“progressives” in American Politics

While “progressives” have existed in both major American political Parties for over a century, in recent years “progressives” have consumed the Democratic Party’s structural hierarchy while simultaneously increasingly insinuating themselves into the ranks of Republican Party leadership. This has led to a blurring in the minds of the American voter of the distinction between the two. Combine that blurred distinction with the growing reality that members of both Parties are increasingly interested in keeping their own powerful positions, replete with benefits comparable to royalty, and it becomes dangerously less possible to distinguish between them.

When Republicans sound and act like Democrat-light and Democrats hijack the rhetoric of and abduct issues from the Republican Party, how can the voter reasonably expect to decipher the difference?

The American political system has been corrupted by self-interested career politicians far more interested in their own political survival and the accompanying feeding from the public trough than they are in looking out for the interests of the American voter.

Americans need to realize that the Republican versus Democrat political paradigm, if not dead, is on failing life support.

Being a Republican no longer consistently means standing for constitutionally limited affordable government, lower taxes and a free market capitalist economic system. Today’s Democratic Party is definitely not the Party of John F. Kennedy. The Party of “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” has become the Party of steal from the productive and control the redistribution of that wealth to a government dependent class which cries out “give us more free stuff.” In the interest of getting themselves re-elected, members of both political Parties have moved in the direction of giving away “free stuff,” be it in the form of Welfare and Food Stamps to the inner city poor or in the form of subsidies and tax breaks for special interest groups eager to be on the receiving end of crony capitalism.

In the twenty first century, the contemporary political paradigm in America is no longer Republican versus Democrat. It is Americans versus “progressives.”

If you are a “progressive” you are not an American, and if you’re an American you will never be a “progressive.”

Upon what foundation can such an assertion be made?

Today, the political philosophical divide in the United States lies between the intent of America’s Founding Fathers and the intent of “progressives”, who favor the Marxist view. The Marxist view is directly, fundamentally and diametrically opposed to the uniquely American view.

America is the birthplace of freedoms that allows everyone the right to own private property.

How would Americans react if, after years of struggle to make their mortgage payments, they finally owned their own home, then, what they thought was an American government “informed” them that their home did not belong to them after all, it belonged to “all of the people” and Americans had to follow government mandates to allow strangers to live on their property and in the home they had long labored to purchase…whether they liked it or not?

The American idea, the shot heard round the world, is that the people can govern themselves. By the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God Americans are entitled, by virtue of their humanity, to the maximum amount of Individual Liberties consistent with law and order, and to the Right of private ownership, not the least of which is the Right to own and decide for themselves. Where to live, what to do for a living, what to eat, where their children will go to school, what motor vehicle they will drive, what healthcare plan and which doctors work best for them. These Liberties and Rights are to be equally protected by a constitutionally limited, representative government that derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

America’s Founding Fathers declared that all men are created equal; that in effect, all men are kings, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They believed that a self-governing people could thrive without the “benefit” of having an oligarchy ruling over them.

A system which allowed “common people” to own property without first obtaining permission from a “divinely ordained” ruler – the American system – was a radical departure from centuries old norms. As originally designed by its Founding Fathers, America was a place where anyone could come, work hard, earn money, save those earnings, purchase property and elevate themselves and their posterity to a level that had hitherto been unattainable where individuals remained shackled by the constraints of older political systems. America was the place where undue government interference did not prevent individual achievement.

The “progressive” idea is that an all-powerful centrally planned government, with extreme hostility towards private ownership, forces redistribution of wealth in the name of social or economic “justice”. In order to ensure “fairness”, an oligarchy of self-imagined, self-appointed “intellectual elites” will control businesses, industries and people who are incapable of governing themselves.

These “progressive” ideas are European in origin, not American.

By fleeing Europe, America’s settlers rejected Europe’s failed ideas in pursuit of a better future. A future where their dreams and ambitions were no longer restricted by the outmoded constraints imposed upon them by the European socio-economic class structure.

For over two centuries America has been an unprecedented success where a five thousand year leap was possible. Since its birth America has been a beacon to freedom seeking people because the American idea is the better idea.

Among Americans there is no debate that the United States of America is by far the most inventive, productive, prosperous and charitable nation in the history of the planet. Among “progressives,” America is populated by backwards thinking, greedy, evil bigots who need to be “enlightened” and shown the error of their ways by their “progressive” superiors.

There has yet to be put forth one rational, logical argument to support abandoning the highly successful American idea in favor of European ideas that are currently failing in Europe itself.

https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/progressives-in-american-politics/