Thursday, March 23, 2017

What's the Difference Between a Liberal and a Progressive? Hint: This One's Gonna Kill You! (if you don't watch out)


I was startled to find a quote from Mark Steyn that, in referring to the rape in Rockville on a Fox television program, "This is the depravity of the political class. They’re basically willing to offer up their own citizens, 14-year-old schoolgirls and sacrifice them on the altar of diversity and virtue signaling and the shameless political posturing.”

This remark echoed and reinforced a theme I have been exposing for some months now and has led me to a new conclusion about my the waxing trend toward Human Sacrifice in the world today.

To explain this conclusion I need to take a step back and explain from the beginning.

The left acts as though it believes that human nature is naturally good and left to their own devices, people will be happy and content in a “natural” state. They ascribe all that is painful and even evil in life to flaws in “society”, “organized religion”, “morality”, “the culture” or any other target that exerts control over human behavior. This blameless image of the individual seems soothing and comfortable but the result is, anything but comfort. It leads to the idea that “freeing” the human spirit from those controlling institutions and forces is the way to achieve peace, health, enlightenment and happiness. Wishing only to make life better and more equal for all, they set about dismantling or (at the least, arbitrarily refashioning) all the structures and values that have evolved to maintain health, peace and equilibrium. 

Welcome to what the inverted logic of the left calls progress; they want to tear away the culture and safeguards and begin to replace them with socialism that resembles nothing so much as the egalitarian propertyless primitive hunter/gatherer groups in pre-tribal cultures. They want equality without considering that the outcome of equality is to bring all economic development to a standstill and redistribute wealth so that industrious and clever people earn no more than what the most indolent and incapable receive. They call this Progressivism. 

This is what fuels the zeal of “Progressives”. They feel they know what is needed and are willing to force people to agree to their view of things- whether they like it or not. When reality becomes impossible to ignore and the progress leads to conflict, chaos and inequality (as it inevitably  does in the real world), it is either blamed on individuals who are not progressing (kuffirs, counter revolutionaries or enemies of the state as the case may be), or it is blamed on whatever “system” is still in place. Revolution, suppression and barbarity often ensue. Any idea that contradicts the romantic egalitarian principles is suppressed - made politically incorrect. All collectivist governments are leftist; and they are all to some degree quite literally, murderous, totalitarian and nihilistic.

The right, on the other hand, behaves as if they think that human nature, and indeed the larger natural world as a whole, is the source of chaos and evil as well as good and harmony. They acknowledge that society, religion and culture are all merely tools that have evolved to put the individual into a condition whereby he and the larger society can prosper and be safe. Different cultural systems may have more or less success in the attempt to control and channel whatever energy, chaos and evil exists into productive or, at least, harmless endeavors. 

These opposite views of human nature and the nature of the world are the invisible but omnipresent forces that pit left wing and right wing against each other. There has been, a sort of compromise that was arrived at in Western Civilization. I refer to the particularly American brand of what I think of as Classical Western Liberalism- not to be confused with what is called Liberalism today. The founders of the United States were all liberals of some stripe in that they all believed in something that they called Liberty. This idea of human dignity and responsibility through Liberty found its expression in our revolution against tyranny and the nation that emerged from that revolution. Today,The Constitution of the United States stands alone in the history of humanity as the one concise system that has given rise to the freest, most prosperous in all human history.

So what is the difference between the liberals who founded our country and those who have inherited the name? There is confusion around the inexact application of the table “liberal” because there is a fundamental lack of understanding of where liberalism ends and progressivism begins.

The key difference between liberalism and progressivism is that progressivism requires the acceptance even the advocacy of human sacrifice as part of the “progress" toward the  “new (and improved) world” they imagine that they have the wisdom and mandate to force us all to “evolve into. 

This sacrifice takes many forms. Among these are:
  • The acceptance of terroristic atrocities as “the new normal”
  • The refusal to take and steps to prevent rapes and murders by stopping illegal immigration (as in Rockville)
  • The willful ignorance of the connection between Islamic scripture and modern Jihad.
  • The abandonment of U.S. officials and employees to danger and death in order to insulate the higher officials - esp during political campaigns (eg Benghazi).
  • The swallowing up of private relationships that are central to well-being and happiness by stifling bureaucracies (Obamacare)
  • The insidious growth of a dual standard of justice in which progressive politicians and their administrative lackeys (eg, Lois Lerner)are less subject to media exposure, law enforcement investigation and prosecution when they harm and betray citizens.

The "New Man”, the Caliphate and the "perfected societies" of Mohammed, Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and all the other promised utopias that were really dystopian houses of horror had that one thing in common with our American Progressive movement. Stretching back to Wilson (supporter of the KKK and popularizer of the concept of the “living constitution”), Sanger (Eugenesist) and Roosevelt (socialist nationalizer of private business) and led more recently by Obama (Open borders enabler and Islamist apologist) and Clinton (all of the above and “what difference does it make now anyway?”).

Their Ultimate Sacrifice, if we do not stop them is The Constitution and our Republic.

Here are my other two posts on this subject:
How my Little Girl Almost Became a Human Sacrifice
Human Sacrifice in the 21st Century- Surprise, it is Us!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Jerry, this article is just perfect. You tell it like it is and in a concise way. The "points" are well encapsulated and the whole structure excellent. Bravo! Best to you, Jan T

Guy Lipof said...

Thanks for the email notification. I do agree government's purpose is to protect its citizens first and foremost, and that we should be aligned with the values deemed important to our society, specifically life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I am completely with you regarding terrorism and the bogus sacrificial excuses framed by the regressive left, and I'm not keen on myself or my family/ friends being guinea pigs in testing a wonky ideology.

Regarding your bullet point on private businesses, I feel supporting a single payer health insurance system that runs along side private payers does not delineate someone as a "Progressive". There is a lot of data based on costs and population outcomes that shows our current majority private system is not performing as well as other high income OECD countries, see:

- http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective

Nevertheless, citizens of our great nation have the ability to influence what laws get passed by who they vote for. If healthcare is an important subject, then citizens should make their voices known. Improving healthcare outcomes and reducing ballooning costs is something that should be a priority, especially with a twenty trillion dollar debt.

Thank you again... Guy

lgude said...

Rousseau's "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains" rang in my ears as I read this post, and then his assertion that everyone was absolutely free yet subject to the general will as expressed by the majority of the people. Before Marx was born this notion of the general will had taken hold of the French Revolution and a succession of leaders saw themselves as justified in sending the heads of those those who they believed failed to accept that general will rolling into the basket that sat beside the guillotine. The basket of the deplorables as we now can appreciate. There is a direct connection between the general will and political correctness. Nay, it is deeper than that - the general will and political correctness are identical. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair tried to create a middle way Liberal response to the Neo Liberalism of Thatcher and Reagan. But the progressive left, the cultural Marxists, rejected them and supported Sanders and Corbyn in the UK. And Mrs. Clinton? She created her destiny when she refused to take responsibility for Benghazi both at the time and later when she asked "what difference does it make now?". And she sealed her fate when she called all those who fail to accede to the general will deplorables. In the end she fell from being the representative of the remnants of Liberalism in the Democratic party into the abyss of progressivism.