What do TRUE progressives really want?

[UK2K]

Tried to keep it as short as possible, but it's important to provide context.

So I was invited to a FB group called The News Room. It is a small group, by invite only, where each person can only add two other people to the group. The idea is to invite people who like to discuss politics and events and that sort of thing...

So I was in this group for probably a week. Most of the members were around my age (late 20's or so). I started to notice a trend... In a discussion about the $20 bill, one person suggested we remove all the faces and replace them with scenery or landmarks, and as the conversation continued, one person said he can't wait until the 'In God We Trust' is removed from our currency. It's almost as if the goal is to eliminate everything America was founded upon, and turn the US into a history-less zone as opposed to a country. The argument of 'separation of church and state' was brought up.. but since every church follows a god, that argument is irrelevant.

On another topic, a town in Wisconsin (I think) passed a bill stating if your child is a bully, the parents will be fined. They were all in favor of the idea. Yes, punish the parents for their children not being able to behave... Ok, I can see the rationale behind it. But the comments continued, and it morphed into what is bullying and what isn't...

I came to the realization that my peers want every aspect of our lives regulated. Every action, every decision, every word.

To test this theory, I asked the posters if they felt, in the future, we as a country should strive to be like town in The Giver:


It is set in a society which at first appears to be a utopian society but is revealed to be a dystopian one as the story progresses. The novel follows an 11 year old boy named Jonas. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness," a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, as there may be times where one must draw upon the wisdom gained from history to aid the community's decision making. Jonas struggles with concepts of all the new emotions and things introduced to him: whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is even possible to have one without the other. The Community lacks any color, memory, climate and terrain, all in effort to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality beyond personal individuality.[1]

To my astonishment, many told me that while they thought I was disparaging their ideas by comparing them to a book, yes, that should be the ideal goal. Kind of an oxymoron if you ask me, but whatever.

So I ask, if there are any true progressives out there, is that the end goal? To eliminate individuality so that everyone is the same, even if that means erasing everything that made this country what it is?

Looking for real answers and real discussion, not smart ass one-liners.

[sammichoffate]

https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/progressive-era.cfm


"The early progressives rejected Social Darwinism. In other words, they were people who believed that the problems society faced (poverty, violence, greed, racism, class warfare) could best be addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace. Progressives lived mainly in the cities, were college educated, and believed that government could be a tool for change. Social reformers, like Jane Addams, and journalists, like Jacob Riis and Ida Tarbel, were powerful voices for progressivism. They concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant. Other local leaders encouraged Americans to register to vote, fight political corruption, and let the voting public decide how issues should best be addressed (the initiative, the referendum, and the recall)"

[NumberSix]

The progressive agenda is doomed to fail. It requires believing that humans have no biological nature and that you can socially engineer people into being whatever you want. They're the other side of the same coin of the people who think you can teach gays to be not gay. People are what they are. It's best to just live and let live.

A small group of people in human history finally realized that it's best to just let people be free to live their own lives and make their own decisions. The ultimate goal of "true progressives" is to destroy that because they're a bunch of science denying ideologues that think they can mold society into being a robotic utopia.

[UK2K]

The progressive agenda is doomed to fail. It requires believing that humans have no biological nature and that you can socially engineer people into being whatever you want. They're the other side of the same coin of the people who think you can teach gays to be not gay. People are what they are. It's best to just live and let live.

A small group of people in human history finally realized that it's best to just let people be free to live their own lives and make their own decisions. The ultimate goal of "true progressives" is to destroy that because they're a bunch of science denying ideologues that think they can mold society into being a robotic utopia.

I feel like that's what they were getting at. It was really bizarre. I left the group because I quickly learned there's no point in discussing world events with people who have never left the US, or tax reform with people who probably don't pay taxes.

But I feel like there was a, sort of, communal agreement that an emotionless world lacking individuality was the ultimate end goal.

To me, that's just weird. I mean, I'm proud of this country, from where it began to where it is now, but it seems many in my generation would prefer to erase all of that history and just be... Country X.

[Steven Kerry]

To rid the world of rednecks and hillbillies, obviously.

[Nick Young]

What do true "progressives" want? Authoritarian big brother socialist states where no one questions the narrative.

[Dresta]

"The early progressives rejected Social Darwinism."

lol wut? Progressivism and eugenics were linked at the hip during the beginning of the 20th century.

Essentially, progressivism is a kind of political religion; it holds to the belief (completely unsubstantiated) that human beings are fundamentally good, and that it is political institutions (rather than human nature itself) that cause the corruption and oppression of people; thus, through the tinkering and attempted perfection of political and social institutions, we can "progress" onwards and upwards, because, as Obama says, "the ark of history tends towards justice."

But anyone who is well and broadly read in world history knows this is nonsense. Civilizations come and go; indeed, many have been eradicated, barely leaving a trace behind, and there is no "justice" in that. The biggest problem with this ideology is that it feeds the hubris of man, which is an eminently dangerous thing to do, because man unfettered is an extremely dangerous and destructive creature, as the 20th century has well-shown.

[MMM]

I guess they aren't true progressives but what do Conservative-Progressive want???

does conservative-progressive work better
what about progressive-conservative??? i.e. progressive-cons

[longtime lurker]

https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/progressive-era.cfm

This post is too logical and knowledgeable for the morons on this site. It will be completely ignored.

[Nick Young]

Libtard cultural Marxism is the blind belief in the idea that human nature is loving and kind :hammerhead:

[sammichoffate]

This post is too logical and knowledgeable for the morons on this site. It will be completely ignored.:(

[Dresta]

This post is too logical and knowledgeable for the morons on this site. It will be completely ignored.
Well, it's largely false considering eugenics had the support of the progressive movement. Obviously you wouldn't know this, being wholly ignorant of the intellectual origins of the opinions you hold.

That great progressive hero, Oliver Wendell Holmes, ruled that the compulsory sterilisation of the unfit "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the 14th Amendment. It got most of its support from academics, sociologists and progressives, and it was left to old reactionaries like G. K. Chesterton to condemn the practice. Many were forcefully sterilised in the US as a result, and it is no consequence that this took place in the progressive US, and not in more conservative nations like the UK. Though of course there were proponents in the UK too: HG Wells, Keynes, Beveridge, etc.

[longtime lurker]

Well, it's largely false considering eugenics had the support of the progressive movement. Obviously you wouldn't know this, being wholly ignorant of the intellectual origins of the opinions you hold.

That great progressive hero, Oliver Wendell Holmes, ruled that the compulsory sterilisation of the unfit "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the 14th Amendment. It got most of its support from academics, sociologists and progressives, and it was left to old reactionaries like G. K. Chesterton to condemn the practice. Many were forcefully sterilised in the US as a result, and it is no consequence that this took place in the progressive US, and not in more conservative nations like the UK. Though of course there were proponents in the UK too: HG Wells, Keynes, Beveridge, etc.

So progressives want Eugenics? Eugenics was supported by people across the political spectrum including some progressives. However you're making an attempt to paint all people with the same brush by trying to misrepresent the ideology. Your pretentious pseudo intellectual act is tiresome

[Long Duck Dong]

Well, it's largely false considering eugenics had the support of the progressive movement. Obviously you wouldn't know this, being wholly ignorant of the intellectual origins of the opinions you hold.

https://media.giphy.com/media/WxDZ77xhPXf3i/giphy.gif

[Dresta]

So progressives want Eugenics? Eugenics was supported by people across the political spectrum including some progressives. However you're making an attempt to paint all people with the same brush by trying to misrepresent the ideology. Your pretentious pseudo intellectual act is tiresome
Ok, says the guy who makes inane comments like "b-b-but conservatives are alwaiz on the wrong side of history, durrrr," ignoring that the primary opposition to things like eugenics came from Christianity, and its belief in the dignity of each individual human soul. Or that the most conservative institution around (the Catholic Church) opposed it from the outset.

It's a plain historical fact that eugenics was part and parcel of early progressivism; deny it all you want, it fitted with the desire to engineer society, to eliminate evils, and utilise the advance of scientific discovery to create "progress"--then the nazis gave it a bad name, and you and your ilk decided that this wasn't a progressive thing after all, and henceforth dismissed the nazis as "right-wingers," completely ignoring how nazism was a radical ideology opposed to conservatism and traditionalism (unlike Salazar and Franco). Now, with abortion on demand, and advances in the study of genetics, we may well end up with eugenics yet; primitive forms of eugenics were rather common in the ancient world; what makes you think, that as Christianity recedes, eugenics won't again become an acceptable thing? It is already possible for someone to select based on gender (provided they lie)--so why not based on particular genetic combinations? This kind deliberate engineering of society has always been central to the progressive cause.

Your pig-headed ignorance is tiresome. It's astounding that you can't acknowledge the truth of the matter: that the cause of eugenics is fundamentally at odds with American traditionalism, closely tied to Christianity (and the ideas of natural rights and laws, i.e. those granted to us by God) as it is.

[Dresta]

This is admitted by Liberals who are honest with themselves (of which you're obviously not one). See here:

https://newrepublic.com/article/128144/dark-history-liberal-reform


In the early twentieth century, progressives displayed an open contempt for individual rights. In a 1915 unsigned editorial at this magazine, the editors ridiculed the Bill of Rights as a joke. “They insist upon invoking abstract principles, instead of trying to determine for concrete cases whether social control should supersede individual initiative…how can we discuss that seriously?” The doctrine of natural rights will “prevent us from imposing a social ideal.” The progressives were able to unite idealism and pragmatism via science and the administrative state. What good was democracy if people voted against their collective interest? What expertise did the average American have in managing a state or a race? Black Americans in particular could not be trusted with the ballot. “The progressive goal was to improve the electorate,” Leonard writes, “not necessarily to expand it.” Jim Crow laws suppressed turnout in the South, but it fell in the North as well. New York state’s participation went from 88 percent in 1900 to 55 percent in 1920.

It’s impossible to understand early twentieth-century progressives without eugenics. Even worker-friendly reforms like the minimum wage were part of a racial hygiene agenda. The progressives believed male Anglo-Saxons were the most productive workers, but immigrants and women were willing to accept lower wages and displaced white men. Capitalism was getting in the way of human improvement, promoting inferior genes for near-term profits. “Competition has no respect for the superior races,” Leonard quotes the economist John R. Commons on Jews. “The race with lowest necessities displaces others.” Commons found common cause with the xenophobic wing of the organized labor movement.

Charles Cooley, a founding member of American Sociological Association, warned that providing health care and nutrition for black Americans could be “dysgenic” if not accompanied by population control. The eugenicists weren’t just dreaming: Between 1900 and the early 1980s, over 60,000 Americans were involuntarily sterilized under the law.

To bring right-wing fears full circle, the progressive Supreme Court of 1927 (including Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis) ruled 8-1 in Buck v. Bell that forced sterilization was constitutional. Holmes wrote that, “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.” The lone dissent was Justice Pierce Butler, a conservative critic of state intervention, devout Catholic, and one of nine children born to poor Irish immigrants. Butler never wrote his opinion, and the Court has never expressly overruled Buck.

This was written by a Liberal. Stop being so dishonest with yourself. You can be a progressive or liberal and disassociate yourself from your intellectual antecedents, but it puts to bed your either disingenuous or ignorant "right" and "wrong" side of history schtick.

[UK2K]

So progressives want Eugenics? Eugenics was supported by people across the political spectrum including some progressives. However you're making an attempt to paint all people with the same brush by trying to misrepresent the ideology. Your pretentious pseudo intellectual act is tiresome
I believe the hypothetical town in The Giver and eugenics would go hand in hand.

[Long Duck Dong]

https://dcbarroco.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/140327a-margaret-sanger.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e9/09/8b/e9098ba00d9adf43df59046ad5684d7f.jpg

[Dresta]

Hilary wants to sterilize those "superpredators" :lol

[nathanjizzle]

I have a belly button.