The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Progressivism Won’t Be Our Death

Posted on | July 4, 2014 | 35 Comments

by Smitty

It’s easy, melting in the humidity of the political winter that is the Obama Administration, to take counsel from fears. But that’s really just the inner demons from the Commies burying us in negative vibe, and maybe a FaceBook experiment or two.

Jonah Goldberg was focusing on “Liberals tak[ing] exception to exceptionalism” in a post today at NRO. Read the whole thing, but note this bit, emphasis mine:

Why liberals have become so comfortable running down America is no doubt complicated, but I think one part of the answer is obvious. Liberals tend to equate patriotism with the government. Obama was supposed to usher in a glorious new era of European-style big government. He’s failed, though alas not entirely. But in the attempt he aroused a populist movement — the tea parties — full of people who wore their traditional patriotism on their sleeves and tricorn hats. The forces of American exceptionalism proved formidable, taking advantage of our exceptional constitutional structure to thwart European social democracy.

The flip side of that is that Liberals despise intellectual individualism, that is, dissent. You can slake your lusts in any hedonistic direction, and it will be lauded as ‘edgy’ and ‘hip’. Miley Cyrus is some kind of heroine to a Liberal, for all she’s a sad disappointment from the vantage point of adulthood. Heroin itself is just some ‘epidemic’ that happens, because who can expect individuals to grow up and realize that self-medicating with narcotics is just nihilism, straight up? Individualism it the Liberal is a thing of the flesh, not the mind. And when your need to slake some lusts crosses a legal line, that’s a feature! You’ve just underscored the need for MOAR laws, bureaucrats, hardware, centralization, studies, and news programming.

The equation of patriotism with government is really about fetishing authoritarianism. The Obama Administration would have totally gotten the economy, health care, and foreign policy right if the hoarders and wreckers had just played along, instead of getting all bitter and clingy with “them guns and Bibles”. However, having already arrested all intellectual development at adolescence, the authoritarian urge becomes a self-licking bullwhip. Witness the anti-intellectual meltdown over Hobby Lobby. Rage is generated, then flung at the closely held corporation, one of the last bastions of less-than-total government control. As long as the savages can get their rut on, the sad truth that they’ve been lowered to something akin to a pack of hounds and bitches is an apparently fair trade.

How does this reaction sustain itself? How long can the Left continue to burn the character of people for political fun and profit? With #OccupyResoluteDesk seeming to cash out on Democrats retaining any control in Congress after November, one is encouraged to pray to an actual, non-governmental God that real wisdom will descend upon the people in general, and the leaders in particular. Time to butcher this golden calf of authoritarian Progress.

Category: Democrats, Progressivism

Comments

35 Responses to “Progressivism Won’t Be Our Death”

  1. Cactus Ed
    July 4th, 2014 @ 10:00 am

    Witness the anti-intellectual meltdown over Hobby Lobby.

    Let me say this: if Hobby Lobby is forced by the government to provide abortifacients to its employees, and, of course, Hobby Lobby is a person in the eyes of the law, then the government’s Affordable Care Act madate is in violation of the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. For it would substantially burden Hobby Lobby’s proprietors’ exercise of religion if they were forced to violate their own consciences by providing the means of what they believe to be murder to their employees. So the precise question that had to be decided was whether Hobby Lobby is a person in the eyes of the law. The question was NOT whether corporations are persons in the eyes of the law. The lefty-lackeys are wrong if they think otherwise.

  2. smitty
    July 4th, 2014 @ 10:18 am

    The Left is unburdened by concern over pesky facts.

  3. NeoWayland
    July 4th, 2014 @ 10:38 am

    So, am I allowed to dissent?

    The “moral morass” is necessary.

    A choice made under the threat of force is no choice.

    If you truly believe that yours is the only way, then you have to convince people. You do that by showing that it works no matter what the circumstances.

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    July 4th, 2014 @ 10:51 am

    They are not fettered by objective reality.

  5. Daniel O'Brien
    July 4th, 2014 @ 11:06 am

    The push back by concerned small town citizens in California over the shipping of illegal aliens (many carrying infectious diseases) to their town is a spark. If this Government keeps pushing, the spark will ignite a fire, a fire storm of back lash. Keep them locked and loaded, my friends.

  6. richard mcenroe
    July 4th, 2014 @ 11:24 am

    “However, having already arrested all intellectual development at adolescence…” Interestingly, studies (supported by some recent events with my inlaws) have shown that the emotional maturation of individuals is largely arrested at the time they begin serious drug use.

    How old was Choom Boy in that prep school again?

    “How does this reaction sustain itself? How long can the Left continue to
    burn the character of people for political fun and profit?” As long as they can, to avoid owning consequences for their own choices.

    But, enough. It’s the 4th of July, and I’m going out to man a booth for OperationGratitude.com at the local festivities today. The progs will still be progs tomorrow, Boehner will still be a worm tomorrow, the RNC will still be screwing over the people who actually vote them into office tomorrow…but time enough to deal with that then.

    Enjoy your holiday, folks. Mistakes notwithstanding, this nation has earned it.

  7. richard mcenroe
    July 4th, 2014 @ 11:26 am

    The “moral morass” is necessary to progs the way trash cans are necessary to maggots.

  8. Matt_SE
    July 4th, 2014 @ 1:15 pm

    The people seem to be waking up, if polls are any indication.
    The wonderful thing about a narcissist like Barry is that his reaction is predictable: he will oscillate between sullenness and lashing out.
    Since the public is now more inclined to view him critically, the spectacle will only serve to drive the public further away from liberalism.

    P.S. Things are still going to get worse, IMO. Mainly, economically. That won’t help the Dems, either.

  9. richard mcenroe
    July 4th, 2014 @ 1:27 pm

    The wonderful thing about a narcissist fourteen year old girl like Barry is that his reaction
    is predictable: he will oscillate between sullenness and lashing out.

    FIFY

  10. ConsRWrong
    July 4th, 2014 @ 2:26 pm

    You’re reading the polls wrong. Dislike of Obama, or being unhappy with his performance is not a rejection of liberalism, and the polls show that.

    People are still in favor of gay marriage, preserving the social safety net, taking care of the environment, taxing the wealthy at higher rates, making an education affordable, reforming healthcare(even if conservatives continue to demonize Obamacare major components of it like covering pre existing conditions, which is the core of ACA, the public still favors)a less interventionist foreign policy, decriminalization of marijuana, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on. It is the socially conservative mentality, which although makes a lot of noise like a lot of dying animals, that is finished. We grow, get older, see how silly past morality was, and discard it in favor of more freedom.

    And I think feminists really have a point about right wing men: you’re so trapped by rigidly defined gender roles, and any deviation from them is immoral. Just look at your hatred of the President, and how you attack him. It’s all attacking what appears to you to be female traits.

  11. Joan Rivers Calls Michelle O a ‘Tranny’ | Regular Right Guy
    July 4th, 2014 @ 2:29 pm

    […] Progressivism Won’t Be Our Death […]

  12. richard mcenroe
    July 4th, 2014 @ 3:27 pm

    Will somebody put the lid on that trash can before the racoons get to it?

  13. ConsArealwaysWrong
    July 4th, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

    Haha! Truth sucks. Hurry up, and die already, so we can get on with it. And you will not be missed, either, fuckface.

  14. Adjoran
    July 4th, 2014 @ 5:38 pm

    The “core of ACA” isn’t covering preexisting conditions. That could have been accomplished in a number of ways without taking over the entire system.

    But by all means run on your big government platform. See who salutes.

  15. Quartermaster
    July 4th, 2014 @ 6:53 pm

    They are anti-science so it isn’t surprising that reality means nothing to them.

  16. Quartermaster
    July 4th, 2014 @ 6:56 pm

    Truth, perhaps, in that infinite space between your ears, but no where else.

    We aren’t going away soon. But, when we do, you will regret it. Deeply.

  17. NeoWayland
    July 4th, 2014 @ 8:41 pm

    Also to conservatives.

    Without choice, you don’t have to be “pure.”

  18. Bob Belvedere
    July 5th, 2014 @ 1:17 am

    Every Patriot should hope that we do, indeed, have a spark.

  19. Matt_SE
    July 5th, 2014 @ 3:06 am

    We’ll see how many people love liberalism when things turn really bad.
    Liberalism is a luxury item. When it comes down to a choice between liberalism and feeding your family (or yourself), people will choose the latter.

  20. Quartermaster
    July 5th, 2014 @ 11:54 am

    Another idiotic statement on your part. Conservatives have no desire, or need, for a moral morass. The left wants it because they seek to create chaos which makes it far easier for them to come to power.

  21. NeoWayland
    July 6th, 2014 @ 9:41 am

    Of course they do.

    What do you think a “test of faith” is all about?

    It’s easy to make the “right” choice when it’s the only choice. Easier still to make the “right” choice for another when it’s the only choice.

  22. Quartermaster
    July 6th, 2014 @ 6:32 pm

    You’re simply descending further into nonsense.

    Look, if you want to be a self licking ice cream cone, be my guest. I’m not going to waste my time on showing you the stupidity of what you just said.

  23. NeoWayland
    July 6th, 2014 @ 6:57 pm

    Yet oddly enough you keep coming back.

    It’s really not that hard. Your faith in virtue is meaningless if you treat it as a ribbon to be won once and displayed on the wall. Nor does it gain worth if you destroy everything except the “right” choice.

    You can only honor it by making choices, time after time, day after day, year after year.

    That means that the “bad” choices have to exist or your choices are nothing.

  24. Maggie's Farm
    July 7th, 2014 @ 4:52 am

    Monday morning links

    The Science Is In — Why Gluten Sensitivity Is Probably Fake Quantum state may be a real thing – Physicists summon up their courage and go after the nature of reality. Japanese Knotweed: The Invasive Plant That Eats the Value of Your Home 11 Skills

  25. WalkingHorse
    July 7th, 2014 @ 7:07 am

    As Matt_SE notes below, progressivism is a first-world fetish, which melts away when the prosperity enabled by the individual freedom which progressives hate so has been stamped out by out-of-control government. What is left afterward is merely jack-booted thuggery in uniforms, not a legitimate government.

  26. WalkingHorse
    July 7th, 2014 @ 7:11 am

    Here’s the image…

  27. Quartermaster
    July 7th, 2014 @ 7:51 am

    1st, you’ve changed the subject. 2nd, I respond because I hope, just maybe, you will see how stupid your posts are and change.

    The leftist needs chaos to accomplish what they want. The conservative hates it. That’s the bottom line. It’s truly sad that you are blinded by your own ideology. There were others like you, and their system failed. For more,

    http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/212a_47e.htm

  28. NeoWayland
    July 7th, 2014 @ 9:22 am

    The same subject, just from another perspective.

    You’re so convinced that I have to be wrong that if I told you “Duck” before you got conked on the head, you’d accuse me of talking waterfowl when I should have been telling you to look out.

    Simplifying it to the absurd, if you define everything as “A” and “NOT A,” you can’t tell the “A” without the “NOT A.”

  29. anonymous
    July 7th, 2014 @ 10:30 am

    Casuistry. Not even good casuistry, either.

    “Hey, pedophilia and bestiality are GOOD because you can show how good you are by choosing not to do them, so go easy on my clients.”

    “Hey, watch me wipe my ass on the Constitution and the flag. Wait, why aren’t you applauding me for demonstrating that you could choose not to do this?”

    “Hey, watch me set this house on fire…”

  30. NeoWayland
    July 7th, 2014 @ 11:31 am

    I didn’t say “good.” I said necessary.

    And by the way, you just defined “good” by listing “not good” behavior. A or NOT A.

    A bit limited, but workable in many situations.

  31. Quartermaster
    July 7th, 2014 @ 3:23 pm

    See my last post. You have very serious philosophical problems that you are unwilling to admit to. You can stay on the path you are on, and remain on the outermost fringe and be an idiot the rest of your life. The choice is yours.

  32. NeoWayland
    July 7th, 2014 @ 4:21 pm

    Something to think about.

    Without that “moral morass,” how can you tell you’ve made the right choice?

    Not to mention how the “moral morass” can force you to find a new better way.

  33. Quartermaster
    July 7th, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

    I long ago thought about the nonsense you have posted here and rejected it as nonsense. There are actually moral standards out there that do not require a moral morass to be able to tell if you’ve done right or wrong. Those concepts must exist before the morass or you have no foundation. The problem you have is you would rather be a self licking ice cream cone than to actually arrive at anything.

    So, if you wish to willfully obtuse continue to be so, but this is the last for me in this series.

  34. NeoWayland
    July 7th, 2014 @ 6:58 pm

    A or NOT A, but you’ll never acknowledge the NOT A.

    Not so very long ago, it was moral for a lord to sleep with a bride on her wedding night, before even her husband.

    Not so very long ago, it was moral for parents to send their children to work in the mills and the mines.

    And not so very long ago, lobotomies and forced sterilizations were moral under “certain conditions.”

    That’s why I dissent.

  35. CruisingTroll
    July 8th, 2014 @ 12:43 pm

    No, every Patriot should hope that we can clear these brambles of idiocy and tyranny without resorting to fire, for fire is a surly servant and fearsome master. The most exceptional thing about America is that our revolution didn’t go the way 99% of revolutions turn out.