The Mentality of More - Part 2

The following is part two of a three part opinion piece.

Part 2

In an insulated world it would be possible to say that there is no law that can't be repealed and no harm that can't be undone. Unfortunately we do not live in an insulated world. We live in a world where our debt continues to rise, jeopardizing our economic and physical security which WILL, in turn, lead to the collapse of our nation.

It would be disingenuous to say that progressives do not care about our debt. A more apt description would be they care more about the growth of government than they do about the debt. You can clearly see this in the behavior of Democrats over the past 5 years.

While there are a vast number of issues facing our country the most pressing challenges revolve around our economic situation. This arena is where progressives have done a brilliant job of distracting from failed policies, shifting the topic to more emotional wedge issues and twisting the English language into a pretzel.

There are indisputable facts to which Republicans must become experts at clearly articulating to voters and defeating the nonsensical progressive counter arguments.

These are the rules progressives live by.

Bipartisanship IS dead.

Progressives want to move our government and our society to model that of western European social democratic states. Simply put, they want a socialism. The label has changed to Progressivism and Republicans fret at calling socialists socialist, but they should not.

Bipartisanship cannot exist in the progressive world view. Every step made must incrementally move the government towards greater control over the citizenry. Hence "progress" is constantly being made. Early 20th century progressives differed from communist revolutionaries - who desire a swift, immediate change in government - in this way, but their end goal is the same, centralized government control of virtually all aspects of life. Again, for the “greater good.”

This is being accomplished by the executive branch seizing more power and in some cases Congress relinquishing it. It is being accomplished by keeping people dependent on new or existing government subsidies. It is being accomplished by Republicans operating under the paradigm of the 1980's and 90's where begrudgingly, Democrats and Republicans came together and made deals. That paradigm existed with liberals, but no longer exists with progressives. And not to confuse language, there is a difference between liberals and progressives.

In the simplest of terms “liberals” are vocal about expressing their displeasure with certain aspects of our society such as McDonalds, soda or fossil fuels. “Progressives” will actively engage in implementing policy to punish (a tax or a ban) the offending organization or citizen, removing an individuals choice in matters and ignoring the downstream consequences of said policy.

Charles Krauthammer, in speaking about Iran's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons material, once said that we need to stop pretending that Iran can be talked out of wanting a nuclear weapon. We need to accept it and decide how to deal with it. The same case can be made for dealing with Progressives.

Progressives have zero interest in shrinking our government and logic dictates that if that is the case, they only wish to grow it ad infinitum. This doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room.

Modern American progressive philosophy can be summed up in one phrase. Never cut spending. Ever. This is why you constantly hear talk from progressives about a “balanced approach” and yet when Democrats achieve a tax increase and talk turns to cutting spending, they shift the subject back to more “balance,” equating to more taxes.

Progressives ramped up spending in since taking over Congress in 2006 and consequently our deficits went up (not excusing President Bush’s government growth policies). When Barack Obama was elected our deficits went into overdrive due to skyrocketing federal spending.

Progressives recognize that with the entrenched bureaucracy inherent in any government, new spending or government programs become extremely hard to get rid of. Unless, of course there are opposing majorities in both legislative branches and the Presidency. All they have to do is grab the spending (and de facto power) now and it is essentially theirs in perpetuity.

"Buy now, pay later" is the mindset, but we're ALL going to pay dearly.

Tied into the never cut spending philosophy is the method by which progressives execute their plan. In the same way consumers use credit cards, Democrats use deficit spending. As long as they get their program or spending bill passed into law, the financing of that law becomes secondary. This happens both at the federal and state level here in Massachusetts.

The biggest gap in the intellectual chasm between the way everyday citizens and businesses utilizing credit or debt is that the Democrats don't have to pay it back. The taxpayers do. There is absolutely ZERO accountability for Progressive actions from Progressives. This leads into perhaps the most insidious attitude progressives possess.

It's not your money. It's the government’s...and they are letting you keep what THEY choose.

Ingrained in every progressive vision is the fundamental principle that the "collective" is superior to the individual. Collectivism can take shape in multiple forms, but the most common implementation is through taxation of productive sectors of our society and redistribution (in its varied forms) to less productive individuals, including the government/political class itself.

It is here where conservatives can gain the strongest foothold for a compelling refutation of Progressivism. This refutation is built upon the cultural norms we as Americans have had since our inception. We are a nation derived from principles, not a legacy of happenstance--and that makes us unlike any country in the history of mankind. It is through the principles of self reliance, individual sovereignty and personal liberty in which we have cultivated the success of people blessed to call themselves American.

Unfortunately progressives are willfully ignorant of this reality and it results in logic gaps feeding into "pay later" tactics. In order to "pay later" they then scramble to find revenue from the productive members of our society. Progressives don't grasp that by inflicting unending attempts to extricate more money via tax increases from individuals, corporations and just about any source they can think of, they will correspondingly collect less and less revenue.

In some respects, one can never underestimate the limited capacity of progressives to comprehend the folly of their actions. At the point we are at now, every dollar the government consumes in the form of taxes or debt it is a dollar they deprive the private sector of utilizing for productive purposes.

The government gets paid through transactions. When money is moving around. When employees get paid. When companies invest and buy new equipment or raw materials. If the outcome desired by progressives is more revenue for the treasury - as an aside, conservatives' desired outcome is for individuals to retain as much of their money as possible and for the government to tax only when necessary - they shoot themselves in the foot with a "tax more" policy.

If Progressives truly wanted more money in government coffers and out of the hands of citizens, they would be well served to recognize their folly.