Paul Moreno over at American Spectator has a post whose title didn’t do all that much for me but the subtitle did: Progressives succeeded where the Confederates failed. While to most of the population, the Civil War was about slavery, it really was about differing interpretations of the Constitution. And the desire to take those differing interpretations from a war of ideology and economics to a war of weapons.
The real battle, however, never stopped as the foreign political philosophy called Progressivism (really, just a rebranding from Socialism) moved from Europe to America and took over the role that the South had had in trying to subvert and make irrelevant our foundation as a nation. Here are the ‘graphs that caught my eye (emphasis mine):
..The Civil War ended slavery and seemed to vindicate the principles of the Declaration, as Lincoln so ably articulated them in the Gettysburg Address. But it was only a few decades before a new generation, the “progressives,” renewed the war on the Declaration and succeeded where the Confederates failed. The progressives aspired to give America a European-style welfare state, and they knew that the principles of natural rights found in the Declaration and the Constitution stood in their way.
They also realized that religious beliefs and strong family bonds were impediments as well. Ask yourself:
How often do Progressives rail against “bitter clingers” and “deeply held beliefs” and calls demands that the religious get with the program and change their beliefs? Obama has certainly done so – and so has Hillary. There must be no other Gods before their’s (or them) and certainly no absolute value systems that we little people can point to and say “you’re wrong and that’s immoral”. Those that do, well, we see what is happening in the aftermath of the Supremes marriage decision – they unlocked the gates and the Progressives are already looking for figurative (and taxation) lynchings (and for those that will take umbrage at that only have to look at George Takei’s RACIST remarks about Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas on being “a clown in blackface”.
Sidenote: said in the heat of the moment, apologized Takei. Frankly, I don’t think any conservative was surprised at his outburst – words like that just don’t “come out”. That requires an on going attitude of “tolerance” over a long period of time to be formulated. Said in anger? Hardly – that screed has been simmering for a long time and he was far from the only one saying similar things. He just happens to be an “icon” in the gay movement – nice to know a “top guy” feels such. He just validates the racism within the Progressive movement even as they project that racism to those that disagree with them. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been called such, right Zandra Rice-Hawkins? Rush has a perfect smackdown of Takei here
They both, as well as other Progressives, are ALWAYS demanding that American society implement, not just universal kindergarten (yes, another import from Von Bismark who bribed his subjects with their own money with “gifts” of old-age pensions) but universal childcare? I ran a daycare center – I did wonder why some parents had kids at all for all of the time they actually had with them rather than with TMEW and our staff. And now, who best to “raise” your children but by government workers who generally belong to the Party of Government? Certainly from the Progressive view (as in “we have your children”) in instilling values in them from the earliest age? As I have recounted many times here, already we have an educational system that believes that children belong to them and not to their parents (and here in NH, Democrat Gov. Hassan just vetoed a bill that attempts re-elevate parental rights over their children – she perfectly shows the same attitude as MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry that children are collectively owned and not a “private notion”.
Back to the piece:
Woodrow Wilson was more explicit than most progressives on this point. The progressives were all “historicists,” who believed that political and constitutional principles could not be fixed, but had to change — to evolve, in the Darwinian idiom — along with changing times and conditions. Thus Wilson argued that “we are not bound to adhere to the doctrines held by the signers of the Declaration.” If we did read the document, he said, we should focus on the list of particular grievances that were germane to 1776, but not to our times. The principles of equality, consent and natural rights he dismissed as “the rhetorical introduction of the Declaration of Independence,” adding that “If you want to understand the real Declaration, do not repeat the preface.” Wilson complained that too many Americans “have never gotten beyond the Declaration of Independence.”
For you see, once you have “changed” something enough, it no longer is what it started to be – why else have Conservative judges and legislators been so reviled. It isn’t so much about “adapting” the Constitution – they started with their endpoint in mind and started on their 140 year march to reach that goal – to make it so bent out of shape, it would be unrecognizable to those that wrote and voted on it.
If we “are not bound to adhere to the doctrines held by the signers of the Declaration“, then what IS our social contract – unless it is only what someone else says it is and then tries to make THAT absolute and to be obeyed for their Leftist ideology advance? It’s like the whole homosexual marriage fight going on – if it is no longer a union of two of the opposite sex, well, then there is no definition at all as ANY subjective reality of it (re: thanks to Bruce Jenner and Rachal Dolezal and all of the other Socialist / Progressive notions that good is bad, down is up, and other utterances that have led to the “reality” that true reality is only what someone says it it)
The 20th century was largely the story of Americans “getting beyond the Declaration of Independence.” We no longer take seriously the idea that individuals have pre-existing rights by nature, and that we form governments to secure these rights. Rather, we have embraced the idea that government is the provider of what we call rights, but are in fact the benefits of an entitlement state.
And this is the regression that many of us on the Right have feared, for without God, without absolute values, we have no unalienable Rights that Government is to acknowledge, value, and protect. Instead, Progressives are perfectly fine with political environments where governance is not by The Rule of Law but by the old, despotic and tyrannical Strong Man.
And they fully indend on being that Strong Man. Monarchy and Communism depend on that notion – hasn’t generally worked out well for the rest of us.
And that’s perfectly fine with them as they Strong Man the rest of us to the Utopian dream they have for the rest of us. Just don’t dissent from their diktats.
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Update: I doubt very much that the angry old gay man formerly known as Sulu will pay much of a price for his outburst of racism against Clarence Thomas – remember, the Left punishes its own only when that person goes off the Democrat Plantation. However, have seen this around a bit:
In any case, George Takei is now in the Google Pantheon of Shame – such a legacy, but when you are a racist…
