Thoughtful progressives (if you exist),
Our survival, as a nation, is at stake!
Why am I saying this?
First, because progressive leaders tell stories of existential threats looming everywhere. “Viruses. Climate change. Race-gender bias.” Etc. Etc. Etc. Their list keeps growing.
Second, progressive leaders—“politicians, technocrats, academics, media, activists—insist we must fear for our health and security instead of our freedom.” They insist we obey instead of asking questions; that we shun dissenters instead of seeking unity.
And third, as a consequence of the Obama Regime, our nation has reached a place of “fear and division.” The new objective is to transform our political, economic, and social lives in a “Great Reset” or cultural revolution. And then “Build Back Better” with a global technocracy.
BEWARE: Supporting good causes is not a bad idea. “But transforming our lives in areas that are not broken may not be the best cause.”
Thoughtful progressives (if you exist), please consider the following identified mistakes recurringly made by progressive leaders and rethink the progressive revolution.
This article is adapted from 12 Reasons Why… by Mahatma Orwell on lewrockwell.com.
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Overconfident Leaders. The worst existential threat of all may be leader error. History shows that bold social reformers overreach and hurt people. They cause crises such as poverty, famine, and war, and have to scrap their plans and start over. Millions died in the 1900s because of leader error. Today’s leaders need more caution and self-restraint, and less certainty and ruthlessness.
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Censorship. Leaders and their big tech allies err in censoring disagreement with official narratives like “settled science” and “community standards.” Like us, they make mistakes, and need critical feedback to learn and correct errors. A sure sign of a failing vision is that it imposes right-think by force. Leaders’ erratic experts have lost credibility as their stories keep changing. This pushes us to research facts ourselves, and build more accurate and honest expertise for all.
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False Progress. Leaders err in defining “progress” as group struggle toward perfect equality. This 250-year-old cult of Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx promises utopia, but crushes individuality, human nature, and natural incentives, and idolizes an all-powerful state. It’s not progress to suppress natural differences because activists don’t get the value of diverse views, interests, and skills. Real progress starts with each person’s unique value and free will to act by choice.
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Ignoring Millennia of Experience. Leaders ignore the lived experiences of 100 generations. The distilled wisdom of 3,000 years counsels us to know our human nature and flaws, choose virtue over vice, and build instead of destroy. Yet leaders deny nature and their own flaws, and exploit vices like vanity, envy, and rage to destroy the positive legacy of virtues like humility, respect, duty, and love.
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Contempt for Life. Leaders err in their elite contempt for working- and middle-class lives. Many favor chilling abuses echoing eugenics, slavery, and worse. Some seek to exploit bio-weapons, ban treatments that work, mandate less effective treatments that injure or kill, impose punitive social passports, sterilize or depopulate undesirables, and even re-engineer “trans-humans.”
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Destroying Liberal Diversity. Leaders err in attacking liberal diversity. As students, they benefited from liberal tolerance of diverse opinions and cultures. Now they insist all must think and act alike. But diverse views, interests, skills, and cultures will re-emerge naturally, reject despotic rule, and coexist in peace.
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Race/Gender Hype. Leaders err in picking fights over race and gender. No race or gender has a monopoly on good or evil. Each of us is a unique person with free will to act as we choose. We are not robots for our race or gender. Most of us choose to look past differences and treat others as equals. Reality is way deeper than comic-book slogans like hyper-racial “anti-racism,” same-think “diversity,” punitive “equity,” or exclusionary “inclusion.”
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Hurting the Poor. Leaders hurt the poor by mandating limits on their choices, destroying their jobs, fostering low self-esteem and dependence on jobless claims, jacking up costs of living, devaluing money through inflationary printing and spending, freeing violent criminals, supporting riots, and de-funding police.
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Limiting Choices = Freeze and Starve. Leaders endanger our prosperity by limiting our choices of energy, food, cars, appliances, and other needs. A few planners can’t begin to match the distributed computations of millions of brains. One-size-fits-all government mandates and tampering with free choice cause shortages, price spikes, empty shelves, joblessness, hunger, and poverty.
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Political-Corporate Axis. Leaders err in pushing CEOs to punish employees and customers for non-compliance with leaders’ agendas. Using private corporate power to enforce unenacted political agendas short-circuits democratic debate. Leaders and CEOs become an unlawful fourth branch of government. Real entrepreneurs don’t deny basic human rights or mandate anti-democratic diktats.
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Rejecting Better Ideas. Leaders oppose time-tested great ideas supporting real progress, such as:
- Each human life is valuable. Treat others like yourself. Fix your own flaws before criticizing others.
- Any common good must start with the good of each individual, including every person’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
- Prosperity flows from free choices to speak, learn, work, own, exchange, innovate, cooperate, and lead.
- Government’s job is to defend each person’s natural rights against aggression.
- Elect leaders fairly. Make them servants of all. Block dictatorial abuses by any.
- Seek peace. Agree to disagree. Don’t initiate aggression. Treat even enemies with respect.
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Real Progress Will Prevail. Leaders err in prophesying that history follows an arc of conflict and they are on the correct side. History rejects their Marxist religion of violence. Instead, history shows that cooperation and peace prevail over conflict. Life and freedom triumph over tyranny and death. Dictators and politburos forfeit power. Respect for individuals bridges tribal divides. Knowledge and prosperity flow from the few to the many. And real progress springs from individual natural rights, virtue and responsibility, mutual respect, and peace.
Again, thoughtful progressives (if you exist), conservatism believes our survival, as a nation, is at stake.
Are you convinced that progressive leaders are making grave mistakes?
If you so, please share your thoughts. Encourage your progressive leaders to dial back their revolution. And peacefully reclaim your freedom.
God speed to the powers of right and true.
