Progressivism Is Not Progress It Is Regression
Progressivism Is Not Progress It Is Regression
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Source: Investor_com
Going Backward: The political left is celebrating last week's inauguration of "progressive" New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and believes a new era of American progressivism has arrived. If it's right, the country is in trouble.
Politicker reported Wednesday from City Hall that de Blasio "was feted" at the inauguration "as the sudden hero of progressives and good-government advocates across the city."
On the same day, Washington Post opinion writer E.J. Dionne predicted "the re-emergence of a Democratic left will be one of the major stories of 2014" in a column headlined "The Resurgent Progressives."
Dionne suggested that Democratic moderates "should be cheering them on."
Gavin Newsom, former San Francisco mayor and current California lieutenant governor, said last week that de Blasio "has a remarkable opportunity to make real many progressive policies and prove their merit," adding that "a lot of us are counting on his success."
Progressivism. It sounds positive and uncontroversial. After all, we all want to progress, don't we?
But progressivism isn't what its advocates want everyone to think it is. It is not a road to progress or any attempt to make progress. It is a return to a tribal existence in which groups fight among each other for government-distributed resources.
Progressivism dates back to the late 19th century. Its animating objective is to use the power of government to design, order, mold and control society.
Under this idea, professional politicians and master bureaucrats identify what they believe to be societal flaws and use government to "fix" them. It results in the practice of unlimited government and the supremacy of the state, which has the duty, according to progressive political scientist John Burgess, to perfect humanity.
Burgess, who rose to influence in the late 19th century, also believed the state should have "original, absolute, unlimited, universal power over the individual subject, and all associations of subjects."
To realize their goal, progressives must reject the Constitution, the Founders, individualism, God-given freedom and, in fact, God himself.
Also out as impediments to a progressive paradise are private property — except for whatever property the progressives can get their hands on — capitalism and markets free of state intervention.
To progressives, these are troublesome notions that must be discarded to make way for "progress." They would replace them with wealth redistribution, government management of production and commerce, regulation, price controls and autocratic central planning.
As a progressive, de Blasio, who has an ugly history of sympathizing with Soviet Communists, the Castros and Nicaragua's Sandinistas, believes his biggest task is to end New York's "tale of two cities."
"We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love," he said when sworn in on New Year's Day. "And so today, we commit to a new progressive direction in New York."
While not taxing the rich to solve the inequality he's obessed with, de Blasio will push public schools at the expense of successful charter schools, agitate for affordable housing and universal pre-K, ditch his predecessors' welfare reforms, increase the dole and bully businesses.
In case there was some confusion, the new mayor clearly signaled his intentions in November, when he declared "I believe in the heavy hand of government."
But what about those who aren't progressives? Why should they be required by government force — which is required to employ progressivism — to participate?
The divide between progressivism and the march toward free people and markets could hardly be wider. One is a system of compulsion and threats, the other an order of voluntary associations in which individuals decide how much they want to participate.
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http://ameripac.org/articles/progres...-is-regression