A Tea Party For Progressives
Progressives accuse Tea Party activists of being radical right. Tea Partiers accuse Progressives of being destructive of our society and economy. It occurs to me there is not so much difference between the two and they ought to join forces.
It seems the Tea Parties came into existence because of the overreaching of government during the time of Bush the Younger in the White House and because of the continuation of those big government actions by Congress and the administration during the early Obama years. It seems their fear is that the America that gave them, their friends and their sires a growing economy and steadily better lives was being taken away. Destroyed would be a better word. And so finally, after being part of the great silent majority for many years, they became politically active.
Their wish is to restore the America that gave individuals hope and possibilities for a good life and a better future. Their wish is for freedom to live their lives, take care of their families, and have good possibilities for the future for themselves and their children. What then is the difference between Tea Partiers and Progressives? Do not Progressives say they want the same thing for all people? The difference is in how their goal is accomplished.
The Tea Partiers, more generally those who believe in capitalism and hard work, understand there are risks and rewards to behavior, that there are risks and rewards to life itself. We are not all created equal, except, hopefully, under the law.
Progressives want everyone to share in the rewards of our economy. A descriptive example is that they want everyone to go to college and have a cushy job. And therein lies the difference between the Tea Partiers and Progressives.
Everyone is not qualified for college and to try to prepare everyone for college and then send them ignores the truth of the human race. Yet the Progressives will try to use government to force the issue. The way this is done is varied, but the point is Progressives see a result they want and use government to try to obtain that result. They believe government can be a positive force for obtaining the good life for everyone. Tea Partiers instead believe in personal hard work and sacrifice, and that government is more often an impediment than a help.
So one of the major differences between Tea Partiers and Progressives is the belief in government as a positive influence in life. The other is a belief in equality of results.
Tea Partiers believe in life as it is, not as they wish it should be. Different people get different results. Some through natural attributes such as professional sportsmen. Others through luck, such as a person who finds oil deposits on their property. Most through day-in, day-out hard work and perseverance. Others, due to bad luck or lack of initiative, don’t do as well and Tea Partiers believe they don’t deserve to. This is again where the Progressives differ. They often believe in equality of results despite good reasons people should not obtain them. Someone who refuses to go to work, who makes no effort, who doesn’t care about their job results, should not have equal results to those who do.
From this natural inequality, luck, good or bad situations, some people do better than others. Progressives then desire government to make up the difference. But government is incapable of doing this (read Thomas Sowell’s: The Quest for Cosmic Justice). In helping some up, government drags others down. The results are unequal and so Progressives require more government. But more government exacerbates the problem; it does not cure it.
Perhaps the best example for the education of Progressives would be the courts and the death penalty. Sometimes the courts accidentally make mistakes. Sometimes the police accidentally arrest the wrong person. Sometimes the prosecuting attorney accidentally goes after the wrong person. Sometimes the accidents add up to the wrong person being executed. Now the good progressive should change accidentally to intentionally.
Sometimes the wrong person is punished intentionally. Why, because the people who work for government are not perfect. They too often – and it’s not many of them, but it doesn’t take many – use the power entrusted to them for their own purposes and thus government becomes an avenue for the same inequity the Progressives are trying to stop. Thus the very differences the Progressives sought to allay with the help of government are made more numerous through the abuse of government power.
They have not cured anything; they have changed the inputs. How well government treats you becomes one of the game changers in life. So people, from the individual to the corporations, go to government to improve their situation. And government, trying to be everything to all comers does what it can. It picks winners and losers. So there are still losers, which is what the Progressives were trying to avoid. In the process government ruins the society that brought us the riches we all currently enjoy. And it is this ruination that the Tea Partiers are working to reverse.
So the Progressives, with benevolent intent for all, work to ruin society. Tea Partiers, with benevolent intent for all, work to make society a place where hard work and perseverance are beneficial to all. If the Progressives would realize wishful thinking is only wishful, we would all be better off.
Two quotes from a founding father:
“I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
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