In the closing decade of the 19th century, and the for the first couple of decades of the twentieth, Progressivism dominated the American landscape. During what was called the Progressive Era, false prophets declared that man had entered a new age. According to these advocates of a new secular religion, the depravity of the past would soon be eliminated. The tenants of their faith were based in Darwinism, Scientism, and of course Eugenics. Mankind, they thought, was evolving as a species. They believed that if only the more enlightened members of the human race were allowed to take the lead, this process could be accelerated. A society based on scientific principles Woodrow Wilson exclaimed was the progressive goal. Principles that adherents of the Progressive cult believed would bring Utopia within humankind’s grasp.

In time the world got what the progressive’s were asking for. Mussolini would form a government largely based on what he learned from from progressives and his idol Woodrow Wilson. Of course, it was Hitler who took Progressive tenants to their ultimate end. If mankind was evolving, he surmised that Germans like himself were at the top of the evolutionary ladder, and blond blue eyed Germans being examples of evolutionary perfection. Progressive icon George Bernard Shaw suggested the lower ranks of humanity should be humanly gassed to death for the greater good, Hitler agreed. To him this meant elimination of Jews among others.

That Fascism and Nazism were merely forms of Progressivism was readily apparent and accepted before the war, now no one mentions this connection anymore. Unfortunately, that means the public at large are mostly blind to the dangers of Progressive ideology, and where it leads. What is certain, today’s Progressives are leading the world down a path no less dangerous than their 2oth century counterparts.

Truthfully, Progressivism today has somewhat evolved. They still profess superior knowledge, and seek a fantasy driven utopian dream, but now their rhetoric is more sophisticated. Similarly, they now prefer patronization/manipulation over suppression and even elimination of the lower ranks. On the other hand, science is still twisted by these leftest to advance their agenda. In essence, their words have evolved, but the message is still very much the same. It is progressivism, even if touted as liberalism, that dominates the left today. This is especially true in the United States where the coming elections are dominated by two progressives, each with more in common than their political parties wish to admit.

In contrast, the founding fathers looked back at thousands of years of humanity and found the nature of man unchanging. While one generation might profess greater wisdom than those who came before, the evidence betrayed their boast as mere arrogance. The duel nature of man is unchanging. His tendency towards selfishness, anger, and blind hatred, is imperfectly held at bay by his capacity for love, charity and forgiveness. Governments, the founders saw, were only necessary because man needed a check on his baser nature. Correspondingly, governments were a reflection of those who created them, and also had to be held in check. That was the genius of the constitution, it created a government that could safe-guard freedom while not becoming its destroyer. Unfortunately, the original constitutional restraints have become weakened over time.

The founders of the American republic had also learned from history that human virtue was essential for liberty to survive. Among the people there must exist a common code of decency.  For them, only natural law, and Judeo-Christian values provided such a basis. In lieu of such internal constraints, external one’s must be surely placed, or as the great Edmund Burke put it, “the less there is within, the more there must be without.”

A STUPID QUESTION GETS AN ENLIGHTENED ANSWER

Like  a  Siamese twin, the fathers of the American republic saw knowledge to be conjoined to virtue. Not just any knowledge, but particularly that of  a civil nature. The people needed to know upon what their freedom rested, and why their government was formed the way it was. Knowledge of the kind that would assure future generations the same amount of liberty as they enjoyed.

Today America stands on the threshold of loosing all the founders and generations of Americans have fought and died for. Expanded dictatorial power is springing from the presidency, unchecked by congress. The progressive agenda reigns supreme as years of provoking racial and social unrest bears fruit. History and civics have been spun and rewritten to the point of being unrecognizable to those of just a couple of generations back. Most importantly, moral breakdown has become an open political agenda.

As a result of the resurgence of Progressive thought,  the symptoms of western collapse are everywhere. America now has a debt it can likely never pay back, and its military is a hollowed out shell. Freedom of speech, and religion are both under attack. While shops are burned in the inner cities and the murder rate skyrockets, free speech on college campuses is stifled. Echoing Hitler’s “private health is a public concern” the federal government is even controlling local lunch menus and telling parents what they can and cannot put in their child’s lunch pail.

There is little doubt where all of this leads, it has been seen before. Dictatorship, tyranny, and open persecution are things so foreign to many Western minds they are numb to their encroachment. One thing is certain, as in the mid-twentieth century, the road to the Progressive Utopia leads straight to hell.

“The Conservative Mind”

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