For Progressives then and now, the welfare of the people—not liberty—is the primary object of government, and government should always be in the hands of experts. This is the real origin of today’s gun control hysteria—the idea that professional police forces and the military have rendered the armed citizen superfluous; that no individual should be responsible for the defense of himself and his family, but should leave it to the experts. The idea of individual responsibilities, along with that of individual rights, is in fact incompatible with the Progressive vision of the common welfare.
Edward J. Erler
March 2013
The Second Amendment as an Expression of First Principles
[H/T to Dwight M. from the gun email list at work who brought my attention to this quote.
There are some excellent insights in this article.—Joe]
Two problems with the Progressive vision:
1. The police as protection for individuals is not the law currently, nor has it ever been.
2. The police as protectors of individuals is impossible.
Other than those two small items, the Progressive vision is wonderful, I guess.
It actually goes a bit further than the original quote has it. It isn’t so much that the individual isn’t expected to be responsible for his self defense — in fact, he is *forbidden* self-defense. This is the state of affairs in much of Europe. And this is why the violent crime rate there is going up, while in the USA it’s going down.
One quote does not the truth make.
This is ONE vision of Progressivism, and it has been flogged endlessly by a cabal of globalizer billionaires/millionaires and their lackey mass media.
In places like NW Wisconsin, Finland, MN, and other places that the old farmer-labor democrats live quietly and free, Progressivism IS about liberty, and non-government interference. It’s about just as much government as is needed to make sure that the strong and rich don’t prey on everyone else, that there is public oversight on both private and public sectors’ corruption (sunshine), and that the highest law is the freedom of the individual in concert with a properly constituted government.
I know it’s Easter weekend and all, and scapegoating is the sport du saison. But when you flog this view of Progressivism as the only possible one, you are believing George Soros as your demigod and anti-idol way more than most good ol boy progs I ever knew.
Liberate your mind from this bipolar disorder. “Progressivism” in the late 19th century, as a reaction to predatory capitalism and public corruption, was an invention of the Republican party. Look it up.
Tama; I though at first that you were winding up to really hit one out of the park, but alas.
I thought you were going to make the critically important distinction between the selling points of Progressivism verses the reality of it.
The Good-O’-Boy farmer Progressive thinks he supports freedom of some kind, but he has been lulled by the selling points into supporting a style of creeping communism. In fact, the Progressives and the communists both want the same things, but they disagree bitterly on the proper way of getting there. The communists prefer violent, precipitous revolution whereas the Progressives favor the much slower but far more effective slow creep method of degrade, demoralize, weaken, and then take over using the “Top Down, Bottom Up, Inside Out” approach at the very end. The term Progressive then means simply, “Incremental Communist”. That was its genesis and that is its goal and function today.
You are correct in pointing out Republican Party Progressivism. I wouldn’t say they invented it, but T.R. was our first truly Progressive president and he was a Republican. The two Bushes are certainly Progressives, as little Jeb and much of the Republican leadership that we’ve been complaining about right here for many years. As I’ve said several times; we have to defeat the Republican Party as it is presently constituted, before we can get, in earnest, to the task of defeating the increasingly communist-leaning Democrats.
And your term “predatory capitalism and public corruption” is a defining hallmark of Progressivism, being as no private concern can make law– they need collusion with government, and a before our government could collude with big business and the very rich it had to grab powers it was never granted by our constitution. Now it is more powerful than ever, and as such it is more corrupt and is colluding more than ever with large private interests. This is also a good definition of another variation on communism – Fascism.
Good-O’-Boy farmer/Progressive is a Fascist, communist, Nazi (they’re all the same thing in the end as they’re all anti individual, pro State) and he doesn’t know it. He thinks he’s compassionate and wants what’s right. Poor sap. Useful Idiot. Sucker. Loser. Fool.
An invention of the Republican party? I don’t think so. A reaction to it, certainly.
This becomes very obvious if you read “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life” by Melvin Urofsky.
And while Urofsky does his liberal best to make Wilson out to be a small government advocate, it doesn’t ring true. Yes, some of it some of the time sounds like “keep the government out of our hair” but all too often it actually is “get the government out of *my* hair and put them into *your* hair instead”.