Defining Progressivism

The use of government as an agency of human welfare in education, in public service, in political weapons of democracy, chiefly to make the round plugs in our society fit into the square holes of our national economy. - William Allen White

Progressives have for so long wore masks and tried to hide who they are, that finding any one of them honest enough to define progressivism is a deeply difficult task. One thing is clear even to the least involved observer: progressivism is a government-centric ideology. Government, above all else, is what means the most to them. As long as government is growing, they can tolerate any and all deviations within that framework.

White's definition is simple, concise, and most of all, accurate. Very accurate. White wrote this in his 1939 book The Changing West, on page 92. Here's a broader view of what he wrote: (See this and this)

To that end we have been trying to use government as an agency of human welfare in education, in public service, in political weapons of democracy, chiefly to make the round plugs in our society fit into the square holes of our national economy. The environmentalists in our politics - and they included practically all the liberal and progressive leaders - were not revolutionists. They believed in the evolutionary democratic process - the political, and social and economic process.

Understanding that the progressives prefer to eat your lunch bite by bite, and not steal the whole thing from you in one swoop is one of the most important ingredients in the mix. We can point to any number of things:

The Welfare State - This has seen expansions repeatedly over the last 80 years and every time various departments take on more people, cover more things, and cost more money. Ultimately, the basics began with FDR. They didn't begin with LBJ, didn't begin with Carter, or Obama.

The Administrative State - The bureaucracy and the aggressive use of regulations has a long storied history that very often gets tied to the EPA, which is one of the chief abusive agencies that we have today. But the abusive administrative agency did not start with Nixon. Didn't start with FDR either. This goes back to Woodrow Wilson. Wilson is the father of public administration, and many agencies that did exist before him did not do the kinds of voter/taxpayer hassling that they do today until Wilson brought his ideas of administration to office and these agencies were reformed in the mold of the progressive ideologue.

Education - We have Common Core today, but the best in-depth analyses of it mention how directly, CC is built on top of Ted Kennedy's No Child Left Behind framework; and those analyses continue, going back through and ultimately to the work of John Dewey.

Land Usurpations - This one is one of the oldest in the pantheon of the abuses of progressivism. The Bundy Family has repeatedly been in the news for all of their antics and chicanery. While they acted the wrong way in response to a bad situation, ultimately it did bring in discussions about how out of control the BLM is. And where does all of this begin? With Theodore Roosevelt. The original master of land usurping was Teddy, who sold us a bill of goods under the guise of national parks. Isn't that always how the progressives do it? They start with something that seems to make sense, until decades later you're scratching your head and wondering what it is you really signed up for. What did the progressives leave out of the fine print? There's always something they demand in return that they don't mention.

That's the problem with progressives, they're all liars. They can't really tell you they want government to control all aspects of your life, and they know that if they try to steal your whole lunch in one grab that you'll fight back.

But if they only steal one pea off your plate, then they steal another pea, then they take one small piece of a slice of ham off of your plate, then they only take one half-spoonful of the sauce....... Next thing you know you have a President Obama completing the job that a President T. Roosevelt began. They're not revolutionists, it's the evolutionary democratic process. Bite by bite, making you a slave to the administrative state. We're making progress. We're not going to tell you where we're making progress too. But just know. We're making progress.

Progressivism is the use of government as an agency of human welfare in education, in public service, in political weapons of democracy, chiefly to make the round plugs in our society fit into the square holes of our national economy.

It's all there, in that short explanation. Now, every time you hear a progressive speak, don't they throw it all to the economy? We need this Obamacare, to save people's money, it's $2500 per year, it's for the ECONOMY. See. Why did we get the welfare state anyways? Well it's good for the economy, we have this great depression going on. What about using government to attack business? Why, that's good for the economy, we can't have all these trusts, we need to bust these trusts. What about the EPA? Well, we have to have a good fuel ECONOMY, don't we?

And finally, what makes White's definition so completely accurate in its brevity is that he threw in the word "weapon". I can't begin on that, otherwise I'll type a whole book. But needless to say, yes, the progressives have weaponized government against us for the purposes of their control of our lives.

This is the definition of progressivism.

Progressivism is the use of government as an agency of human welfare in education, in public service, in political weapons of democracy, chiefly to make the round plugs in our society fit into the square holes of our national economy.

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