tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post6420328732219321515..comments2024-03-28T12:10:26.197-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Progressives: Marching Forward Into the PastGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-76592988441084150212008-09-17T14:59:00.000-07:002008-09-17T14:59:00.000-07:00John,I think you miss my point which is:The proble...John,<BR/>I think you miss my point which is:<BR/>The problems of this country can be put on a whole slew of people running the gamut from Left to Right. But this is the time in the election when our leaders tell us, "It's the other party's fault." I believe it is that divisiveness, rather than either party's values, that "prevent any critical discussion" of any kind. <BR/>What I meant by switching labels is that a Liberal blogger can take issues like Affirmative Action, Gun Control, etc., and use his words to demonstrate how they've been good for this country. And he will believe he's just as right as Bob does. Both sides have some things to teach the other, but the blame game is not the road to that education.Tina Westhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07982682787174126549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9763753189221335952008-09-17T12:43:00.000-07:002008-09-17T12:43:00.000-07:00Tina, thoughtful yet I feel you miss the mark. Muc...Tina, thoughtful yet I feel you miss the mark. Much of the current mortgage crisis comes from giving home loans to people incapable of the behaviors necessary to own an maintain a home. <BR/>There is nothing Conservative about a bailout of any type.<BR/>As far as switching labels please show me the Conservative equivalent of: Affimartive Action, Grade Inflation, No fault divorce, Bilingual education, Gun Control, Abortion, or any of the "isims" that are used prevent any critical discussion of the failures of certain special interest groups.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06394748911013246465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-76084710641736526752008-09-17T11:39:00.000-07:002008-09-17T11:39:00.000-07:00It looks like there's a lot of preaching to the ch...It looks like there's a lot of preaching to the choir here, so I'm coming in with my heathen ways. <BR/>At many places on the Internet, this same article has been written with the word "Liberal" exchanged for "Conservative."<BR/>The moment we divide "us" against "them," we start blaming the other side for the country's problems. And for every bleeding heart liberal complaining about the right-wing media, there's a Bible-thumping conservative bitching about the liberal media. Everyone thinks he's getting screwed because we've polarized each other. It's not them. It's not us. It's not the Dems. It's not the Republicans. It's not the Left. It's not the Right. It's everybody. Each individual making choices that lead to suffering and then looking for someone else to blame when the going gets tough. And, as evidenced by the takeover of Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the bailout of AIG, we can no longer argue that a lack of accountability is exclusively a liberal trait.Tina Westhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07982682787174126549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-81072665865908850162008-09-15T16:37:00.000-07:002008-09-15T16:37:00.000-07:00Great post Bob,In my simplistic view, the real dif...Great post Bob,<BR/>In my simplistic view, the real difference between the Left and conservatives is their respective belief in others as incapable or capable. I think that in a modern sense you can replace Marx's "oppressed" with "incapable". When you are incapable you can no longer be held accountable. Isn't that the bases for for all Liberal polices, avoiding accountability at any cost? Conservatives are "evil" because they consider others, like Black Americans, capable and worthy of the same accountability applied to Whites.JohnMachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09764497320475410034noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89756148749727666352008-09-14T08:37:00.000-07:002008-09-14T08:37:00.000-07:00"Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous 1962 analysis po..."Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous 1962 analysis pointed out that the American black family was already in collapse. Can't blame everything on progressives."<BR/><BR/>Uhh, who atarted the Welfare State which threw personal respomsibility out the window, established welfare as an entitlement and began the social decline if not the Regressives who controlled Congress, if not the White House for 40 years?<BR/><BR/>Just because the libs change their title every few years after people catch on to them doesn't mean they change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-23347804170201366602008-09-14T07:47:00.000-07:002008-09-14T07:47:00.000-07:00Chandler, the scary thing is that the whole "clien...Chandler, the scary thing is that the whole "client creation" ploy has a 50% share of the US population, apparently.<BR/><BR/>It all collapses once we pass that benchmark, when the takers outpace the givers.Joan of Argghh!https://www.blogger.com/profile/14729682908266300507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-68722173784264804732008-09-14T01:08:00.000-07:002008-09-14T01:08:00.000-07:00Van, thank you for the 'Empires of Trust' review. ...Van, thank you for the 'Empires of Trust' review. I have far more respect for the founding fathers and for the rights I took for granted as an American by birth, now that I live in Israel where rights are not absolute. (Of course America in the Civil War and World Wars found that few rights are absolute in wartime or crisis.)<BR/><BR/>There ARE some fundamental principles-- expressed in even such minor events as fighting a parking ticket-- that are essential to basic freedom. Does the gov't have arbitrary power over you? Do you have recourse? Is there due process, or accountability? Can elected officials be recalled or defeated in a timely manner? Is the path to power for different points of view equally open?<BR/><BR/>Both America and Israel fail on many of these points, these days... The only major modern polity I can think of that was a true success of large-scale democracy was the Iroquois confederacy, at least until about 1769.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-28885647564124806412008-09-14T01:03:00.000-07:002008-09-14T01:03:00.000-07:00Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous 1962 analysis poi...Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous 1962 analysis pointed out that the American black family was already in collapse. Can't blame everything on progressives.<BR/><BR/>But at ANY point, in order for 'help' to be helpful, it does have to have a goal of training self-sufficiency, i.e. teaching a man to fish... Welfare failed because it didn't build self-sufficiency and create opportunity, but supported a minimal level of poverty without the right incentives for improvement.<BR/><BR/>I live in Israel, where the infinite blank welfare checks written by the world for Palestinian 'refugees' for the last 60 years have not just perpetuated but badly worsened the problems. 'Refugee' camps don't even pretend to abide by the UN's own rules about terrorists, about job training, about legitimate accounting...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71818465149438641102008-09-13T16:42:00.000-07:002008-09-13T16:42:00.000-07:00Chuck Norris Fact #2: "There is no 'ctrl' button o...Chuck Norris Fact #2: <A HREF="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/09/13/chuck-norris-smacks-down-arianna-huffington" REL="nofollow">"There is no 'ctrl' button on Chuck Norris's computer. Chuck Norris is always in control."</A>juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-23362487870330259532008-09-13T12:12:00.000-07:002008-09-13T12:12:00.000-07:00"Likewise, by appeasing terrorists in the name of ..."Likewise, by appeasing terrorists in the name of "peace," they undermine the most important condition of peace, which is f*ck with us and you are dead."<BR/><BR/>Heh-heh-heh... also the most fundamental understanding for Law.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-42656522324611212252008-09-13T11:57:00.000-07:002008-09-13T11:57:00.000-07:00"Nor do they ever think before stage one, and exam..."Nor do they ever think before stage one, and examine the true reasons for the "problems of the now," most of which can only be resolved by a transformation in values from below, not a president from above."<BR/><BR/>Ain't it the truth. Which of course becomes easier to get away with as people are educastrated into thinking there is no self, no such thing as choice, and no real difference between right and wrong actions to choose (just ignore that) to do.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-82858013167196466382008-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:002008-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:00Yes, it is so blindingly obvious. The black famil...Yes, it is so blindingly obvious. The black family was one of the stronger institutions -- which it had to be -- prior to leftist do-gooders getting their grubby hands on it. Now they need to rescue them from the damage they caused. A 50 year war on poverty, with no exit strategy in sight.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-49212453422454692242008-09-13T11:18:00.000-07:002008-09-13T11:18:00.000-07:00BOB, You have really uncovered the POWER formula ...BOB,<BR/><BR/> You have really uncovered the POWER formula here: 1) you create the victims 2) you rescue them and then, 3) they vote for you. I remember growing up outside of Detroit when blacks were eager to succeed by the rules of the market place. There was no racial anger when I was young. We could walk safely through any section of Detroit. Flash forward forty years and I'm in a seminar where a black person stands up and says that anger over slavery is in her "at the cellular level." Well, it wasn't in her grandmother. So those cells have been INJECTED! By whom? Maybe by leftists with white guilt and race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and the "Black Muslims." Now we have this victim virus spread by the media and Hollywood films and the educational system. A formidable set of bio-weopons to go against.<BR/><BR/> But this blog of yours leads the way so thank you ... you probably can't realize the influence you now have, and it can't be measured in site visits and other sterile numbers...those clicks can't measure how far and wide we readers of yours are CARRYING THE MESSAGE.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71765854292346910652008-09-13T10:35:00.000-07:002008-09-13T10:35:00.000-07:00"In the west we have two divergent political movem..."In the west we have two divergent political movements that would seem to define themselves in terms of their historical ends, “progressives” and “conservatives.” The progressive obviously believes in the a priori sanctity of the word “progress,” as if it is self-justifying. But there are many kinds of progress -- for example, a progressive disease that has an inevitable end state called “death.” More often than not, what the progressive means by “progress” is merely change, agitation, rebellion, or the bracing thrill of falling. "<BR/><BR/>I'm reading a, so far, very interesting book called <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Trust-Built-America-Building/dp/0525950745" REL="nofollow">"Empires of Trust"</A>, sub-titled "How Rome Built - and America Is building - a New World". I normally skip over the 'America is the new Rome' books, most are so selective in their comparisons, equivocations and evasions as to seem as if Ray wrote them. This one caught my eye, however, because of a blurb by Victor Davis Hanson (who also usually dismisses such comparisons by pointing out the inappropriate comparisons, equivocations and evasions) <I>"A much needed reassessment of the now hackneyed view that we are simply grasping Romans - and thus are doomed to suffer the same imperial decadence. Thomas Madden shows us a different Rome that established security and prosperity - and trust - winning the hearts and minds of millions in the Mediterranean world. Likewise the United States has become powerful abroad due to its marriage of force with credibility and the rule of law. An original thesis, lucidly argued - and timely in an uncanny fashion"</I>, and I'm finding that to be true.<BR/><BR/>The part that applies to today's discussion of the Proregressives, is this, where he's talking about Adams influential 3 volume set "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America", that Rome was very much in the minds of the Founders who were well versed in its history, and sought to emulate it's virtues and avoid it's errors and vices,<BR/><BR/><I>"Yet Rome fell. Adams knew that well enough and he was determined that the same thing would not happen to the United States. More specifically, he worried about the fall of the Republic in the first century BC, when the rise of military strongmen led to the creation of the Principate, wherein one man ruled. Through the eyes of Polybius, Sallust, Livy, and Cicero, Adams and his generation had watched the freedom and moral virtue of the Roman Republic turn into the tyranny and excess of the Roman Empire. And they had a pretty good idea what had led to it. Even while the Republic was still in good shape, Polybius had predicted that it would collapse as a result of its own successes. <B>More wealth would make the people less willing to serve and more demanding of their government. Politicians would then step in to give them what they wanted, pitting one group against another for their own political benefit. In the end, Polybius predicted, the constitution would be overturned in the name of freedom and democracy, which was simply another way of saying mob rule.</B></I>"<BR/><BR/>The Founders sought two things, One being that the Individual American would be secure in his Rights and Property, and Two, that America would NOT become a Democracy, because the surest way to ensure that the people would lose their Rights, was to enable "The People" to demand whatever they wanted. The leftists have been pushing for over a century, the idea that we are a 'Democracy', that the mark of an acceptable political process, was that it be 'democratic'.<BR/><BR/>We were designed as a Republic, with a very well defined Hierarchy of separated powers, and layered bodies of the Executive, Judicial and most importantly, the Legislative with the Senate separated from the People, stable and on top, and the House made up of and responsive to the People, whose actions had to pass up through the Senate and then the Executive, and as developed, with the Judicial as a last check upon all (note 'check', not an active agent).<BR/><BR/>The Progressives (which predominate among the left, but are present in the right as well) are determined to destroy the Republic, in order to establish their 'we know better' nanny-tyranny of 'neighborliness'. All else, is only, and has always been, means towards that end.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-54474921818950790472008-09-13T10:33:00.000-07:002008-09-13T10:33:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1898566304489383472008-09-13T09:11:00.000-07:002008-09-13T09:11:00.000-07:00Here's some compassionate progressivism for you. I...Here's some compassionate progressivism for you. It seems that the unfortunates of south Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central, but they changed the name because it was rasciss) can't feed themselves properly, so the city government stepped in to put things right.<BR/><A HREF="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25896233/" REL="nofollow">Fast food restaurant ban in So. LA</A><BR/><BR/>Glad they're out there looking out for us!<BR/><BR/>JWMAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-31319157669767708392008-09-13T08:48:00.000-07:002008-09-13T08:48:00.000-07:00"I love this great country, and you shouldn't eith..."<I>I love this great country, and <A HREF="http://ericasherman.blogspot.com/2008/09/sgt-freedom-i-love-this-guy.html" REL="nofollow">you shouldn't either</A>!</I>"juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.com