Friday, July 25, 2008

The Progressive Problem

Here I am, sick for the passed 3 days, up early in the morning to give my poor fiancee a break from my sweating and grunting. The flu sucks.

So why not write a new blog? Awesome proposal, brain, thanks!

Ah, progressives. God bless 'em. So noble, so painfully misguided. Now I'm as liberal as they come (no drug laws, open immigration, health care for all), it's just that I don't think we should be pointing guns at one another to accomplish our noble ideals.

A gun? Who said anything about guns?!

If you and I are walking down the street, and we see a homeless guy asking for food, arguably the moral thing to do is give him food. Now, if I point a gun at you and tell you to feed him, and we'll assume you do because you don't want to get shot, have you acted morally, or under duress?

Here's the point: none of us pays taxes voluntarily, we pay under duress. If there's any question as to whether or not that's a fact, then stop paying your taxes. Eventually, men with guns will come and take you to a cell, and if you try and escape, you'll be shot. Again, since most of us don't want to be shot, we give the thugs their money.

The progressive will argue that we just need to get a really NICE aggressor into office, then they will use their criminally acquired revenue to provide services we liberals want.

This is a VERY high risk venture. For if one is willing to grant the state this kind of power, then one must be willing to allow the state to murder people. Yes, kiddies, I said murder. I can guarantee that if Obama wins the election, people in other countries will be murdered, and WE will be funding it. But, hey, as long as we have some services here at home, that's a price worth paying, right?

A system built on the threat of and/or the initiation of violence is one that begets murder. Always. That is the price of "progressive" politics. These are individuals who are willing to expand state power (and pay the aforementioned price for their expanded state), so that they can have services provided for their populace. And while, again, it is noble to want everyone to have health care, security, etc, it is not so noble to accomplish said goals through violence.

The notion of how to provide services without violence I'll leave for a later blog.

If you progressives want your government programs, then I better not see you protesting wars, because your whole methodology is based in violence. And violence begets violence.

Remember, it is not individuals that wage war, it is governments. And governments often acquire their power through the desires of many well meaning voters.

If you are willing to grant ever more power to the state for some notion of "the commons" then be ready for Patriot Acts, wars, and the like.

Be ready to support murder.

Sleep tight.

3 comments:

Spencer S. Watson said...

Come on. You have no idea what you're talking about bro. I'm sorry. you're completely ignorant on the progressive stance, you've proven that here. If you need to learn what it actually is, feel free to ask, I'm always happy to make the case. Yes the person you argue against would be wrong, if they existed, or were actually a progressive. Unfortunately for your argument, neither are true. Enough with the exaggerated, no context, straw-man arguments. I expect that from right wingers, but you should know better. This posts sounds like a Rush rant, is that the road you want to go down?

Face it, you still don't have enough facts. You're still a newbie, working off preconceived notions, you have decades of education needed to honestly take the stands you do with what borders on arrogance. And decades more to talk with such condescension to people who are so often proven right.

But will you ever make it there? Seriously, think about it. Do you think you can honestly educated yourself in these matters without bias? It seems to me you've already made up your mind before you know even a single percentage of the history, economics, logic, and philosophy involved in politics. Here you make a completely ignorant attack on progressives, basing it on misconceptions, and outright falsehoods. Why? Maybe it's your sources, which you can admit are incredibly biased. Why brainwash yourself by getting all your information and ideas from one single slant?

Enough with the bias, approach your arguments honestly. Admit you don't know enough to say ANY of this with such certainty. It's fine to give your opinion, but you harm yourself when you treat said opinion like gospel. The whole problem with the world is fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves, and wiser men so full of doubt (my favorite Bertrand Russell quote). So why don't you just stick to learning with an open mind. But if you're going to jump the gun, and make up your mind (giving up on critical thought), then at least stick to making the case for your point of view, instead of attacking views you don't fully understand. Or how about you just not mix them up with conservatives, who you seem to have so much in common with philosophically, and who are actually the culprits you're attacking.

Sorry for the ad hominem critique, but there just isn't enough substance to your argument to address it, it's just ill informed opinion. If you want to learn about progressive ideas just shoot me off some questions, whatever I can't answer I can direct you to someone who can. It's the most successful political philosophy in history, so it's worth learning properly. Just try to keep an open mind.

G20 Sided Die said...

All you can offer me in terms of a progressive definition is that violence to accomplish your goals is permissible.

The best part of your response is your snide little attacks on me. That's all you got buddy? Clearly your uncomfortable with the fact that your entire philosophical framework is based in the threat of and/or the initiation of violence.

You want facts? Patriot act, war in iraq, Clinton firing off missiles to distract us from his impeachment, the fucking civil war!

You forget yourself as you wade through the the spell of the state (and man does it ever have you). Your beloved state brings us war and strife.

Congratulations on your enlightened state of clear support of violence. Until you can pull you head out of the proverbial philosophical ass that is statism, then you will forever have blood on your hands.

The saddest part is that you support the murder and violence because you tell yourself that its all for the greater good. If you support coercive taxation, you support, by proxy, murder.

Again, congrats, buddy.

G20 Sided Die said...

By the way, Rush is a statist. Right wingers are statists.

YOU are a statist.

I am not.

What you all share in common is a methodology of violence.