Order, Stability, Progress and Reform

"A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life." - John Stuart Mill, essay "On Liberty" "A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purpose - will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished." Mill, Ibid.

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Progressives are not Liberals. They are not a true party of progress or reform. I listened to Glenn Beck's CPAC speech Saturday night. It was funny in parts, and, I definitely did not agree in parts. Beck made several worthy appeals to return to traditional values. But as Bill Bennett has suggested, politics and AA do not mix naturally. Political introspection and political conversion is a world apart in body, mind and spirit from "hugging the porcelain bus" and hitting bottom. I shudder to think what life would be like in America, if we had to all "hit bottom" politically before we could begin to pick ourselves up. I struggle to even reconcile that analogy. I like to listen to Glenn Beck. His comments and his outrageous antics are cheeky. He is like some kind of a modern Will Rogers in many ways. And, he does have many legitimate arguments about elites in society. As a former teacher of political philosophy, I would enjoy having him in class but his sophistry and humor often diminish the seriousness of points he is striving to make. I also believe that Glenn Beck is off the mark when he describes Teddy Roosevelt as a wild-eyed Progressive. TR was far more the visionary idealist; he was never a Socialist. The Bull Moose Party was more correctly a populist vehicle for TR to oppose Taft whose Presidency, TR believed, was on the rocks. TR was a tried and tested war leader and a national hero, a true Conservationist, and a President of all the people. He was in the avant garde of a fledgling civil rights movement during a time when race was a wall of separation. Socialization between the races was taboo. Some criticisms of TR are legitimate, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. TR's face is on Mt Rushmore with good reason in the eyes of very many folks, including me. But let us speak of true Progressives and true Progressivism since they themselves have chosen to shed their phony mask of Liberalism. I think even many Progressives would be amazed to learn of the dark side of that movement. Progressives are not addicted to any one ideology, they are populist chameleons who have disguised their Socialist agenda behind emotional appeals and empty utopian promises. They are, in truth, Socialist-statist gadflies, who alight on the most convenient "rump" and take a bite. When they are discovered, they simply fly way, scout out a new "rump," and take another bite. America must beware lest we die from a thousand bites. Further, it is not the only idealistic part of the Progressive musings that fall short, but their real-life practicality. We have been implementing Progressivism [disguised as Liberalism] since the era of FDR and the New Deal. The Great Society was LBJ's gambit to win the pot. It did not work. It has never worked Progressive ideas are just endlessly repackaged as new and improved with a new set of dazzling promises. Remember the empty promises of Barack Obama 2008? That was then, this is now. Thirteen months into a failed Administration , Mr. Obama has run roughshod over the Republicans, ignored the voting electorate, dismissed the Tea Partiers as irrelevant, and has only succeeded in "stimulating" a great recession into a great depression. Unemployment is optimistically stated at 10% and there are Trillion Dollar Deficits farther than the eye can see of the mind conceive. [One Trillion = $1,000,000,000,000.00] Have we gone mad? Have we become some one party Banana Republic? Mr. Obama: "How's that hope-n-change thing workin' for ya?" Progressive ideas do not work. Manipulating the money supply and interest rates, and transforming the dollar into a fiat currency has been a disaster. Printing more money to make up for shortfalls from misguided tax increases creates inflation. Inflation only accelerates the national misery. Progressive Income Taxation is not a solution; increased taxes in a depressed economy have never solved a single funding problem. Socialism is a parasite that simply cannot survive without a healthy free-market host. Even then, income redistribution schemes always kill the "Golden Goose" in the end. Progressives comprised the "Fellow Travelers" of the 1930s who admired Stalin's experiment with "Socialism in One Country." They traveled to Soviet Russia and saw only good; they never looked for, and did not see the Gulags. They worshipped the Soviet Axis ally of Hitler after Hitler attacked them; the Soviets then became the great brave and patriotic friend of the West. They made excuses for the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after WWII; it was the West's fault. Progressives supported democratic revolution in name only; heaven forbid that they should actually have to put their money where their mouth is. Progressives were staunchly entrenched in the appeasement aspects of 1970s Detente: they relished cultural exchanges and one-sided American disarmament, while ignoring the plight of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and others. Progressives opposed resistance to communist revolution in China and Southeast Asia, instead favoring Mao and Ho Chi Minh as indigenous national patriots. Progressives resisted Reagan's efforts to stand up to the Soviets around the world and to modernize the arsenal of freedom. They scoffed at Reagan's demand that Gorbachev "tear down this Wall." The Progressives opposed every move of both Bush Presidencies that sought to advance democratic ideas and the defense of Israel's sovereign right to exist, seeking negotiations with terrorist regimes instead. We have seen how well those open negotiations with the dangerous tyrants in Iran have fared. Yes, we know these people well. The Progressives are not Liberals, they are not Democrats, they are not even democratic. They are statists. The seek to overlay, install, and implement their Socialist Paradise by Executive order, cheap Congressional Reconciliation tactics, and Judicial Activism. They have said repeatedly in word, and by their deeds, that the old America did not work. How would they know, they never tried it? They have sought to destroy it and transform if from the beginning. If America is exceptional, then that Exceptionalism shows that every day is a new start, and every start is a new opportunity. America is Exceptional; even moreso when she is unshackled. Glenn Beck is correct about a couple of key issues: The Tea Partiers, Independents, a reformed Republican Party, and traditional non-socialist Democrats have a place in reforming and reclaiming America. The Progressive Movement has no such place. Their movement is alien to Americans and Americanism. Progressivism is inconsistent with our Founding Fathers' vision and values [Mr. Obama has admitted as much in plain language in interviews and speeches]. The 2010 Elections are just around the corner. Change is a coming soon Glenn Beck is right to remember Reagan's vision of Morning in America and his notions of American Exceptionalism. I just wish he leave the hangover with the people who created it.