Why Progressives Scorn Civic Nation
Progressivism is the little - by - little construction busy by those who want an all - telling efficacious government. Call them statists, collectivists, communists, socialists, or horizontal fascists... the commonalities among these far - single ideologies are much more striking than the differences between them. They hankering big government. And by slowly captivating might of the conjecture - influencing institutions in a society, they " progressively " issue the government while diminishing the governed.
The chat " enterprising " sounds good, due to it makes you think of " progress. " But since it is slowly enchanting America ( and the rest of the world ) away from the erudition of liberty, private property, and limited government upon which the nation was founded ( and which made the United States the greatest mechanism of strength and prosperity for all the world ' s peoples in the history of the human pursuit ), progressivism gladly isn ' t progress.
We ' ve pragmatic how this plays out. Grand experiments in collectivism have been tried and and also in the world ' s history, and every time, they ' ve conclusively failed to indulge societies with on target benediction. They ' ve all ended up on the " ash - stack of history, " as Ronald Reagan most noted. From the " Public Socialism " practiced in Hitler ' s Germany, to the failed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to the oppressive - disconsolate spurt toward socialism currently being tried in Europe... collective " Utopian " societies shrink the capacity of the mortals while controlling daily life through a huge, all - competent government. And, eventually, they always extirpate themselves.
Take the Soviet experiment, since it ' s a recent and animated example. Anyone below 40 today would matchless have a vista of the Soviet experiment based on " history, " which ( since statists now strings the schools and colleges ) would be tough to rely upon for an dispassionate balance. Thirty years ago, as the Reagan administration was just entering its second year, the " cold war " between the world ' s two super - powers ( the U. S. and the U. S. S. R. ) was at or near its apex. Both nations had hundreds of nuclear missiles pointed at each other. Fear gripped the world. Most thought there would never be a way " out " of the stalemate. ( Remember, after the second drink, how we all talked about " what I ' ll do when they drop the big one "...? ) Most claimed the Soviets had to be appeased and their communist system allowed not only to flourish, but even to grow, as Soviet " hawks " showed a great willingness to use military force to try to expand their territory - of - influence. The only impediment to Soviet expansion was the American Department of Defense - and the American peoples ' willingness to employ it.
Reagan had a simple view of the Cold War, though: " We win, they lose. " He and his brilliant advisors actually figured they could win the Cold War ( called " cold, " kids, because nobody actually fired a shot... but as correctly called " war " because the world was far from peaceful ), and they did it by out - spending the Soviets. By 1988, as Reagan ' s presidency was ending, the Soviets began to realize they simply could not keep up with the U. S. in an arms race... and a year later, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War and the Soviet experiment were over.
It ' s not hard to find historical documentation of those events. But what you might not know if you didn ' t live as an adult during that time was that the American military was not the only aspect of our free society with which the Soviets seemed to feel they could never compete. If you ' re younger, learn from someone who was an adult during the 1970s and 1980s: the Soviet Union had completely segregated itself from the rest of the world. If you were a Soviet citizen, you weren ' t allowed to simply relocate to a " free " country like the U. S. - or any other. It might be easy to think the Berlin Wall ( and other Soviet border walls ) were intended to keep enemies out... on the contrary, the Soviets needed strong borders to keep their own people IN. To attempt to relocate was known as " defecting " - as though to want to leave Mother Russia was the sign of a personal defect - and when you defected, you had to " seek asylum " in a free country, most notably the United States. These might be terms you never hear these days; but to those of us who experienced the full effect of the Cold War, they ' re all - too - familiar.
Why? Because life was much easier, and more prosperous, and more safe, here in " The West. " The Soviets sent Olympic teams to other countries when they had to, but they weren ' t wild about letting their best athletes get a taste of life in the free world. Not surprisingly, many Soviet Olympians defected.
A world economic system was established after World War II, and America ' s free - market capitalism has driven the great growth of prosperity in that system since then. But the Soviets - and, later, the " Red " Chinese - weren ' t part of it. They stayed out. They built walls, used their own un - traded currencies, and tried to make the collectivist experiment work. Since the end of the Soviet experiment in 1989, Russia and its satellite states have struggled mightily to re - integrate into the world system... and tales of the rampant ravages of organized crime there have been profligate. But they couldn ' t both have their grand statist experiment and grow up with the rest of the world, economically speaking. They chose the former. And they stayed walled - away because they knew their system couldn ' t compete with freedom and prosperity, American style. Neither militarily, nor economically.
Today, those of us who saw how one - sided the competition was all those years ago tend to shake our heads in awe that there are so many ( though still relatively few ) who think we should repeat the experiment here in America. When we see " Occupiers " hold up signs that say " Death to Capitalism, " it ' s nearly unbelievable. But when we realize the motivations of the puppet - masters behind these " movements, " things make more sense. There will always be those who want to control everybody else... and they have new hope in a nation which seems to have forgotten the lessons of the Cold War and our long struggle against " the aggressive impulses of an evil empire " ( again, Reagan ).
As I ' ve said before, the only way you wrest freedom and prosperity from Americans is to get them to willingly hand it over. It takes generations to overrun the influential institutions, to let the Soviet example fade into the darker corners of history ' s ash - heap, and to grow the government and its debt to the point that Americans who otherwise would be excited to start a business would buy the victim - mentality notion that things could and should be more " fair " - and that only a big, powerful government can equitably redistribute society ' s resources to make it so.
That ' s called progressivism.
These days, the progressives need to get you thinking about an end to national sovereignty, especially in America. As long as there is a free - market engine of strength and prosperity in the world, with a limited government " guaranteed " by its Constitution, the progressives won ' t have the control they seek. You hear a lot about " one - world government " from progressives, and their Occupying puppets. That ' s because, this time, the statists don ' t want something better on the other side of a wall. They don ' t want to suffer by comparison. Twenty years from now, when you ' re desperate to escape " Utopia " and get to some place where you ' re free to work hard for an " unfair " advantage, they don ' t want you to have any place to which you could so defect.
Call it what you will... progressivism isn ' t progress.
by Michael D. Hume, M. S.
