Posted on 02/19/2012 4:21:06 AM PST by Kaslin
I’ve been contacted by many readers asking why I use the word “progressive” instead of “liberal.” I figured I’d write a little bit about why this week…
The Change
Remember when Democrats used to call themselves liberals? Then conservatives showed the world what liberals really were, and no one wanted to call themselves that anymore.
Now, they call themselves progressives again – as they did in the early 20th century until their racist/fascist agenda was rejected and they went into hiding under the word liberal. (To you progressives outraged by this truth, read Jonah Goldberg’s masterful book Liberal Fascism and open your eyes to your eugenics-loving, racist roots.)
Their name has changed, but their objectives have not. They want an all-powerful federal government with the individual subjected to its will and whims.
Naturally, they support such a thing only when there is a progressive in charge and will scream bloody murder when a non-progressive dare exercise power of any sort. For an example of this, see the Bush years.
Remember the Bush years … when the president went to Congress and got approval for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq? Ever wonder, then, where the anti-war movement went, and why, after Obama’s surge in Afghanistan and bombing of Libya, there wasn’t a massive rally on the National Mall?
Did those fervent anti-war protesters suddenly decided to “give war a chance”? And where is former MSNBC staple Cindy Sheehan now? Or Code Pink? When was the last time you saw them on TV? We’re still at war; only nobody is protesting it anymore.
That’s because it never was about war. It was about damaging a political opponent. Their guy is running things now. And he’s in trouble.
After failing miserably to have any positive impact on the economy – and spending trillions to do it – the 2010 election happened and Republicans swept the House. The Tea Party exists, and it is spreading the word about the virtues of smaller government and warning about overspending. The only things that terrify progressives more than those ideas are black conservatives and women carrying babies until they’re born.
How Far Will They Go?
One thing progressives won’t do is allow anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to stand in the way of their agenda.
Be it the grandmother who loved and raised President Barack Obama after his degenerate mother abandoned him only to be reduced to a racist, a “typical white person” when it became politically advantageous to distract from Jeremiah Wright … or the entire feminist movement when Bill Clinton was charged with sexual harassment (and assault … and rape), nothing is sacred beyond the agenda.
Add to that list the Occupy Wall Street rape victims.
On Monday’s Countdown on Current TV, former MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas joked about the numerous, documented charges of sexual assault and rape at various “Occupy Wall Street” encampments around the country, denying they’d happened. Twitter exploded with outrage.
There was a time when “the seriousness of the charge” was all that mattered when it came to sexual assault/harassment, but that was when conservatives (Clarence Thomas) were the ones being charged. Since progressives make their living through hypocrisy, that standard went out the window under President Clinton and was changed to “drag a $100 bill through a trailer park” and see what you get.
Soon after dismissing rape of “Occupiers” by other “Occupiers,” Olbermann replied to a tweet from Washington Times columnist Henry D’Andrea’s tweet demanding a retraction and apology with, “No Occupy rapes, no cover-up, no apology, no retraction, and credibility for your Moonie-owned “newspaper.”
Setting aside the unprovoked religious bigotry from the “tolerant” Olbermann, that’s a flat-out denial that there were any rapes of Occupy women. That’s Keith saying the many, many women who filed rape and/or sexual assault charges with the police are lying. Here’s the bus, Occupy ladies, get ready to slide under it.
Probably realizing he’d stepped in it, Olbermann, who holds the Orwellian title of “Chief News Officer” at Current, then went on to accuse Andrew Breitbart of concocting the charges. When presented with a detailed list of criminal activity at “Occupy” camps, Olbermann changed his tune again to, “Looking at the (Breitbart) ‘Occupy Assault List’ I notice VICTIMS were in Occupy, not the assailants. Why are you blaming the victims?”
This, of course, is a flat-out lie. Olbermann knows it, but he doesn’t care. Those women and men who were raped and/or sexually assaulted at “Occupy” camps, those victimized by “Occupiers” and those now, stand in the way of the progressive agenda. As such, they were told by Keith to shut up and “take one for the team.”
Olbermann than went on several Twitter tirades against Breitbart in the hope of distracting from his own stupidity. He knows the rules. He knows there’s a bus out there with his name on it should enough progressives decide he hurts the cause more than he helps it.
Breitbart has the truth on his side, but truth is of little use to Olbermann and his fellow progressives. And neither are rape victims.
Keith continues to obsess over Andrew Breitbart like he was Rebecca Lobo, desperate to avoid that bus. He’s willing to do whatever he must to avoid the fate he willfully imposed on those women who did nothing beyond showing up to a protest progressives told them was good and pure. This is how progressives work.
You Are Being Lied To
I’d call progressives’ history of lies and distortions fascist tactics and remind everyone of how progressives in this country loved and were fascists in the 1930s. But there’s no need (again, see Jonah’s book). Not because they’re not, but because we all know the sun rises in the east.
That paragraph would not have been necessary at all if we had an honest media and education system. We don’t because that famous “liberal bias” everyone knows and loves is, at its core, a progressive bias. (For the most complete takedown of how the Progressive Industrial Complex works, please watch this video. Then share it on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere you can. People need to be shown how lies are spread so they can learn to spot them.)
Progressives in education, the media, unions and politics always will walk in lockstep with each other, destroying any and all who stand in their way (even their own), until they reach their desired goal. It’s not that they’re incapable of learning the mistakes of history, they’re counting on them. What else explains the president’s rush to spend this country into Greece? A desire to save the people who’ve always wanted to see Greece but couldn’t afford the trip?
The political Left destroyed the greatness of Europe and it wants to take down the United States next.
If liberals are allowed to rebrand themselves as progressives, shedding the baggage and animosity “liberal” has so rightly earned, liberty is more threatened. I still use the word liberal every now and then. I use them interchangeably. They are, after all, the same thing. But people need to be aware of that. Polls have shown “liberal” is unpopular, but people don’t feel the same way toward “progressive.” That has to be changed.
Every time leftists, regardless of what they call themselves, are exposed for what they really are, Americans reject them. Sometimes slower than others, but always. That’s why Barack Obama ran on “Hope and Change,” not “I’ll waste trillions and break us while slipping payoffs to my donors, raping your liberty…” etc., etc.
People are busy. They don’t have time to follow politics the way those of us who make our living doing it can. Nor should they. If we had an honest media, no one would have to. If we had an honest education system, no one would have to. If we had an honest government that adhered to the Constitution… You get the idea.
So that’s just a small snippet of why I use the word “progressive” instead of “liberal.” And why I think it’s important that you start too.
Also, don’t forget progressives are not just of one political party. You can’t pick them out by the stench of Zuccotti Park emanating off them like stink-lines in a comic strip. In 2008, John McCain couldn’t tell the world enough that he was a progressive. His idiot daughter likes to do the same thing. It’s a philosophy, not a party.
Let's just call them central planners and be done with it. I don't think Europe had seen a free enterprise system for centuries by the time Marx came around. There certainly was a problem with centrally planned economies. Marx's solutions were centrally planned, but "scientific." Keynes proposed "solutions" to Marx's "problems" with . . . a centrally planned and scientific "Capitalism." False solutions to imagined problems using "science" from great academicians have created and sustained almost every issue in modern economies. When it comes to most things, I'm for laissez-faire government, which should be interpreted as I am against government action into anything until you can demonstrate the intervention is going to be more beneficial than harmful. Some folks say that's libertarian, but I've seen "libertarians" argue some pretty retarded things, so I stick to the older term, laissez-faire. Everything else leads to a centrally planned system that is bound to fail.
Well put. I'm adding that to my profile page list of pertinent quotes; you're in good company.
Please, please let’s allow them to ditch the word liberal and move toward calling themselves progressives.
“Progressive” can evoke a question as to what they may be progressing toward. There’s a possible implicit negative connotation there.
“Liberal”, as other posters on this thread have pointed out, has a classic definition, conjuring up an ideological bent toward freedom, small government-more “laissez-faire”, if you will.
The left has gotten to power in large part by being very adept at semantics. This is a mistake on their part, choosing to describe themselves as something they clearly are. They are “progressing” us all toward a precipice, which is an illustration as to how this word cannot cloak their true desired course as the word “liberal” clearly has.
We should begin now to take the word “liberal” back, this is our opportunity.
Agreed, take back the Liberal meaning.Thinking of this, I wonder if they are currently in the process of co-opting the name “Republican” in the same way they took over the meaning of “Liberal” and that is what is causing us to see so many so-called “Republicans” acting in ways we’d rather they didn’t. They at first are Progressive Republicans and that morphs into Republicans and TA-DA...suddenly the word has been stolen once again just as with Liberal???
Yes. Central planning is a major plank in the Liberal/Progressive/Leftist platform. Tyrant, too, is a word that’s starting to apply to their leaders.
There’s also a religious element in them. Human Sacrifice is dear to them. Over thirty million babies never got to see the light of day since Roe vs. Wade. That’s because they are eugenisists.
Good piece. The name changed, but it’s nothing new. Just check out what Woodrow Wilson did. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more racist, anti-Constitutional, elitist enemy of freedom of that time. And then read a bit about the Fabian Socialists. It will freeze your blood.
When Hillary said she was an “early 20-century Progressive,” she wasn’t just pulling “not-liberal” labels out of her, uh, sleeve ... it was deliberate. This movement has been working to destroy individualism and self-determination as envisioned by our Founders for more than a century.
You bring up the one issue that keeps me from calling myself a libertarian. You can’t be for freedom if you aren’t for an individual right to life, liberty and property (sorry, but the compromise change from ‘property’ to ‘pursuit of happiness’ was a mistake). If there is *any* question of whether a right exists or not, it *must* be decided with any error going to the right to life, which was listed first for a reason. Therefore, if there is *any* question concerning when a life begins, the state *must* err on the side of life. To do otherwise is to claim that one person’s right to privacy supersedes another’s right to exist. That’s simply ridiculous.
Liberals/progressives are neither liberal nor progressive. They support an ancient system where the masses bow to a higher authority, which is supposedly more wise than the subjects it rules.
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