I have asked this question for years. First it was just the musings of a grumpy Soldier and then out loud on Twitter and to my rather disturbed leftist “friends”. There is a lot to be said about the progressive movement and how it affects our nation and its history. We have a lot to “thank” the Progressives for: Prohibition, AFL-CIO, The New Deal, Great Society, Jimmy Carter, Community Reinvestment Act, SCHIP (yes, yes, yes), Obamacare, Financial Regulation Reform, Obama’s foreign policy, and more to come I’m sure. That being said, some of that has benefited the United States of America, namely the consumer and worker protection laws to ensure safe, secure, and sustainable commerce. The rest… ties to to the government that holds the Sword of Domiciles above the citizenry since the entitlements are paid in cash not backed by anything more than a failing credit rating for what as once the world reserve currency.

So… what are Progressive progressing towards. I want to avoid the small guys, or else we’d be here all day, so let’s look at the main leftist/progressive message boards and the mission statements they give themselves:

Moveon.org: “…we work together to realize the progressive promise of our country” “MoveOn.org Political Action, one of the largest Political Action Committees in the country, brings real Americans into politics to fight for a more progressive America and elect progressive candidates.”

What does “brings real Americans into politics to fight for a more progressive America…”? Who’s a “real American?” Sounds familiar to the Sarah Palin comment about “two Americas”, but the left threw a hissy fit over that now didn’t they?

Media Matters.org: “progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”

Again, I am puzzled as to what a “progressive research & information center” actually consists of. I know a thing or two about analysis (namely intelligence type) and I know that you can’t effectively give an analysis of anything without finding both sides of the issue. So they acknowledge they neglect the actual substance of what conservatives and right wing pundits and politicians say to further their “progressive” agenda. Again, what are you progressing towards?

We see here Hillary Clinton, then a candidate for President in 2008, prefers the word “progressive” to “liberal”. She is accurate in that the word liberal now means that one supports big government, a government knows best, government is good and fair, government is here for you. She goes on to say that she calls her self a “modern American progressive” who feels that we work better as a society when we work together. She leaves out the government part though. So I have to find someone else who can define for me what a “Progressive” is and what they want. I turn to “The Progressive” a left-wing magazine in publication since 1909:

It steadfastly stands against militarism, the concentration of power in corporate hands, and the disenfranchisement of the citizenry. It champions peace, social and economic justice, civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, a preserved environment, and a reinvigorated democracy

Finally, I’m getting somewhere. This makes sense. Even sounds good. Great actually. Don’t we all want these things? But something is scratching at the back of my skull about the word “progressive” and these feel good phrases, I want to believe but something just won’t let me. A link on The Progressive’s site is titled “McCarthyism Watch” and I know from my rather exceptional Georgia public school education that McCarthyism could only mean Senator McCarthy’s evil Red Hunts of Hollywood and higher education for communists.

So this means to me that I can link being “progressive” with being a communist right? Or why else would a magazine who calls itself “The Progressive” dedicate a whole page to watching out for another Red Hunt? So let’s look to the founder of communism which grew from socialism (don’t let your leftist friends fool you). Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels derived the idea of a Worker’s Paradise that removed the means of production from the aristocratic power elites to the workers of the New Age of Machines in the Industrial Revolution. Most are familiar with the tenants that Marx and Engels challenge their readers, the “workers of the world” to achieve and they demand the following:

• Central banking system
• Government controlled education
• Government controlled labor
• Government ownership of transportation and communication vehicles
• Government ownership of agricultural means and factories
• Total abolition of private property
• Property rights confiscation
• Heavy income tax on everyone
• Elimination of rights of inheritance
• Regional planning

Is this the end of the progressive movement? To achieve these goals all for the betterment of society as Hillary Clinton put it? What does all this government control mean? It means enforcement, fines, penalties, consequences for not obeying the rule of law of the land. This is nothing more than enslavement to a faceless bureaucrat or soulless central government who bribes the masses with tidbits of the comfort.

To the progressive, the socialist, the progress seems to never end. All socialist (i.e. communist) regimes have come through violent revolutions which, in the last hundred years have killed an unknown number of people the world over. To some of these regimes, they have not achieved their “Worker’s Paradise” that Marx had attempted to achieve so to them the revolution, the progress, is never over. They must constantly work to achieve a perfect utopia for their citizens, their workers. In reality it is nothing more than the crush of a rich, power elite who created an aristocratic class to rule a nation, by any other name… its slavery. Socialism/Progressivism kills the human soul it kills initiative and denies man’s passion for life. Why? Because there cannot be a utopia, there can not be a fairness if one is happy. TheSophist wrote a great RedState blog about it earlier this year and how socialism has begun to fail in Sweden. Captain’s Quarters compared Germany’s GDP and how it relates to Arkansas’ and how the Germans, despite being known for their engineering prowess and industrial might (and home of Karl Marx) are neck and neck with the state known best for pretty wooded mountains and Bill Clinton.

Now President Obama has come along. He talks of progress. The leftists all talk of how we’ve progressed to having a black President and how Obama is going to move America into a new era… So far this era has looked a lot like those 10 Principles of Communism previously listed.

So take this blog with you. Its got some minor points of argument to make with your leftist friends and those who went along to get along in 2008 by voting for Obama. For the love of this sacred Republic don’t let them make that mistake again. Ask the progressives who are doing this what they want to progress towards. When they respond with all those “feel good” initiatives and ideals from “The Progressive” you should respond simply by saying, “Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Laos, Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba, Venezeula, a good 1/2 of Africa, Eastern Europe…” they are all socialist nations that have come and gone or are around and are failing. But they all have one single thing in common: progress has come at the expense of freedom and the liberty to enjoy life as free human beings.

So… again, progressives, what are you progressing towards?