Presidential election, 2016

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-13-2016, 09:04 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Bob, I know I've said this previously.  But have you ever stopped to consider that whomever is the "progressive" side becomes is whomever wins the 4T?  Think on this for a second, it has to do with logic rather than values.

Let us suppose for a second that History is Written By the Victors.  Let us also suppose for just a second that there is a tendency toward what I call Whig History (the idea that all history is a march of progress to some end goal of some sort--it isn't true of course but it is a common perception) being written.

Is it not then conceivable that whatever side wins the 4T is the "progressive side".  It is my view that both sides of a 4T or a 2T for that matter cannot have the labels "progressive" and "regressive" applied to them until after the fact.  

To complicate matters this time around we have a group of leftist-radicals who are calling themselves progressive, but whose actions are inherently regressive.

Yes, I know I have replied previously, and I don't like to repeat myself too too often, but one more time. I'd suggest that extreme partisans have selective memory when ideas that conflict with their values are presented, so I fully expect to repeat myself again someday.

I do have an 'arrow of progress' which pretty well matches classic Whig values. Yes, just about everyone struggling for power will try to label their values and schemes as progressive, but it is possible to have a notion of where progress truly lies.

I favor human rights, equality, democracy and more even distribution of wealth. In any given S&H crisis, I anticipate a conservative faction attempting to uphold the old values, and with it the political and economic systems that grant the elite ruling class political power and wealth. The progressive faction will have cultural and economic reasons to overturn the old. Generally, by the time the 4T rolls around, problems with the old ways of doing things are blatant and obvious. Often the progressive faction is lead by a new group of elites who wish to diminish or take over from the old elites.

Thus, tax and spend liberalism featured massive taxes on the ruling elites and produced as comfortable an existence for the working classes as has ever existed. Reagan's Borrow and spend trickle down redistributed wealth back to the elite ruling robber baron class, and created an anemic economy that has many dissatisfied who are aware of what went on during the tax and spend era. This would suggest that the New Dealers were true progressives, while the unraveling era Republicans have not been.

Similarly, equal pay for equal work triggers the 'equality' aspect. I would label that as progressive.

Similarly, equal treatment in marriage for all gender combinations triggers both equality aspect and human rights.

Republicans are traditionally the party of the Robber Barons. While the Democrats have recently sucked deep at the nipple of Citizens United, they still seem less beholden to the elite ruling class than the Republicans. This is not a question of black and white, though, not at this point. It is a question of two shades of very dark grey.

Freeing slaves would count as progressive on the equality and human rights front.

Weakening the power of the kings and nobility would count on the equality front, and usually on the human rights front as well.

While Marx intended to build a system that favored the worker, what actually developed was a new elite ruling class, the communist party. There were no checks at all on the power of the elite ruling class. While the rhetoric of marxism included progressive ideas in abstract, in practice the communists were not progressive at all by my particular definition. Human rights, democracy and equality did not appear on their radar. If human rights, democracy and equality in any way diminished their strangle hold on wealth and power, then trample on the People they would.

Of course, I am not Noah Webster or Humpty Dumpty. I cannot dictate how other people use the word 'progressive'. That's how I use it, though.