, too vast, to run from a single central headquarters.  Any organization of that size has to rely on subordinate structures to run things, the headquarters cannot do more than coordinate efforts to minimize conflicts and contradictions.

Times change, and people change.  Ideas endure, but come in and out of fashion.  To cast the 10th Amendment and States’ Rights in a legitimate light, with full respect for the history, those concepts must be projected on the backdrop of today.  Racial equality is the law, everywhere.  Equal opportunity, civil rights, and voting rights are the law, everywhere.

And the federal government is in failure mode, everywhere.  The federal government is failing in its responsibilities for regulation and oversight.  The feds bear primary responsibility for the economic collapse of 2008-2010, the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill, tainted food, airline crashes, and most damning, a federal debt and unfunded liability situation that is guaranteed to cripple generations of Americans yet unborn.  Finally, on a spiritual level, the federal government is responsible for the demise of our manned space flight program, leaving us to rely on Russia to lift American astronauts into orbit.  How dare the federal government challenge private industry on anything when they have so deeply and utterly failed in their responsibilities?

The federal government is incapable of even performing its core functions.  Something must be done.  That “something” is, with eyes wide open to the potential for abuse, to push responsibility, authority, and resources back out to the government structures that are close to the problems and close to the citizens.  That is the reason that the 10th Amendment and States’ Rights is an issue of national survival.

It is natural for politicians to gather power and resources.  That’s just what politicians do, and nothing is going to change that.  We now have a national capital that has sucked all the power, and all the resources, out of the nation.  This leaves the States in financial ruins (for every dollar California sends to DC, they get 78 cents back), responsible for limitless ‘unfunded mandates’ (Medicade, etc.), and powerless to influence outcomes (17th Amendment).  What look like failures of State governments are in fact and in detail failures caused by the federal government.

The only way to salvage this situation is to reinstate a respect for and compliance with the 10th Amendment and States Rights (while maintaining a close and relentless surveillance for abuses).  The 10th Amendment is framed in terms of ‘rights’, but in fact it’s simply sound corporate organizational policy.  Distant and unresponsive government is very bad, local and responsive government somewhat less so.

One correspondent of mine claimed that the federal government is more trustworthy and moral than local government.  I asked (my own opinion set aside) whether that included the internment of Japanese, McCarthyism, the Viet Nam War, our response to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Iran-Contra,  Iraq and Iran, Abu Ghraib, Wikileaks and all the other well documented policies of our federal government?  I never got a response.  The claim that the federal government is more trustworthy or moral is completely disproved.  Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the federal government has been accreting absolute power since LBJ.

And this doesn’t even raise the issue of drug laws and the Gulag.

We know the history, and now we know the future.  If we continue to debase the intent of the 10th Amendment and States’ Rights, this nation will fail.  The sad truth is, it may already be to late.  But the last hope for salvaging any chance that remains is to re-empower the States, and that forgotten party, ‘the People’.  I do hope that you will consider these points, and one last parting thought: systems are perfectible, but people are not perfectible.  Any plan that’s intended to work has to work in the realm of real life people with real life flaws.

G’day, and may God continue to bless America!