An Ex-Conservative turned Liberal turning Conservative again? - Granite Grok

An Ex-Conservative turned Liberal turning Conservative again?

H/T: Powerline for putting up this snippet from The Week columnist Damon Linker “How Brexit Shattered  Progressives’ Dearest Illusion,” piece.  Read it all but I thought this was the essence of it (emphasis mine, reformatted):

I used to be a conservative. I now consider myself a liberal. But I have never called myself a progressive. There’s a reason why, and it has nothing to do with policy. Liberals believe in the rule of law; in individual rights to speech, worship, assembly, and private property; in an independent judiciary and civilian control of the military; in representative institutions founded on the consent of the governed; in democratic elections, not as ends in themselves but as checks on the power of government and as a means of gauging and forging popular support for policies pursued by public officials in the name of the common good.

Actually, that is a TRUE Western Liberal in the grandest tradition and not the run-of the mill Democrat Progressive today who hides their Socialist monster.

Progressives believe in all of that, too, but they add something else: a quasi-eschatological faith in historical progress that gives the movement its name. This belief has many sources, and it takes many forms. One stream flows from liberal Protestant theology on down through Woodrow Wilson’s hopes for moral advances at home and an end to armed conflict abroad — with both of them realized by an elite class of public-spirited experts. The same theologically infused faith informs Barack Obama’s frequent invocation of an “arc of history” that “bends toward justice.” . . .

Actually I can’t go with that (“believe in all that”), given the Democrats now open attack on the Bill of Rights (First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth) and the subversion of Articles I & II separations of powers. And that “by an elite class of public-spirited experts” is necessarily incompatible with democracy – it is the Administrative State I have oft used.  But he is describing the Progressive inner zealot, so take a listen:

Politics in this expansive sense will come to an end in the imagined progressive future because there will be nothing left to debate. The big questions of politics will already be answered, the big disputes settled once and for all. Everyone will understand that all particular forms of solidarity are morally indefensible (just various forms of racism) and that all strong political stands against humanitarian universalism in the political realm are politically unacceptable (just various forms of fascism).

In other words, if you disagree with their moral and political outlook, you will be stomped out.  Their end game necessarily means that there is no dissent, no debate, and no discussion.  Their views, their values will, as they think / believe, will be as natural as breathing.

It would be one thing if progressives understood their universalistic moral and political convictions to constitute one legitimate partisan position among many. But they don’t understand them in this way. They believe not only that their views deserve to prevail in the fullness of time, but also that they are bound to prevail. . .

And thus, the phrase “the right side of history”, for there cannot be any future except that which they believe should be.  Or as Obama keeps saying, we on the Right prevent the US from aspiring to be the country they want it to be. But then he brings on the fate of all that look at their beliefs and find them wanting – and commits a faith / political sin of heresy:

But what if progressivism isn’t inevitable at all? What if people will always be inclined by nature to love their own — themselves, their families, their neighbors, members of their churches, their fellow citizens, their country — more than they love the placeless abstraction of “humanity”? In that case, the act of ignoring or even denigrating this love will have the effect of provoking its defensive wrath and ultimately making it stronger.

It makes perfect sense to be surprised, saddened, and concerned by the outcome of the Brexit vote. But shock? Fury? Disgust? Despair? That’s what a person feels when he discovers that his most dearly held fundamental beliefs have led him astray.

In this, Progressivism is fascist (and I use that word technically) in the way that Islamism is – there can be only one (any one else “get” that) and all other viewpoints must be destroyed.  Pursuit of Happiness does not exist for people like me who simply believe that, like our Founders, belongs to everyone in their own way.  Yet, we see Progressives willing to be the micro-totalitarians they are in denying our beliefs (both spiritual and political) because it is outside their system (go see the definition of Mussolini’s Fascism).

And if confronted with that, wouldn’t you come home?

Worse, knowing that, continuing on in the Progressive march to Utopia (the Utopia favored by Socialists and Communists in which we live, breath, think, and believe according to their theology to obtain “heaven on earth”)(as if they even believe in Heaven anymore).

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