If you read liberals—Week, Moveon.org,
Huffpost, or Euros like The Economist, it becomes clear what motivates activist
progressives. They are utopians who want
a world sans prejudice, and morality as well.
But the big dream plans don’t take place spontaneously. Plans require guidance/control by the state. Evolution to the dark side--Power Hunger,
Socialism, Authoritarianism--happens.
Dictated policies lead to dictators, the pitfall of European kings and
Marxist/facists. So after 1763, British
American colonists grew wary of directives from government. They wrote a constitution that espoused
Liberty, limited federal govt, and low taxation.
These last two years under Biden
have been eye-opening for average guys with other interests than politics. Parents who went to school board meetings
with suspicions were labeled “domestic terrorists” by the Justice Dept., a
frightening development. Biden called
anyone who voted for Trump a “semi-facist” after first alleging them to be “white
supremacists” ( in league with KKK?!) That stunned a lot of people, to be
deemed criminals as it were by none other than the President. It’s one thing to be labeled a “chump” or “deplorable”
or a phrase that meant “bitter clinger”.
We are used to name-calling in politics that invokes stupidity. But to tag as an enemy of the state is quite
another matter. And most of the
President’s supporters are cheering this. Just fans or are they aching for
civil war? I should hope the prior!
How does this happen? To be a lib, you only have to think yourself
smarter than most people. You envision
your own opinion that of a superior elite which aspires to rule. The elites of
Europe, the aristocrats, panicked in the 1800s worrying that a French
Revolution would spread and behead. So
they came up with reasoning called nobilese
oblige “obligation of the nobles”. Don’t
kill me, I’m a good aristocrat who, albeit rich, understands your plight. Behead that other evil exploitive guy! We call this a limousine liberal in USA. Note the aristocracy doesn’t want to step
down. They just want to convince you
they care. Of course, America has wealthy, a few of whom make money by getting
in cahoots with government money. Plus, as F. Scot Fitzgerald noted, “The rich
are different than us.” They love loose
morals that would get an ordinary middle class person in lifelong
troubles. Drink and get addicted? The rich just check themselves into a plush rehab
center. Have an affair? Abortion. The poor man with addiction is likely to die
in a gutter. She lives with the consequences of child-bearing. Thus elites
desire not just central planning, but also moral relativism and big government
to befriend for profit.
There is a problem with this
game. No utopia works. Utopias may beguile some, but reality always
bites. If I had a million dollars for
every time socialism worked, I’d still be dead broke. That, according to the Father of Modern
Psychology, John Locke (Two Treatises on
Government, 1677), is because every person is motivated by concerns for
self, not the Grand Soviet 5-year Plan or any other govt scheme. There are a some
crooked middle class businessmen, the successful ones create a product the
public wants to buy. Many are even part-motivated by a mission for God. This presents a mountainous problem for central
planners. Farmers, dreamers, the churches
follow another voice. When elites erupt into visceral hatred, watch out! “You
will buy an electric vehicle, no? What do you mean there is no place to
recharge it and you worry about cost and range? We will restrict fuel so that
you will be forced to buy an EV. You
will be forced to get vaccinated and wear a mask. You must talk in a woke manner or be
penalized. You must not question what
your children are taught in school.”
Elites don’t plan perfectly. Suppress
fossil fuels? 90% of manufactured goods depend on fossil fuels at this
time. Paint, make-up plastics, synthetic
fabrics, chemical feedstocks, smelting and coke—all come from fossil
fuels. Quarantining the healthy public
rather than the sick has never stopped contagion. Light-weight masks and vaccines are not 100%
effective and cause other problems sometimes. Educating without parental
support is foolhardy. Tax more and
people tend to do tax avoidance that leads to less revenue collection. Restrict
lives and people will act in secret. Statism never works positively.
The notion that each person should
be able to live as they see fit (Liberty), is destroyed under statism. Take away the most deeply held convictions of
people by trying to suppress their religion won’t work either. The Soviet
experiment lasted 3 generations and when the iron curtain fell, the West
discovered to its amazement that 1/3 of Russians were secret Christians. (They
forgot to suppress the elderly grandmothers who shared their faith with
children)
I sense that the midterms are going
to go badly for the progressives. Polls
don’t show it but I think all the threats have shut people’s mouths. But they are sharpening their pencils to
vote. Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see.
