11.05.10
Back to the Fringe
The mid-term elections are just a few days old, and the results were startling. Not only was the outcome a repudiation of the policies of Congress and the President, they were the culmination of a grass-roots movement called the Tea Party.
Deeper than those reasons was a search by voters to find out what it means to be an American. Many found it. Many more now realize and understand the values this country was founded on, and how those values were being trampled by the progressive liberals in both houses of Congress, and especially in the White House.
Further, the election results were an awakening to the progressive trend that has crept through our nation for over 100 years. Progressive methods were exposed, their ideology laid bare, and its destructive effects made apparent. The progressive movement has its roots in post-Civil War universities. Hegel was their social philosopher of choice. At that time, they were a fringe element. They have come a long way – so now it’s time to send them back to the fringe.
Progressives don’t like people generally. They also have a huge chip on their shoulder. To enter the inner sanctum of progressivism, you must have been drastically and emotionally hurt – and you never got over it. Maybe it was not making the football or debate team. Could be a family-derived emotional pain. Whatever the reason, they become bitter. They feel disadvantaged which mutates into underdog status.
Once inside their circle, you are taught that it’s okay to be angry and vengeful. You are groomed to wrap all your frustrations around your self-worth. After all, if you’re hurt, it is soothing to know it’s not your fault. This is why progressives seem to never run out of the energy to disrupt. Their entire self-esteem is at stake.
This is where it gets really good. The central manifestation of this progressive curriculum is to separate people into the oppressed, like them, and the oppressors – you. This galvanizes all their actions and provides the rationalization that it’s okay to hurt people, the ones who did this to them. Oppressors are not seen as people anymore. To progressives, oppressors of any ilk are sub-human, greedy, selfish, uneducated, barbarian, and even evil.
Oppressors can be anyone. The current progressives think America is an oppressor, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They think big business is oppressive to the worker, even though businesses provide people with an economic living and satisfaction of work. Anything can take precedence over oppressor-people: the environment, animal rights, trees, insects, gay rights, whales, despotic and theocratic nations – you get the idea. And best of all, if any people are even perceived as being oppressed, the progressives are on their side no matter what the circumstances.
Why did the U.N. accept Iran on the council for the advancement of women? Why is the American flag laid on a sidewalk, spray-painted, and spit on? Why do very rich movie stars lunch with despots, despite making their millions in our capitalistic republic? Why do animal rights activists want to give animals the right to sue? Why do progressives want central planning of the economy and redistribution of your wealth? Why do they want to tax moderately wealthy people even higher than the current progressive tax system they installed early last century? These questions defy common sense – but not if looked through the prism of progressivism.
Beware of the pitfalls when hearing progressives. They are masters at the art of cognitive dissonance. It is the situation where an incompatibility exists between two attitudes, or between attitude and behavior. Any inconsistency is uncomfortable and all people will try to reduce the dissonance to remove the discomfort. People either change their attitude, or rationalize their behavior.
Progressives use cognitive dissonance to sway anyone against the oppressors. Public education is “all about the kids” – and we vote for tax increases with no signs of children getting better educated. They trot out sketchy science to alarm us that the earth is getting warmer – despite strong evidence that the earth is merely in a cycle. They proclaim that taxes must go higher or vital services, and the underprivileged, will suffer – when the programs promoted are rife with waste and pocket-lining. They cover the political payback of Obamacare by saying it will cover children’s pre-existing conditions, when targeted legislation would better serve the kids.
They don’t want you to see under the covers, the facts. They want your attitudes to conflict, which causes you discomfort. The easiest way to ease the pain is to succumb and vote their way, send them your money, or join their nefarious fray.
What’s really interesting is that dissonance affects progressives too. And it isn’t pretty. When the facts of a certain issue are exposed, and their position is proved unworthy, progressives resort to nasty behaviors. They attack the other side with anything they can get their hands on. Education, body shape, RACISM, motherhood, bad teeth – all are, and have been, used to demonize the oppressors. They say the same things, repeated in the news media, over and over until eventually, the sound bite sticks.
If the opponent can’t be attacked, they attack the messenger. FOX News is the highest rated news show, yet to hear the progressives, it’s a dishonest and biased network. Does that mean that everyone who watches is dishonest and biased? To progressives, of course it does because FOX watchers are oppressors – they deserve no respect, only scorn.
The most subtle argumentative device they use is obfuscation – they introduce illogical comparisons, or correlate other issues inaccurately to the central theme. All of these methods are made to marginalize their opponent. First is isolating the enemy. Next is to make them appear to be for or against a predominant value or feeling. This creates doubt about their opponent, makes the opponent self-conscious, and relieves the progressive from actually debating issues based on mutually accepted facts. The opponent is left trying to disprove a negative (by the way, it’s impossible). If you are called a racist, how do you disprove that?
Progressives use “fairness”, “justice”, and “equality” to frame their points of view. The problem with progressives using these fine words is best said by Thomas Sowell, “such terms usually go undefined and unexamined.” Is essence, progressives hide behind these words without revealing their skewed definitions of them. They then construct policies that are designed to right the perceived wrong. And we are left to pay for the unintended consequences.
So how does such a destructive ideology become mainstream to the point of electing a majority? It begins the same way their movement began, in schools and universities. Progressives have trained, little by little, the fertile minds of our children – and they still do it today. Universities produce teachers who are overwhelmingly liberal, and in turn, teachers push progressivism upon the young. At bottom, schools are “thought” factories that do not promote, rather they diminish, the values of being American. Orwell must be spinning in his grave.
What is taught is that being an American is bad. Trusting the Founders is misguided. Believing in God is barbarian. Progressives have a much different attitude than our Founders toward what our government is and what it should be. And it starts with their rejection of the Declaration of Independence’s foundation.
The Founders knew that people’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are given to us at birth – by God. Progressives believe that the State grants these rights, and that the State can therefore remove them when convenient. The Founders knew that government’s only purpose was to protect our natural rights from lawlessness from within, and enemies from without, our borders.
With no belief in natural rights, progressives believe liberty means the State should “create” people, equalize them, manipulate if necessary – in essence, to perfect humanity. Any unequal outcomes are viewed as perfectible by government. If one person through their natural gifts and abilities has more material wealth than others, progressives want to right the wrong by mandating redistribution of that wealth. Don’t buy into it.
In my lifetime, progressives have gone from “it’s all relative”, to “being politically correct”, to now demonizing any thought that conflicts with their destructive ideology. It was getting worse and worse. It’s the despotism of relativity. When all things are relative, then nothing is right. America’s greatness has to be diminished in progressives eyes, or the oppressed peoples of the world will never rise above their problems. Common Americans who vote for conservative candidates are stupid, “clinging to their guns and religion”.
Conservatives don’t believe in the progressive dogma that the world’s pie is unalterable. We believe that through protective government, not intrusive government, the pie can be enlarged. History has proven it numerous times over. Don’t waste your breath trying to convince the progressive liberals – they don’t listen to oppressors.
The number of events that the current administration has done to weaken America are too numerous to mention here. Suffice it to say, they are progressives. They must be thrown back to the fringe.
