POISONING THE BIG APPLE

THE PROGRESSIVE MARCH TO MARXISM

It seems to me that politics always seems to muddy the water on many subjects. When I wrote Why the Green New Deal is a Bad Deal for America, I was concerned about the use of the false premise of human-caused catastrophic climate change to turn America into a communist country. That is the goal of the so called “Democratic Socialists” and is the ideology of AOC and Bernie Sanders. These two Marxists have been joined by an Islamic Marxist who is the leading contender for Mayor of New York City. How could the city that suffered the Islamic attack of September 11, 2001 even consider electing an Islamic radical who touts “global intifada” to be its Mayor. Some would say this is political progress, you know, Progressivism. So, what is Progressivism?

One dictionary says Progressivism is a “forward or onward movement, as toward a destination. . . a development, advancement, or improvement, as toward a goal.” Progressivism advanced during the Woodrow Wilson era as “a political philosophy and social reform movement focused on advancing the public good through government action and often calling for government to be used to meet popular social, political, economic, and environmental needs and demands and to advance rights and protections for marginalized groups.” Sounds perfect. Who could be against that? Progressivism was introduced into public education by American philosopher John Dewey, probably the most influential of all modern American educationalists. Unfortunately, Dewey’s approach involved socialization and secularism through government control of public education. Progressivism is not Liberalism.

Liberalism was the political ideology that gave birth to the American Revolution. The Founders believed that government's role would be to protect individual rights. Unfortunately, this did not include all individuals at the time. Liberalism focuses on protecting the freedom of the individual from arbitrary authority while Progressivism, in theory, is supposed to focus on advancing rights and protections for marginalized groups. The size of the marginalized group as a percent of the population doesn’t matter. The majority yields to the minority regardless. It is clear that Progressivism is the sponsor of “political correctness” or “wokeness.” This has led to the policy actions called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or DEI. These actions were spin-offs of the Great Society and Affirmative Action regulations that polluted the noble Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. They are the opposite of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a color blind society.

The “pursuit of happiness” evolved to the accumulation of wealth and economic power in the hands of a few (the Robber Barons of the late 1800s). In response, Liberals argued that the government’s role should not be limited to just protecting human rights, but should also protect each American’s economic well-being. This was supposed to be achieved through a democratic process using persuasion to build a consensus across diverse voting blocs. This led to regulatory agencies such as the FDA and safety net administrations such as Social Security and even Medicare. But today, the Progressive arm of the Democrat Party has embraced extreme political activism (called community organizing) using racial and cultural factions—the Alinsky approach to increase government control of everyday life. Progressives and Liberals need government power to force their ideologies onto the citizenry. They are, in fact, the opposite of Libertarians.

Libertarian-ism is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom agrees with the non-aggression principle (each individual has the right to live as they choose, as long as they do not violate the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them). It sounds good but there are times when a collective approach is warranted. The terms “common defense and promoting the general welfare” come to mind. A better approach to solving these collective issues is Conservatism.

In my opinion, there are no honest definitions for Conservatism as an ideology or political philosophy. It is the counter to the naive Liberalism that is now leaning far-left, even embracing Marxism. The Republican Party is conservative and became more so with its rejection of its far-right fringe. The MAGA/America First movement has evolved into a rational conservatism that is not skeptical of reason, and that regards a community with a hierarchy of authority as more conducive to human well-being than socialism or communism. It is not “It takes a village.” It is more “It takes a firm but benevolent village leadership.” This does not mean a patriarchal society. The leadership is aware of the village’s history and its code of conduct or “constitution”. Conservatism does not reject change, it analyzes pros and cons, then decides. And decisions can be reversed but only after careful review and a majority vote. It will not devolve to anarchy.

But Progressivism will use anarchy to achieve the Marxist state. And that may be the near-term future of New York City. But Marxism never works and New York City will eventually recover from the experiment. But it may take a while and it will be costly.