Every so often, when some progressives act like they would have been among the patriots in the 18th century, I point out their error.
It goes something like this:
The colonials who were okay with Arbitrary government were the Tories.
Since Arbitrary governance is the core of “progressivism” in the United States — the Constitution otherwise would prevent progressivism at the federal level and progressives feel no need to amend it to make their mad schemes lawful — it follows that this lot would have had no issues with the abuses of the Crown.
And it isn’t just that they are okay with Arbitrary government, but that in every particular they demand far more of government than the George and his Parliament ever considered or even dreamed of.
As a consequence if we consider how they might have acted upon the Patriot’s complaint of the crown sending innumerable officials to lord it over the colonies ... well, I’m sure they’d understand it was meant for our own good just as their bureaucratic hordes are claimed to be. Same with the taxes.
In fact, today’s nut burgers might be howling that George wasn’t taxing and spending enough!
You can’t want to exceed the Crown’s supposed abuses in EVERY respect and think you’d somehow have been against them had you been there.
Simply: an ideology that demands far worse than the worst of the Crown’s supposed abuses would never side with those who wanted less of it all, and the pretense that today’s left would have been Patriots back in the day is laughable.
Heck, if the colonies had been as far left as the DNC is now the King might have been trying to protest THEM!
Today’s Left is yesterday’s Tories and, later, the Fabian Socialists.