Some Thoughts on Human History, and Progressives

Many of you might have noticed that I often put quotations around the word, “progressive.” Over the last couple of years, I’ve probably wasted a thousand keystrokes doing that, so I might as well explain why.

For the vast majority of human history, mankind has lived in a state of tyranny. This probably started not long after cave man Ugh realized that his neighbor, Argh was weaker than him, and carried a smaller club. After Argh’s untimely demise (with the exception of some tribal societies), the course of mankind was set.

As mankind developed from hunter gatherers to simple agrarian societies, to city states, and then empires, a variety of chieftains, kings, dictators, warlords, priests, priestesses, and self declared “gods,” have ruled mankind. During those countless ages, the average person lived, or died, at the whim of his or her self-appointed leader. Economies were controlled, taxes were high, incomes were close to nil, and the average person often died as penniless as they were at birth. Economies centered on the wealth of the leaders, not on the people, so pestilence and starvation killed many when it did not need to happen. There was little to no income distribution. There was the top class; the leaders and their enforcers, and there were the peasants. There was not even a hint of equality or justice, just oppressive rule. (I know that Rome was, for a time, a republic, and some Greeks practiced democracy, but even then, they were a drop in the bucket when compared to the total history of man)

These tyrannical leaders did not tolerate dissent, or even the chance of dissent. people were tortured, maimed, and executed to insure the power of the ruler(s). People were killed for treason, heresy, or for simply knowing someone who might have done something. There was no, “taking to the streets.” Such events would have been met with lethal force. Not only that, the entire town in which such a thing occurred might be razed in retaliation.

The leaders during those dark times were said to be wiser, stronger, more suited to rule, and it had been ordained by God that they should have power. And all the while, excesses and corruption were the order of the day.

However, as the centuries passed, progress-REAL progress, was made. The Magna Carta established that people have some rights, though it is not as codified as are the rights in our Constitution. Also, John Locke, among others, formulated the ideas of natural rights and the social contract.

Our Founding Fathers were the next in line for real progress. They created, in the Unites States Constitution, the greatest charter for human freedom ever devised. They embraced the idea of Natural Rights, in the human freedoms are from God, and that government exists to protect those rights-and cannot take them away. Humans were protected in their right to free speech, their freedom of religion, their right to defend themselves, their right to property and all the others that we tend to take for granted today. In our Republic, man rules himself, and government exists only to do those functions that man cannot do for himself, such as national defense, enforcing contracts, establishing courts, coining money, and so forth. Or at least, that’s is how it’s supposed to be.

However, the forces of tyranny did not rest or concede when true human freedom started to emerge. The next stages of tyranny were Communism, followed by the original “progressive movement,” and then Fascism. All of these are related in terms of the fact that they center power in an elite, that then control all aspects of human behavior. Their only differences are in process and scope.

The results were horrific. Over a hundred million people were killed in the name of Communism. Fascism might have equaled that, had they not been stopped by WW II. The “progressives,” operating in Western Democracies, had to move slowly. Incrementalism has been their primary operating procedure. However, they inspired the Nazi’s with their love for eugenics, and were “fellow travelers” with the other two movements.

Over the decades, “progressives,” operating under a variety of labels , have moved through our institutions. They have used a variety of justifications to give the Federal government more power. They have taken control of education. They are in control of the MSM. They have crafted regulations that destroy business and industry. They created social programs that have encouraged dependency, and then have created economic crisis to fill those programs to unprecedented levels. They have legalized sexual assault in the name of “security.” They have also used the created and false crisis of global cooling, global warming, climate change in order to justify the reduction of our lifestyles. All of this, of course, will be monitored and controlled by the authorities.

Their desire for control extends to all aspects of human life. Government wants to tell us what kind of food can we eat- even if we can grow our own. We are told how much water our toilets can use. The kinds of car we can own-and eventually, even if we can own one is to be determined by unelected bureaucrats. What kind of house we can build, the healthcare we can recieve, and a host of others, are all in the crosshairs of the “progressives.” They even seek to control mass media and the internet to control the free flow of information. In the end, are we free if the government dictates so many of our basic human functions?

We also see how the “progressives” treat those that disagree with them. Conservative and Libertarian students are threatened and punished on campuses, where free speech is curtailed, and labeled as “hate.” Union members and other “progressives” engage in violence and intimidation to silence those that dissent. The Consitution itself has been declared “outdated,” or “irrelevant.” The Founders themselves are attacked and discounted. After all, if we are to be controlled by an all powerful government, the very ideas of freedom have to be attacked, silenced and discredited.

As you can see, “progressives” are not progressive. They are REgressive. They seek to return us to a state in which we are controlled and dominated by a small elite. And just as the monarchs of old, they seek the “divine right of kings,” in order to gain and maintain control over us. Of course, they tell us that it’s for our own good, but they proceed from the faulty premise that they know better than us, and that we cannot self govern.

We were born into a state of freedom. In terms of human history, this is a rare and precious gift. Only the tiniest fraction of all humans that have ever lived have enjoyed these freedoms. If we allow the Regressives to take them away, it might be centuries before they re-emerge, and hundreds of millions will die in the process.

Are we going those freedoms, and the future of mankind, over to a small elite that “knows what’s best?”

NOTE: This is yet another post that could be turned into a small book. Obviously there are things I could not touch on without making it my first book. Feel free to let me know what I missed in the comment section.