My favorite President on Independence Day’s meaning and letting us know how Progressives are not America’s friends or patriots (emphasis mine) given their false suppositions and ideology:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
-President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge
Progressives are full of themselves (and another assorted dark matter) when they think that they can must “evolve” the rest of us. Sorry, but they can’t as human nature just is. Sure, we can layer and paper over that nature with a veneer of civilization (sometimes more, sometimes less) but human nature, in all its goodness and evil, still lies beneath it. The Founding Fathers knew this and tried mightily to segment our Government and compartmentalize it to prevent that evil that says “let Power be mine”.
Cal has the right of it for Communism, Socialism, Communitarianism and Fascism are all cousins in the same family – they elevate The State over the Individual in all matters and brook no dissent from it. They demand versus persuading. They expect obedience instead of voluntary actions. In each and every way, they seek to (incrementally or in large jumps) to take away the power of the individual Citizen to decide for themselves in all matter of things and relegate that Power to either elected officials or unelected bureaucrats. Do not just listen to their words but watch more their actions. Watch carefully and over time and you can see their end game and the incremental steps to it – Control and Power.
Think I’m wrong? Ask them to take less in taxes. Ask them to roll back laws. Ask them to roll back regulations. Ask them to devolve power from the Federal Government to the Various States, from the States to the Counties, from the Counties to local towns and cities, and thence, to we the people. You will always hear the multitude of reasons of why they cannot and should not and it always ends up with “ANARCHY!!” to let you and I decide what is best for us. They don’t trust us to make the right decisions and deride what we think is better. Only the Government can be the font of goodness and knowledge – how CAN we be so oblivious to its ministrations as it only has “our best intentions” as heart.
We know better, don’t we?
How can a far off bureaucrat or someone ideologically know what is best for he, she, and I? They can’t, no matter what they say or think. They can only think in terms of the crowds, the masses, and “The Plan”. And you will be made to care about it, or they shall dub thee Extremist, Terrorist, Insurrectionist, or Anarchist.
When all we really want is to just be left alone. But in this time of the Collective, that just cannot do, can it?
And yet, they feel entitled to mandate just that.
Cal is right – Progressives cannot offer any better than what our Founders gave all to give to us: we are created equal before the Law and our Lord, that we have Rights that no Government should trifle with, and that Government exists only with the consent of the Government.
Progressives would (and are trying hard to) do away with all those things because without them, there is no Free People.
Vigilance is necessary this Independence Day.
