The Progressive Movement - A political history lesson

[Phatscotty]

[Woodruff]

I'm just glad you've found all these conservatives to explain progressivism to you. That way, you won't have to actually think about it. Well done!

[Night Strike]

As opposed to people dying in the streets from disease and plague, due to lack of support? Yes, I'd say so. Though I can see why a knee-jerk neo-con who couldn't give a rat's ass about his fellow man might think otherwise.

So if I don't want individuals to rely on the government for everything they want, I therefore don't give a "rat's ass" about others?

No, I certainly didn't say that. I don't know why you don't give a rat's ass about your fellow man, to be honest, but my view certainly wasn't limited to just this one issue/situation.

I do care about others. However, I don't think people who do not do work for the government should be living off the government. If they need temporary help due to unforeseen circumstances, that's one thing. But people getting monthly payments for years upon years from the government while doing nothing to earn it should not be acceptable.

[Night Strike]

I'm just glad you've found all these conservatives to explain progressivism to you. That way, you won't have to actually think about it. Well done!

You defined progressivism as "progress", yet Phatscotty is the one who doesn't think about what it is?

[Woodruff]

As opposed to people dying in the streets from disease and plague, due to lack of support? Yes, I'd say so. Though I can see why a knee-jerk neo-con who couldn't give a rat's ass about his fellow man might think otherwise.

So if I don't want individuals to rely on the government for everything they want, I therefore don't give a "rat's ass" about others?

No, I certainly didn't say that. I don't know why you don't give a rat's ass about your fellow man, to be honest, but my view certainly wasn't limited to just this one issue/situation.

I do care about others.

Frankly, it's hard to see that based on the things you say in these fora, though I'll grant it's difficult to form a coherent picture of someone's full persona in this frame of reference.

However, I don't think people who do not do work for the government should be living off the government. If they need temporary help due to unforeseen circumstances, that's one thing. But people getting monthly payments for years upon years from the government while doing nothing to earn it should not be acceptable.

You seem to believe that I think the current welfare system is a great one. You'd be hard-pressed to find a quote to that end from me. It is tolerable in it's current state, and that's just barely it.

However, that is a far different thing from "depending on the government". I have been dependent on the government for a time...it's not at all a pleasant situation, and anyone who believes otherwise is quite simply ignorant. If there is anyone out there who is living high on the hog off the government, they are a rarity...an exception to the rule.

[Woodruff]

I'm just glad you've found all these conservatives to explain progressivism to you. That way, you won't have to actually think about it. Well done!

You defined progressivism as "progress", yet Phatscotty is the one who doesn't think about what it is?

I certainly didn't use some offshoot political party from history to try to define it. Then again, that allows you to use it as another awful label for liberals, so I can see why you like it. You do like your labels.

[patches70]

I disagree, because if it's progress then it is, by definition, an improvement.

Aye, mankind has made great progress in many areas. One in particular is the great strides forward we've made at killing each other.

We used to have to use spears, swords and stone to bash and hack each other to death. But, that's very labor intensive, inefficient and quite tiring. It seems a man can only bludgeon and stab but so many people before he is either cut down himself or falls exhausted.

But just look at us today! We can obliterate whole cities in the blink of an eye and all it takes is the push of a button. Why, I bet if we really wanted to, we could kill every single human being on the planet in a matter of hours!

Progress! Ain't it great?

I don't consider that progress, actually, though I suppose some do.

Whoa whoa now, let's look at your assertion (which is incorrect, by the way).
NS said that not all progress is inherently good, see-

Progress for the sake of progress is not inherently good.

to which your replied-

I disagree, because if it's progress then it is, by definition, an improvement.

Certainly, we have improved the way we kill people, have we not? I would say that type of progress is not inherently good.
Your view, (which happens to completely contradict your earlier statement)-

I don't consider that progress

So, we have improved our weaponry to the point we can kill all life on Earth. That's not progress? LMAO.

Of course it's progress, except it is not good progress at all.

Would you like to admit that all progress is not inherently good which is what you were disagreeing with NS about?

Or would you like to run some more logic circles and continue to contradict yourself?

You should take your own advice....

I'm just glad you've found all these conservatives to explain progressivism to you. That way, you won't have to actually think about it.

[Night Strike]

I'm just glad you've found all these conservatives to explain progressivism to you. That way, you won't have to actually think about it. Well done!

You defined progressivism as "progress", yet Phatscotty is the one who doesn't think about what it is?

I certainly didn't use some offshoot political party from history to try to define it. Then again, that allows you to use it as another awful label for liberals, so I can see why you like it. You do like your labels.

So when Hilary Clinton describes herself as an early-20th century progressive during the 2008 campaign, we're not allowed to look into that description and find out what it actually means? She defined herself as aligned with those values, so I don't understand how it's suddenly off-limits. Or is it off-limits because it's not favorable for today's Democrats?

[patches70]

Progressives are willing to force everyone to adhere to a new order under threat of violence from The State. That new order will always be defined as "progress", it makes no difference if said progress is a good thing or not, it's what the Progressives think it should be. With about as much thought put into the unintended consequences of said new order as Woodstock puts into his own thought process of what is or isn't "progress".

A progressive is a collectivist. "In the name of progress, everyone will toe the line or the full force of the State will be put against them to make sure everyone toe's line." Of course, the elites are exempt.
What's good and is progress to some, is the exact opposite to others. If you happen to be one of those in the latter group, well, you'll just have to be sacrificed for "the greater good".

Silly Progressives, never learned the lesson that there are no solutions in life, there are only trade offs.

[Juan_Bottom]

Progressives are willing to force everyone to adhere to a new order under threat of violence from The State.

You can literally say that about everyone but pacifists and anarchists.

Silly Progressives, never learned the lesson that there are no solutions in life, there are only trade offs.

How do you know that?

[Army of GOD]

I call myself a Progressive, because I believe in progress.

What about when the Progressivism is taking away the freedoms we have? And what are you "progressing" to? Progress for the sake of progress is not inherently good.

I disagree, because if it's progress then it is, by definition, an improvement.

I don't agree with this because "improvement" is completely subjective.

I guess from a utilitarianism stand point you could consider some aspects to be improvements (emancipation, equal voting rights, etc.) but at a certain point you're stepping on too many people's toes.

It's all about the balance between progresivism and conservativism.

[tzor]

I disagree, because if it's progress then it is, by definition, an improvement.

Well, yes, sort of, if you go down all the definitions you might encounter that ... (Consult the book of Merriam Webster)

1 a (1) : a royal journey or tour marked by pomp and pageant

Hmmm, that's interesting. Hope and Change anyone (and throw in those Greek columns).

2 a : an advance or movement to an objective or toward a goal

So, in other words, we can progress towards slavery, or progress towards genocide, or do a lot of progressing. The "goal" doesn't have to be an "improvement" as far as we are concerned.

We can even "progress" towards the electon of Mitt Romney ... wouldn't that be an improvement?

3 Scots law : succession in right to a feudal estate

Aye lad, pass the haggis,

4 a : the action or process of advancing or improving by marked stages or degrees

This might be what you are thinking of ...

b : a theory that change from old to new is essential to progress

This, however is what it actually is; the rejecting of the old because "new" is clearly better than "old" because ... (LOGIC FAILURE ... ABORT, RETRY, or be a Progressive and IGNORE)

[tzor]

Nobody is going to read this.

Do you think so? Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, so Nobody has got to be a really well informed person.

[tzor]

I'm just glad you've found all these conservatives to explain progressivism to you. That way, you won't have to actually think about it. Well done!

Well I've already given two quotes from founding fathers of the movement. Would you like another?

John Dewey, “Liberalism and Social Action,” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Papers of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, Vol. 11 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1987),

....The use of the words liberal and liberalism to denote a particular social philosophy does not appear to occur earlier than the first decade of the nineteenth century. But the thing to which the words are applied is older. It might be traced back to Greek thought; some of its ideas, especially as to the importance of the free play of intelligence, may be found notably expressed in the funeral oration attributed to Pericles. But for the present purpose it is not necessary to go back of John Locke, the philosopher of the “glorious revolution” of 1688. The outstanding points of Locke’s version of liberalism are that governments are instituted to protect the rights that belong to individuals prior to political organization of social relations. These rights are those summed up a century later in the American Declaration of Independence: the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Among the “natural” rights especially emphasized by Locke is that of property, originating, according to him, in the fact that an individual has “mixed” himself, through his labor, with some natural hitherto unappropriated object. This view was directed against levies on property made by rulers without authorization from the representatives of the people. The theory culminated in justifying the right of revolution. Since governments are instituted to protect the natural rights of individuals, they lose claim to obedience when they invade and destroy these rights instead of safeguarding them: a doctrine that well served the aims of our forefathers in their revolt against British rule, and that also found an extended application in the French Revolution of 1789.

The impact of this earlier liberalism is evidently political. Yet one of Locke’s greatest interests was to uphold toleration in an age when intolerance was rife, persecution of dissenters in faith almost the rule, and when wars, civil and between nations, had a religious color. In serving the immediate needs of England—and then those of other countries in which it was desired to substitute representative for arbitrary government—it bequeathed to later social thought a rigid doctrine of natural rights inherent in individuals independent of social organization. It gave a directly practical import to the older semi-theological and semi-metaphysical conception of natural law as supreme over positive law and gave a new version of the old idea that natural law is the counterpart of reason, being disclosed by the natural light with which man is endowed.

The whole temper of this philosophy is individualistic in the sense in which individualism is opposed to organized social action. It held to the primacy of the individual over the state not only in time but in moral authority. It defined the individual in terms of liberties of thought and action already possessed by him in some mysterious ready-made fashion, and which it was the sole business of the state to safeguard. Reason was also made an inherent endowment of the individual, expressed in men’s moral relations to one another, but not sustained and developed because of these relations. It followed that the great enemy of individual liberty was thought to be government because of its tendency to encroach upon the innate liberties of individuals. Later liberalism inherited this conception of a natural antagonism between ruler and ruled, interpreted as a natural opposition between the individual and organized society. There still lingers in the minds of some the notion that there are two different “spheres” of action and of rightful claims; that of political society and that of the individual, and that in the interest of the latter the former must be as contracted as possible. Not till the second half of the nineteenth century did the idea arise that government might and should be an instrument for securing and extending the liberties of individuals. This later aspect of liberalism is perhaps foreshadowed in the clauses of our Constitution that confer upon Congress power to provide for “public welfare” as well as for public safety....

But the majority who call themselves liberals today are committed to the principle that organized society must use its powers to establish the conditions under which the mass of individuals can possess actual as distinct from merely legal liberty. They define their liberalism in the concrete in terms of a program of measures moving toward this end. They believe that the conception of the state which limits the activities of the latter to keeping order as between individuals and to securing redress for one person when another person infringes the liberty existing law has given him, is in effect simply a justification of the brutalities and inequities of the existing order. Because of this internal division within liberalism its later history is wavering and confused. The inheritance of the past still causes many liberals, who believe in a generous use of the powers of organized society to change the terms on which human beings associate together, to stop short with merely protective and all eviatory measures—a fact that partly explains why another school always refers to “reform” with scorn.

You see, Woodruff, here lies the problem. All these “conservatives” have actually taken the time to read the writings of the founders of the Progressive movement. Modern day progressives, are generally ignorant of those who founded their movement, and often on purpose. (One should never tear back the curtain next to the great Wizard of Oz!) Their argument is at the emotional level, while the conservative argues based on rational thought. Given your icon, I always find the irony fascinating.

[Woodruff]

So when Hilary Clinton describes herself as an early-20th century progressive during the 2008 campaign, we're not allowed to look into that description and find out what it actually means?

Isn't it obvious that of course if she is explicitly correlating herself to that, then it makes sense. However, most people I know who would consider themselves "progressives" do not align themselves with the Progressive Party (in total...of course, there are areas of alignment).

She defined herself as aligned with those values, so I don't understand how it's suddenly off-limits. Or is it off-limits because it's not favorable for today's Democrats?

Hillary Clinton isn't one of "today's Democrats"?!??!

[Woodruff]

Progressives are willing to force everyone to adhere to a new order under threat of violence from The State. That new order will always be defined as "progress", it makes no difference if said progress is a good thing or not, it's what the Progressives think it should be.

By this definition, almost all politicians and almost all politically-active individuals are progressives.

[Woodruff]

Their argument is at the emotional level, while the conservative argues based on rational thought.

Now see, it's when you say things like this that lead me to believe you're not serious.

[patches70]

By this definition, almost all politicians and almost all politically-active individuals are progressives.

Are you yet willing to amend your original belief that Progress "by definition" equals improvement?


And politicians in general seek power, always more power. That's why we have a thing like the Constitution which clearly lays out what Congress can do. What is written in the Constitution is all that Congress can do.

The Progressives aren't the only ones who seek to subvert the Constitution, not by a long shot. However, this particular thread is about Progressives. You and JB keep trying to shift the conversation away from that central point. Go make another thread if you must, but please do try to keep on topic. We are talking about Progressives.

While I don't agree with the Progressive thinking, I tend to lean to the side that for the most part the Progressives are trying to do what they think is right. That is, they don't necessarily have nefarious plans. Maybe they do, but I tend to think that most people only want people to be happy and live life to the fullest.

Where I disagree with, is how we accomplish that. I pretty much laid it out in my first post in this thread. Good intentions are all fine and dandy, but we must also see the results of those good intentions. By all means, not all of the things Progressives have done are all bad.
It's just that the Fates laugh at the plans of men.

[BigBallinStalin]

I call myself a Progressive, because I believe in progress.

What about when the Progressivism is taking away the freedoms we have? And what are you "progressing" to? Progress for the sake of progress is not inherently good.

I disagree, because if it's progress then it is, by definition, an improvement.

Aside from that, the right-wing (yes, you and Phatscotty) simply wants another label to throw at liberals, along with "socialist", "marxist", "liberal" and now "progressive".

It's not called "Improvementism" for a reason, woodruff.

[thegreekdog]

Progressives are willing to force everyone to adhere to a new order under threat of violence from The State. That new order will always be defined as "progress", it makes no difference if said progress is a good thing or not, it's what the Progressives think it should be.

By this definition, almost all politicians and almost all politically-active individuals are progressives.

By jove he's got it! By the time I was finished with page one, I was thinking this exact same thing.

Mark Levin is entertaining, but he should look in the mirror for a definition of a progressive.

TGD: "Mark, look in the mirror. You're a progressive."
Mark Levin: "Shut up! Just because I want bigger government in the things I want bigger government in, doesn't make me a progressive."

Seriously. I hate Mark Levin.

[Frigidus]

By this definition, almost all politicians and almost all politically-active individuals are progressives.

Are you yet willing to amend your original belief that Progress "by definition" equals improvement?


And politicians in general seek power, always more power. That's why we have a thing like the Constitution which clearly lays out what Congress can do. What is written in the Constitution is all that Congress can do.

The Progressives aren't the only ones who seek to subvert the Constitution, not by a long shot. However, this particular thread is about Progressives. You and JB keep trying to shift the conversation away from that central point. Go make another thread if you must, but please do try to keep on topic. We are talking about Progressives.

While I don't agree with the Progressive thinking, I tend to lean to the side that for the most part the Progressives are trying to do what they think is right. That is, they don't necessarily have nefarious plans. Maybe they do, but I tend to think that most people only want people to be happy and live life to the fullest.

Where I disagree with, is how we accomplish that. I pretty much laid it out in my first post in this thread. Good intentions are all fine and dandy, but we must also see the results of those good intentions. By all means, not all of the things Progressives have done are all bad.
It's just that the Fates laugh at the plans of men.

Oh, hey, I'm willing to not shift the conversation away! The fetish for things the "founding fathers" did/liked in this country is kind of creepy, the Constitution is full of stupid bullshit (the Senate and electoral college shouldn't exist), and I'm not sure how people explain the existence of other countries with just as much (if not more) political and civil freedom than us when they use different documents as their core structure.

[HapSmo19]

Their argument is at the emotional level, while the conservative argues based on rational thought.

Now see, it's when you say things like this that lead me to believe you're not serious.

Kinda like when you threw your last tizzy and left this place for good for the third or so time.

[Juan_Bottom]

Nobody is going to read this.

Do you think so? Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, so Nobody has got to be a really well informed person.

It's a hit piece with a boring topic that doesn't even have pictures.
I don't think anyone would see this and say "oh joy, I can't wait to read all 1700 words in each quotation 4 times."

Plus, there's Woodruff tearing sh*t up in this b.

But don't add videos. Nobody cares about youtube hit pieces either. Even when they are funny.

[tzor]

Their argument is at the emotional level, while the conservative argues based on rational thought.

Now see, it's when you say things like this that lead me to believe you're not serious.

Dismissialism is also the weapon of the Progressive.

I am serious (and don't call me Shirley).

[tzor]

Kinda like when you threw your last tizzy and left this place for good for the third or so time.

I threw a tizzy with the game. It took several long years of Farmville and Cityville to realize that compared to Zynga, these guys were saints.

And with the short term that my work didn't think this was a "game" and thus the forums were not blocked. (Alas they currently are and that's going to limit my access to these discussions.)

Of course the Farmville thing did get me in the habit of getting online every morning and evening, so I can safely play a 24 hour game or two.

At this rate I'd probably be back to Premium in three months or so. I might even buy another coffee mug, my old one is so faded I can barely tell what map is on it.