The Progressive Mind: Tactics

Why Are Progressives So Successful? Why Do Governments Collapse?
By David F. Delorey, Jr.
Political patronage is defined as the use of state resources to reward individuals for their electoral support. Progressives (American Socialists) use this approach, culling people by race, sex, religion, income, class and/or political affiliation, and then appealing to each group’s specific wants and desires, with the overall goal to cobble together a majority vote to get their Progressive politicians elected. In process, they promote and inculcate the need to band together with other Progressives and rebel against the “enemy” — the dastardly politicians, the rich, and the greedy corporations, who by no mere coincidence collectively represent a minority of the voting pool.

In practice, Progressives put forth the need for hasty “emergency” measures to combat the “enemy”, and justify these “temporary” needs for setting aside the requirements of the Republic’s Constitution and laws, presumably for the “greater good”. Fiscal restraint is a foreign concept to Progressives — there is rarely a mention of how the cost of their agenda bears upon government’s capacity to fund it. Often times their process oriented “emergency” measures have lofty goals and promises for results, delayed long into the future. Most of these measures lack clear implementation details, especially the negative elements, before such is enacted. This gives the Progressive the initial opportunity to claim a measure of success with “change”, then blame any failures on the “enemy”, which gives rise to the need for even more “emergency” measures to sustain combat with the “enemy”.

Claims by the “enemy” are often met with personal attacks against them when the “enemy” puts forth logical, sound and compelling evidence against the Progressive measures. Progressives prefer to focus on selecting “victims” to justify the expansion of the welfare state, rather than resolve issues using the traditional nature of people to provide charity. They achieve the goal of producing an expanded government by promoting the confiscation of wealth from one group to benefit another group in order to curry political favor. They rely heavily on redistribution of wealth as the key to success. However, the recipients of wealth redistribution often go not to the “victims”, but to the expansion of Progressive machinery creating more and more government control over the people. The economy worsens. No matter, the Progressive presses on -– such is the fault of the “enemy”, world events or political opponents — not them.

Progressives have powerful tools in their toolbox — they foster hatred, envy, blame, grievance and demands for entitlements to “victims.” Lost by them, is the American spirit embodied in the Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that encourages initiative, personal responsibility and the right to be free from an unlimited federal government. TEA Party patriots are the newest group of conservative “extremists” as defined by Progressives. This is entirely logical because Progressives oppose our Republic’s fundamental founding principles and ignore the Constitutional requirements which are inconsistent with the Progressive agenda. Their philosophy is a paradox of values -– it represents a body of political elements that collectively contradicts itself. One need look no further than our history books to learn that the Progressive march toward a utopian socialist state, facilitated by an expanded federal government, finds little respect for such as those, more or less fortunate, who lie outside of their political critical mass of potential voters, or for human life for such as the unborn.

The plain fact is that government is the actual “enemy” of the engine of growth and prosperity because it does not create wealth — it consumes it. Applying the Progressive’s goal to expand government results in incrementally punishing achievement and rewarding failure. Interference into business by a government that would confiscate business profits, enslaves producers of goods and services. Liberty and freedom become casualties. Plainly, jobs are reduced when government makes it more difficult for employers to earn success in a diminished level of free market opportunities. Big government has a compelling and sustained historical record of inefficiency in using resources and producing politically driven regulations.

These factors stand to undercut the tenets that the country was founded upon: fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets. And so it is that the more an economy is centrally planned by government, the further we move away from our founding principles which have kept us safe, free and economically stable. And there we have it -– the Progressive movement in America today is a quest to affect broader governmental powers over the individual; it is based on an insidious and
deceptive process which constantly seeks out “victims”, then divides the “victims” into discrete groups of voters, with focused promises to each group of their “fair share” level of largesse from the public treasury, or from such wealth confiscated from the “enemy”, in exchange for their vote for Progressive politicians.

The cycle continues with Progressives promising more largesse and blaming all promised failures on the dastardly “enemy” which accordingly justifies the need to vote for more Progressives. The cycle ends in bankruptcy – that is, when the treasury of the government can no longer support the levels of largesse demanded by the Progressives and their “victims.”

Conclusion: A politician who is committed to telling the truth in an election campaign will usually be defeated by a clever and resourceful purveyor of deception. That is why Progressives are so successful and that is why governments collapse.

– Copyright © September 25, 2012 – David F. Delorey, Jr.

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