"Progressive" polls very high among Americans

According to Pew, as reported by the International Business Times:

Despite the political divides between the terms "liberal" and "conservative," two-thirds of the public reaction to the word "progressive" were positive. While Pew reports there was little difference among Democrats' reaction to liberal and progressive, the discrepancy was clear amongst Republican respondents. Fifty-five percent of Republicans reacted positively to the word, compared to the 20 percent who reacted similarly to liberal. Independents also had a considerably more favorable reaction to progressive (68 percent) than liberal (54 percent.)

Republicans! Unbelievable. No wonder this country is so close to losing her liberty. This is what happens when schools and colleges teach that progressivism is a good thing, despite the fact that historically progressives have long hated the American way of life and our beloved Constitution. Here are some examples:

Progressivism and the origins of the tyrannical administrative state

America is not now and cannot in the future be a place for unrestricted individual enterprise

The Conservation of Business - Shall We Strangle or Control It?

nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of individuals

Individualistic ideas are discredited and reputiated

The Dictatorship of the Constitution

And there's much more in the archives. I would hope that everybody would note that all I'm doing is channeling their own words. I would also hope that everybody would note that I'm giving out book titles, speech titles, with links, dates, and page numbers, so that should you want you can take these things and blog about these things yourself you can do so on your own with specificity and force. You can take them and do whatever you want with them, directly sourced, in context.

Examining progressivism from a Christian point of view Part 3

Continuing with an examination of the words of Ravi Zacharias, in his message titled "Secularization: It's Power and Control" from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries parts: (1 2 3 4). I lifted the following small clip out of part 1:

Ravi Zacharias - The truth becomes so blurred

Blurring the lines of truth and reality. How often do we see progressives doing that? For example, very few people look upon the poor the way progressives accuse us conservatives of doing. Those of you who are against wealth redistribution are probably thinking that that's offered as a solution for the issue of poverty. Wealth redistribution is something you find very often in regimes where you have a dictator or set of dictators who need to prop themselves up. Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter on that very issue which was read aloud by another founder(James Wilson) on the floor of the constitutional congress! But at this point, the truth has been blurred, so wealth redistribution has been brought up on par to being on the same level as run of the mill charitable giving. And milk is just the secretion of a cow, no different than it's urine.

From Reformers to Progressives

The Foundation for Economic Education's publication "The Freeman" has an interesting article titled "The Twisted Tree of Progressivism". This is paragraph two:

One portent of Progressivism is found in the Liberal Republican movement of the 1870s. Prone to Paris Commune panics, distressed by strikes and labor trouble, such reformers as Charles Francis Adams (descended from John Adams), Francis Amasa Walker (Boston laissez-faire economist and Indian manager), and E. L. Godkin (Anglo-Irish editor of The Nation) concluded that efficient, inexpensive bureaucracy was just the ticket. It could manage questions too important to be left to democratic processes, especially those touching on the lately acquired government-bestowed advantages of big business. (“Efficiency” had a great future before it.) This movement was urban, basically eastern, and closely connected with economic elites (Nancy Cohen, Reconstruction of American Liberalism).

This really touches a nerve, it's one of the reasons why the Progressing America project even exists. Yes, I think it's great that they gave us names and a background on the topic, and yes, I think this article is worth reading. But what did Godkin, Walker, and Adams say/write to give this author the impression that they supported inexpensive bureaucracy? When did they write it? Essay or book? Title and page numbers? How about a partial quote so someone can track it down? Could you throw me a bone here? I find that there is a great desire, sometimes even a desperation amongst people who seek to advance the cause of liberty to know more about progressivism. I see it in some of the places I post articles, and I have heard it repeatedly from people I've come in contact with. There is such a deficit of knowledge on the progressives, and articles like this are certainly helpful in illuminating their mindset, but we need to know when, where, and in what words did these people put their ideas out.(and citing Nancy Cohen's book isn't exactly helpful)

But just to be fair, this article does do this in some ways. The third paragraph points out the call for more government, and tells us to go look to the Populist Party Platform of 1892. Now that's what I'm talking about, show us where to look! Context is great, but the details do matter. The important thing that this article does is point out that what ended up becoming progressivism is a convergence of multiple ideals, which all converged because at the very foundation of all their beliefs was the one thing they all held in common. Bigger and bigger government. They could squabble about the details later. For now, we just have to make government bigger. That will solve all the problems.

For anybody who's seen me previously touch upon the topic of 'Reformers' but not really go into much detail, this is why. There's too many non-uniform views amongst all these different groups, to the point to where they're not even the same group of people. It's the birth of progressivism, which rose at about the same time as fabianism in Britain, where you see the uniformity of the view of making progress through bigger government. But it's not socialism. It's just progress, it's social regulation. And even within the progressive movement, it's a mistake for us to look at progressives as a monolith. Outside of making progress with more government, there are a multitude of divergent views of how best to use government, and to whom will it be used against.

Just because you vote, doesn't mean you're a free citizen

I cannot wait for Ameritopia to hit. Mark Levin is very articulate when he talks about the dangers we face as free citizens of this country. These are the kinds of comments which are timeless, as the majority of human history is not one of liberty, it's one of administrative states, "the divine right of kings", and even outright brutal bloody tyrannies.

Examining progressivism from a Christian point of view Part 2

America is worth preserving against the assault of progressivism. But what's under assault? What are you really losing? Your faith is certainly a part of that, but it's so much bigger than that. There can certainly be a form of tyranny that's Christian based, but that's one of the very things our Founding Fathers sought to break free of. No religion has a stake above any other to the point of shoving it down people's throat. But the exact opposite can be just as tyrannical, to the point to where you can't even have a display at Christmas time out in your own front yard without catching heat from it. The very concept of calling Christmas the "Christmas holiday" or saying "Merry Christmas" to certain people has become controversial. How? How did we get here? Through the process of secularization. Continuing with an examination of the words of Ravi Zacharias, in his message titled "Secularization: It's Power and Control" from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries parts: (1 2 3 4). I lifted the following small clip out of part 4:

This is why the first place the progressives started, was in the universities. They knew full well that they had to steal our Founding Fathers away from us before they could ever snuff out our liberty. Today, it's routinely implied, or even outright taught that our Founders were just a bunch of old rich racist white guys(and athiest!) that hated blacks and enslaved them. Sure, there was an abolitionist movement, but often times that's looked at as being separate from the Founders. And the black patriots that were instrumental in the revolutionary war have all but been eliminated from just about every modern text book you could lay your hands on. The revisionism that goes on in education has gone way beyond universities at this point, it's long since perverted the lower levels of education as well. Middle school and high school. So bad has the revisionism gotten and so long has it dominated, that someone who has documents to prove their case such as David Barton does, can easily be laughed off of the stage all the while he points to the very document proving what he's saying. The faith that all our founders had in the Protection of Divine Providence is something that progressives knew they couldn't compete with. So they had to eliminate it. It was Woodrow Wilson who once said that "If you want to understand the real Declaration, do not repeat the preface". Have you read the preface of the Declaration of Independence lately? What do you see there? That's all the stuff the progressives wished wasn't there. And at this point(almost to 2012) it can be said as a matter of practicality, that stuff isn't there. Go ask your high school son/daughter - that's all the proof right there, your high schooler hasn't been taught the preface. This is all being done on purpose.

Sure, there are religious leftists out there, but they're not in the majority. And those who are of a higher profile see the word merely as a tool. Jim Wallis is very open about this, stating that "the gospel is all about wealth redistribution", even though Benjamin Franklin stated rather plainly that wealth redistribution is what tyrants do. And progressives have been abusing their Christian faith for a very long time, to reach an authoritarian end. After the small clip of Ravi you see above(further in part 4), he makes the point that students are lost in high school, they have no meaning in their lives. And isn't that true to a large degree? Has life in America gotten better or worse over time, since all evidence of religion has been expunged from schools. One of the communist goals of 1963 is the elimination of meaningful art(see 22/23), it's certain that they'd target other meaningful things as well. And I'm not advocating that one particular faith be placed above another, rather that certain underlying foundational core beliefs that all religions believe in(even those outside of Christianity) that used to be taught in America's schools are no longer there. What are the results of this? It certainly can't be a coincidence that over time we're not in a better place. For those of you who are fans of the book "The 5000 Year Leap", will be familiar with the following which used to be an elementary school book: A Catechism on the Constitution. Another book titled "The New England Primer is a book that used to be in schools, and is one of the earliest known books printed in America. As Ira Stoll writes in his book "Samuel Adams: A Life", Adams was likely taught as a young boy with this very book, given that there wasn't much else around. That was the book to use back then. Here's a cover picture of one that came from the printing presses of Benjamin Franklin. The New England Primer, which also goes by another name, "The Little Bible of New England" because so much of what's in it is overtly religious. But it doesn't place one over the other.

And now as I look above I see that it's official, I ranted. Oh well. Someone has to put all this stuff together to show it's relevance and relation. Without core, meaningful, and foundational things being taught to students, is it any wonder why school shootings have happened, and have even appeared to be on the rise? When Columbine first happened, everybody was shocked and mortified. Sure, school shootings are still shocking and mortifying to a point, but the numbness has set in because it's happened so many times now. And as I asked in the beginning, why is all of this happening? How did we get here? There's been much that's happened outside of the realm of religion that's salient in answering this question(like what Wilson said above), and that's primary what my blog has been and will continue to be about. But for now, I'll leave you with the words of Benjamin Franklin:(In his letter to Thomas Paine)

I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification by the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a great deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?

Examining progressivism from a Christian point of view Part 1

This message titled "Secularization: It's Power and Control" from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries parts: (1 2 3 4) is rather brilliant in the examples cited and in it's construction. I cannot recommend it highly enough. In this particular segment, Ravi Zacharias elaborates on a writing from G K Chesterton regarding revolutionists and contradiction. I will be clipping several pieces of this message over the next couple of days and commenting on them, as there are several very deep and thoughtful things in this that we can all learn from, in defending ourselves from progressivism. It needs to be noted that at no time does Zacharias ever use the term progressivism during the entirety of the message. Yet for those of us who find ourselves on the opposite side of the assault by revolutionary progressives, it's very hard to miss how relevant this is to the topic. It will become even more clear as I develop my full thoughts with multiple clips. Here is the first clip:(comes from the end of part 3)

And should anybody from RZIM object to me putting these online in streaming form, just contact me(Facebook primarily, so that I can see who you are and track you to RZIM) and ask, I'll nicely remove the videos from my youtube and popmodal accounts.

President Woodrow Wilson comments on censoring the press

On March 22, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson wrote the following letter:

I have been very much surprised to find several of the public prints stating that the administration had abandoned the position which it so distinctly took, and still holds, that authority to exercise censorship over the Press to the extent that that censorship is embodied in the recent action of the House of Representatives is absolutely necessary to the public safety. It, of course, has not been abandoned, because the reasons still exist why such authority is necessary for the protection of the nation.

I have every confidence that the great majority of the newspapers of the country will observe a patriotic reticence about everything whose publication could be of injury, but in every country there are some persons in a position to do mischief in this field who can not be relied upon and whose interests or desires will lead to actions on their part highly dangerous to the nation in the midst of a war. I want to say again that it seems to me imperative that powers of this sort should be granted.

You think that's bad reading it? Here, listen to it:

The power of the spoken word, and I'm even not a professional speaker. But that doesn't really matter. This is how arrogant these people are, the words are what they are. People need to see this, they need to hear it. A lot of very dark things happened in America during the "progressive" era. And it's a shame that so much was said, written, taught, and actions taken while much was either never recorded in the first place, or said video/audio clips have been lost to time. It's long past time to correct this by recording it ourselves.