Progressivism Isn"t Progress, VII
It's In Both Parties, But "Progresses" In Only One Direction A few years ago, I was still struggling with the notion of political "balance" in America.
I sat with a couple of intelligent colleagues, and I tossed out this question: "What does too-far-right look like?" I understood that too-far-left, politically speaking, looks like authoritarian communism - see the old Soviet Union and People's Republic of China.
But my colleagues answered thus about the much-feared opposite: "It's fascism, Naziism.
Too-far-right is Hitler.
" After much education in business and public administration, after much reflection, after much time spent listening to the views of many smart people on this subject, I've concluded that answer is dead wrong.
It's a popular myth, encouraged by "progressives" in America and elsewhere, that if we let the "right-wing" have their way, we'd be Nazi-like fascists of the ilk of Adolph Hitler.
It just isn't true.
"Nazi" was a nickname for "National Socialist," and the Nazis offered what really amounted to just a different flavor of the dread ideology of collectivism, or statism.
I still hear otherwise-brilliant people (including the erudite Newt Gingrich and talented talker Glenn Beck) refer to this "progressivism of the right," claiming that it leads to fascism as inexorably as "progressivism of the left" leads to communism.
That's wrong.
It's true that progressivism is a disease that's infected all major American institutions of influence, including both political parties, but in fact progressivism only "progresses" in one direction: toward the left, toward big government, and toward totalitarian statism.
What is progressivism? It's not socialism, or communism, or statism itself.
It's simply the METHOD used by proponents of those ideologies to slowly collect full control of the nation under themselves.
A bloody coup would seize control by "revolution" - progressivism seeks to seize it over many years, by "evolution.
" By patiently changing the frame of reference of the mass of people...
by slowly getting you to accept things you'd have earlier thought preposterous...
by gradually moving the "window" through which the citizenry views itself, its world, and its government.
In the end, the progressives will get you to willingly hand over your temporal sovereignty to an all-powerful government; no bloody coup required.
And, after more than a century of progressivism in America, they're oh-so-close to achieving their goal.
And the progressives know it.
There are differences between communism and fascism, sure.
Under communism, the totalitarian state openly owns all means of production (there is no "private sector"), and everyone in the "community" shares equally in the proceeds ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his need").
The dictionary, by the way, defines "collectivism" and "socialism" in terms almost identical to those used for communism.
Fascism's tweak is that private ownership is nominally retained, though the authoritarian state still CONTROLS all means of production through draconian regulation and central planning.
Fascism also includes hints of racism, belligerent nationalism, and glorification of war.
But the similarities are greater than the differences, with the main one being this: under both forms of collectivism, the state is the de facto owner of everything.
The state is supremely powerful.
The state metes out subsistence from a centrally-planned economy.
And that's what the revolutionaries established in failed states such as communist Russia and Nazi Germany, and what the "evolutionary" progressives seek in America.
Progressivism is all around you, and has great power already in America.
And it's big in both major political parties, so it'll be hard (if not impossible) to eliminate.
It's both Republican and Democrat (though slightly less the former), but it "progresses" us leftward in all cases and continuously.
The real answer to what "too-far-right" looks like is anarchy - the complete absence of any government.
The opposite poles of political discourse, despite a century of great progressive propaganda to the contrary, are not the two slightly-different flavors of collective statism labeled "communism" and "fascism.
" The opposite extremes are actually NO government and TOTAL government.
In America, we have a real danger of sliding too far to the left ("compliance" is already a major activity of any enterprise in the country) - but, thanks to the foresight of our Founders, we never have to worry about sliding too far to the right.
Our Constitution serves as a brake on that possibility.
If, in America, we actually could reverse the progressivism and move our country as far right as Constitutionally possible, the nation (and the world she leads) would again be the greatest beacon of security and prosperity in the history of the world - truly, the place Ronald Reagan envisioned as a "shining city on a hill.
" We'd have JUST enough government, strictly limited, to meet our society's needs.
But the shackles of total government would be removed, and the magical power of free initiative, personal responsibility, prosperity motivation, and entrepreneurialsm would drive a better life for everyone, from the "top one percent" so reviled today to the bottom one percent who (thanks to the progressives) have no idea how much better their lives could be.
Because of the icy grip of progressivism in which we find ourselves, experts say things may get much worse before they get better...
so the time to prepare is now.
Start with your values - arm yourself against progressive attacks (when they call you racist or hateful, you'll know better).
Get into business - start building your entrepreneurial muscles for the economic reset eventually to come.
And get smart about the global conspiracy against prosperity - find advisors who aren't just salesmen looking to put you into the investments from which they'll profit more than you will.
America is adrift in a sea of progressivism...
but, sadly, progressivism isn't progress.
We may have to let this mad experiment run its course before we can finally re-found the nation and make any real progress as a society, and as a true global community.
by Michael D.
Hume, M.
S.
I sat with a couple of intelligent colleagues, and I tossed out this question: "What does too-far-right look like?" I understood that too-far-left, politically speaking, looks like authoritarian communism - see the old Soviet Union and People's Republic of China.
But my colleagues answered thus about the much-feared opposite: "It's fascism, Naziism.
Too-far-right is Hitler.
" After much education in business and public administration, after much reflection, after much time spent listening to the views of many smart people on this subject, I've concluded that answer is dead wrong.
It's a popular myth, encouraged by "progressives" in America and elsewhere, that if we let the "right-wing" have their way, we'd be Nazi-like fascists of the ilk of Adolph Hitler.
It just isn't true.
"Nazi" was a nickname for "National Socialist," and the Nazis offered what really amounted to just a different flavor of the dread ideology of collectivism, or statism.
I still hear otherwise-brilliant people (including the erudite Newt Gingrich and talented talker Glenn Beck) refer to this "progressivism of the right," claiming that it leads to fascism as inexorably as "progressivism of the left" leads to communism.
That's wrong.
It's true that progressivism is a disease that's infected all major American institutions of influence, including both political parties, but in fact progressivism only "progresses" in one direction: toward the left, toward big government, and toward totalitarian statism.
What is progressivism? It's not socialism, or communism, or statism itself.
It's simply the METHOD used by proponents of those ideologies to slowly collect full control of the nation under themselves.
A bloody coup would seize control by "revolution" - progressivism seeks to seize it over many years, by "evolution.
" By patiently changing the frame of reference of the mass of people...
by slowly getting you to accept things you'd have earlier thought preposterous...
by gradually moving the "window" through which the citizenry views itself, its world, and its government.
In the end, the progressives will get you to willingly hand over your temporal sovereignty to an all-powerful government; no bloody coup required.
And, after more than a century of progressivism in America, they're oh-so-close to achieving their goal.
And the progressives know it.
There are differences between communism and fascism, sure.
Under communism, the totalitarian state openly owns all means of production (there is no "private sector"), and everyone in the "community" shares equally in the proceeds ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his need").
The dictionary, by the way, defines "collectivism" and "socialism" in terms almost identical to those used for communism.
Fascism's tweak is that private ownership is nominally retained, though the authoritarian state still CONTROLS all means of production through draconian regulation and central planning.
Fascism also includes hints of racism, belligerent nationalism, and glorification of war.
But the similarities are greater than the differences, with the main one being this: under both forms of collectivism, the state is the de facto owner of everything.
The state is supremely powerful.
The state metes out subsistence from a centrally-planned economy.
And that's what the revolutionaries established in failed states such as communist Russia and Nazi Germany, and what the "evolutionary" progressives seek in America.
Progressivism is all around you, and has great power already in America.
And it's big in both major political parties, so it'll be hard (if not impossible) to eliminate.
It's both Republican and Democrat (though slightly less the former), but it "progresses" us leftward in all cases and continuously.
The real answer to what "too-far-right" looks like is anarchy - the complete absence of any government.
The opposite poles of political discourse, despite a century of great progressive propaganda to the contrary, are not the two slightly-different flavors of collective statism labeled "communism" and "fascism.
" The opposite extremes are actually NO government and TOTAL government.
In America, we have a real danger of sliding too far to the left ("compliance" is already a major activity of any enterprise in the country) - but, thanks to the foresight of our Founders, we never have to worry about sliding too far to the right.
Our Constitution serves as a brake on that possibility.
If, in America, we actually could reverse the progressivism and move our country as far right as Constitutionally possible, the nation (and the world she leads) would again be the greatest beacon of security and prosperity in the history of the world - truly, the place Ronald Reagan envisioned as a "shining city on a hill.
" We'd have JUST enough government, strictly limited, to meet our society's needs.
But the shackles of total government would be removed, and the magical power of free initiative, personal responsibility, prosperity motivation, and entrepreneurialsm would drive a better life for everyone, from the "top one percent" so reviled today to the bottom one percent who (thanks to the progressives) have no idea how much better their lives could be.
Because of the icy grip of progressivism in which we find ourselves, experts say things may get much worse before they get better...
so the time to prepare is now.
Start with your values - arm yourself against progressive attacks (when they call you racist or hateful, you'll know better).
Get into business - start building your entrepreneurial muscles for the economic reset eventually to come.
And get smart about the global conspiracy against prosperity - find advisors who aren't just salesmen looking to put you into the investments from which they'll profit more than you will.
America is adrift in a sea of progressivism...
but, sadly, progressivism isn't progress.
We may have to let this mad experiment run its course before we can finally re-found the nation and make any real progress as a society, and as a true global community.
by Michael D.
Hume, M.
S.
