A Progressive Rant

I started to write a screed in July in response to a Belmont Club post, Definitions, entitled Those Hellbent On Leading Us Into A New Dark Ages. But I cooled off after I answered a misunderstanding posted by BC commenter 3Case.

In June I wrote "Progressives" Are Demonstrably Dangerous to Human Life, but I still wasn't satisfied. This was to be followed by a part II that had been provoked by Mark Alger here. Instead, it languished incomplete for a couple months. I was feeling downright low about how hard a nut this was going to be to crack.

Many years ago I wrote this of Progressives. My wry humor sprung from the fact that it didn't take long for the Progressive reform movement that grew out of the late 19th Century American Populist movement to degrade into a comfy home for deceptive power seekers who succeeded in breeching our government's constitutional limits incrementally for "only the best of reasons."

In early August, Our Curmudgeon, in the pursuit of another topic, wrote of the treachery of "Progressives" as I've always wished him to do, but it still was not enough. For, on that same day, I had heard parts of a speech by Hilliary Clinton that got me started on another screed that I never finished: The "Progressive" Hatred for People.

And now this last week, Mark Alger needled me with the thought that we who are representative of true progress ought steal the progressive label from the phonies.

ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH! 8/17/07

Continued on 9/05/07

The people who have been granted (by the PC crowd) the leave to wear the label Progressive are anything but. In addition to having long ago become the home for those whose lust for power may well set a new standard for perversion, they are well on their way to making a pejorative of the word progress just as they have made an unbearable burden for anyone who is truly liberal. Those who would wish we will not progress could not be happier.

More and more I run across both writers on the Internet and casual conversants who see that "Progressive" must be put in scorn quotes whenever we refer to those who claim that label.

This is unacceptable. This is Orwellian Newspeak being thrust upon us because we people who must speak with each other in order to counter this road to serfdom and a new dark age do not control the mainstream news media's effluent. We so badly need a new and widely influential means of communicating our viewpoint so that we can counter the anti-language corps. Where is our John Galt who can pirate, even for a little while, all media outlets away from those who relentlessly destroy our language?

A few days ago I had to contend with the confusion over what is a "Progressive" at The Belmont Club. After my initial comment to Wretchard, I had a short interchange with two of his active readers, Charles and LarryD, over the words Postmodern and Progressive. I think I stumbled on the best way verbally to deal with our tormentors: call them Postmodern Progressives.

In the end I think we were all dancing around the same idea at core. Today's Progressives are not advancers of civilization even if there were once some who could rightly claim to have been. Just as "Liberals" view as progressive the liberal growth of government -- and thereby the growth of restrictions on the liberty of individuals (anti-libearlism), so too when something will lead to mankind's diminishment, that is what "Progressives" view as progress.

I think we all understand that "Progressives" are NOT. But what are we who really love to see progress going to do about it?

I am convinced that most "Progressives" fall under the category of the misled. The most troublesome of them are the true-believers who allow themselves to become useful idiots. But the task that we who are optimists must find is how to unmask the mostly quiescent troublemakers who lend their support to the useful idiots, thereby accomplishing what they themselves could never achieve: mankind's self-destruction.

I know from what I've read throughout the web on the Right that most Right thinkers see that the label of Progressive has been stolen every bit as much as classical liberals have had Liberal stolen from them.

We must fight to take back the label Progressive so that those that follow us will be able to progress. So that those that follow do not find themselves under a yoke that so many Americans have fought to keep from being institutionalized on these shores. This is a patriotic battle. This is a battle that the bulk of humanity will always have with the effete elite. Understanding it does not require rocket science. It does not require knowing what Postmodernism is, only that it is something that wants you to return to times of enslavement over men's minds. It wishes for nothing less than a new Dark Age.

My friend Og often suggests that at some point the need to argue must end; that it is time for the cricket bats. He may be close to right.

She Thinks Her Shit Doesn't Stink

I grew up where the vernacular expression for someone who believes themselves more important than anyone else was "He thinks his shit doesn't stink." It was invariably heard about a man whose attitude fit the expression.

I don't know if there were women then who rated such an observation, but given experience which shows that human foibles cross the sex line, I suspect there must have been a few. Only the niceties of the times prevented most men from using it to describe her haughtiness. "Niceties." Right. Reality was that any man who dared use such language risked running up against other men who'd ride to the damsel's rescue whether or not she deserved such gallantry. And the woman who used it on another woman or man would have caused a scene since women were believed to be above such gutter-level language no matter how accurate. Afterall, such a line appears only to be a derogatory statement of opinion about someone else's attitude. And are you not warned against judging others lest ye too be judged?

Well, to cap it all, the intent of my raising this issue is that civilized behavior often prevents noting that civilization's shit doesn't stink. Somehow we just don't bury what we know to be our toxic waste-products as more primitive cultures have done without giving their crap a second thought. No. We pick it up and carry it around and force our subsequent generations to learn to live with it and even venerate it.

Let's be clear so that our elected officials cannot hide their behavior no matter what banner they serve under. In our time, Leftism is not only practiced by the official Left, but also by members of our Right in high office.

Among the worst shit that Leftism still refuses to admit stinks is Marxism and its fundamental determination to secure "social justice." In their relentless grasping for power, today's "progressives" will harass anything and everything that is or may be successful in its insane attempt to secure Nirvana for everyone equally. But what they ultimately achieve is an awful outcome for everyone as they stifle the creativity (the least negative of its known behaviors I can think of) that is buried within the few who would be our culture's future champions.

The legacy of Marxism is a trail of human tragedy unmatched in the annals of history. Yet our Leftists still think that shit doesn't stink.

And we now have a major candidate for one party who has always been focused on aims that are clearly seen to be Marxist. And that's even before we bother to note her unmistakable bearing which provoked this commentary.

Well, now that the period of nicety is over, let me be the first to put this in print: Hillary thinks her shit doesn't stink. Do you really want that for President?

What Makes This Video Extraordinary?

I was directed to this video posted at Observanda by 2164th who was quite astounded and pleased. He was hardly alone.

An Englishman explains Islam:

However, aside from the danger that has been directed at people such as this brave man by Jihadis, there is also the intolerance of those in positions of authority and censorship watchdogs of political correctness.

Here's my observation:

The problems posed to us by militant Islamists I don't think are really in contention.

I think the real problem was only obliquely touched by the man in this video:

"we live in a liberal democracy and therefore have certain double-standards to maintain... which seeks to portray legitimate comment as some kind of hate crime."

How far would any of this nonsense have gotten if it weren't for these fifth columnists, whose hamstringing of frank assessment of the threats and those who are most threatening, aids and abets the enemies of the West? The Left and other Statists would have us "submit" one way or the other.

This video is only extraordinary because our "leaders" kowtow to everyone with a "chip on their shoulder the size of a mosque," and to hell with the rest of us. If our leaders spoke like leaders, this man wouldn't feel the need to show them how.

The video that needs publishing is one that would drive the PC crowd from office.

Wouldn't you pay to see that one?

I would.

 

Those Who Are Beyond Embarrassment

With Roasted Chickens Roosting, Wretchard calls our attention to the continuing self-serving trail of destructiveness that Ward Churchill wallows in. Be careful not to misread the last word in that title as roasting. For it is one thing for us to see dead people who don't know they're dead, and entirely another to continue to let their specter ruin us.

For you see, this is one heluva "cooked goose." A dead chicken come home not just to roost but to tear up the place as poltergeists are said to do to the domains from which they were unwillingly snatched.

Not satisfied with contributing to the intellectual bankruptcy of an academy, Churchill and his fellow travelers will now attempt to fiscally bankrupt it too.

I somehow doubt it will come to that though. Nihilists, having long been nurtured and protected by the Ivory Towers, are expert at avoiding annihilating their own home.

One more thing. Churchill is not at all embarrassed by his misconduct. He derives comfort from the evidence that CU let him slide until his outspokenness brought their hiring malfeasances to the attention of the outside world.

I have often said that the one thing the deepest cynics cannot abide is the possibility that someone somewhere is not corrupted. The corrupt are necessary for cynicism's existence, and so the corrupt are welcomed. But the very idea that innocence could exist becomes terrifying, because the existence of a single innocent becomes a devout cynic's self-condemnation to hell.

God, if there were only some way to sentence Churchill and ilk to life in perpetual embarrassment, it would provide a veritable stake through the heart of such destructiveness.

Oh dear fellow Americans: is it not time to bring back public stocks precisely to weal some small measure of appropriate punishment to such desperately needy reprobates?

Thoughts Provoked By a Misapplied Word

Today, I had only a little time because I have to leave. While quickly perusing Wretchard's greatly expanded reportage, I was sensitive to what I think was an unintended slander, by our gifted world correspondent/analyst, of modernity.

I read it at The Belmont Club: Airport Security. The following was the comment I left there. I hope my reaction further provokes awareness of, and the threat to, our civilization by the "Progressive" movement known as political Postmodernism.

Wretchard wrote: This just goes to show how much damage modern political correctness has inflicted on the Geneva Convention. [Emphasis added].


It is definitely not modern, and this error could be seen as a slander of the modern period. If anything, the Geneva convention helped advance modernity.

But what we have now is a product of the postmodern. You've used the term before, and it couldn't be more accurately ascribed, both to this situation and to the proponents who've made this tragedy possible.

Also, instead of modern or postmodern, you could have used the word contemporary, but then that would have been redundant (unless you wanted to imply that PC has evolved, er, devolved, er, progressed - yeah, progressed!).

I think I experienced what had to be going through your mind and feelings as you composed this line. The error in it reveals both comedy and tragedy, and maybe a desire to avoid editorializing in the direction I went, though I'm pretty sure you didn't intend the comedy.

What's This Noise About Global Cooling?

"Science is at war with global warming. Science has always been at war with global warming. Global cooling is our friend." </straight-faced sarcasm>
[supporters whoop and woot in the background]

The Need to Place Political Correctness in the Crosshairs

There are many others who comment much more diligently than I upon the many instances how Western culture in general, and American culture in particular, are relentlessly under attack by the Left and its shockingly complicit Establishment media. Particularly I have been impressed with how well S.T. Karnick makes that his regular concern.

A few days ago Mr. Karnick wrote of the criticism misdirected at MLB for the drinking and driving death of Josh Hancock, a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher. In comments to it, I made a quick point about how PC's intrusion into our culture has a bloody hand in making personal disasters of this sort more rather than less common.

Mr. Karnick concurred: "Until a sufficient number of people summon up the courage to speak out against this point of view, its ugly consequences will continue to plague us."

Now I'd like to make what I believe is a unique observation about PC. That is, I've not seen it mentioned even if its been noticed before, and I doubt it. PC's acceptance and certainly its persistence came into the forefront after much of Western thought turned in the 1960s to accept the notions of Thomas Malthus as revitalized by Paul Ehrlich et al. Merely fifteen years time after the unprecedented carnage of the Second World War, our intelligentsia seemed all too swift to accept the pessimistic notion that the number of humans on the planet was still unsustainable. In short, this is what is meant in high-minded parlance as the challenge of sustainability. (Considerable thought before WWII was moving in this direction. Indeed it appears to be a major feature in NAZI thought. In a world with diminishing resources, Hitler was moving to establish his race as the sole survivors. I plan to look into this further at a later date.)

It does not take a rocket scientist to notice the conflict between this concern and that of society's previously stated predominant concern of protecting human life in many different ways. In fact, by gum, there is assuredly a radical reversal in the way those who've risen to the top of society's institutions has gone about, ostensibly, protecting its members.

Of significant note is that which used to be called constructive criticism wound up in the cross-hairs of the heads of our institutions.

Instead of welcoming various sources of wisdom access to those who need the guidance, the PC crowd constantly concerns itself with how the feelings of the foolhardy might be hurt by those who wish to warn them. Rather than permit unrestricted passage of hard-earned lessons-learned, these "watchdogs" prefer that those whose feelings they claim to be protecting are better off with having their thinking (or unthinking) unfettered. "Let them learn the hard way where naive or ignorant or misguided choices will lead them" would seem to be their slogan.

Certainly, I don't think in history there was ever a group, so well entrenched in positions of authority, who -- wittingly or unwittingly -- were ever such an ally to predators as is our PC crowd.

Now surely there are many useful idiots in that crowd. But it is hard to imagine how they got there and how they manage to remain there unless there are significant numbers of the moneyed and influential class who believe that they are doing animal-husbandry-like work in letting the foolish kill themselves off. Kill themselves along with how many other handfuls of innocents who have the misfortune to be in their path on the way to their personal destruction.

So, for those who still retain an optimism for the potential of the human mind to meet any future shortages (be it for belief in The Creator's promise or simply from gaging how high we have risen in the face of all kinds of disasters), I bet you also have entertained the following question about how society is failing at its assigned task even as its leaders clamor for more control over our lives. Is it not a natural inclination, an imperative really, to look askance at how society has altered its approach to law enforcement?

Strict law enforcement being the principle means to protect innocents from predators was long established thinking in the West. Based significantly on the writings of Thomas Hobbes I believe, that was the be all and end all of the modern state: its raison d' ètre.

Heh, Heh. That is, that was before postmodernism turned up.

In response to my commentary about how, given the state of advances by radical Islam in the war on Terror, the currently disfavored view towards capital punishment is in need of review, reader RobC happened to opine with the ages old comment that those who harm innocents deserve only a little more consideration than that they gave their victims.

Within the confines of this essay, here is what I observe in response.

I used to know many like you, RobC. All of you have been marginalized out of hearing because Political Correctness has painted your views as beyond acceptable discussion.

Many blogs, as you suggest, will grant a hearing to your words. But more is needed to make the jump to where you will be heard in live public forums so that you may affect public policy.

My long term plan for this site (and my premier site should I get it working well again) will come up with ideas that will open up minds now trained (at best) to ignore you. I welcome suggestions and criticisms from readers to aid me in my quest. What doesn't ring bells, what has potential, and what will make good soundbites?


Also, I have had some success in the past at conceiving useful variations on how the political spectrum can be redrawn. However, that was during the Cold War so, although it still accurately reflects how power seekers game the system, it has less immediate use today in the War On Terror.

I have been brewing again a new way to redraw the political spectrum with soundbites that essentially say The Right loves life and The Left loves death. A preview can be read at comment #6 here.

More to follow.