Testing the American people

Progressives in government are testing the American people's ability to govern themselves. Obama was right in his tyranny speech when he said the American experiment of self-governance is being questioned, but it's being questioned by him, not by the voices warning of tyranny.

Media appeared to turn on the administration after the IRS discrimination and AP phone spying stories came out, but now they're once again slowly circling the wagons, protecting Obama. We'll now hear more stories and more analyses of Republican over-reaction and how Obama was not really involved in the IRS and AP scandals. When Benghazi is mentioned, media hacks will roll their eyes, say that the administration has turned over emails, then talk about how Republicans are blocking immigration reform.

I won't be surprised if media turns the corruption around to blame Republicans for trying to destroy Obama, making it completely about a political battle between the GOP and the first black President. In reality, what we're witnessing is Progressivism and Statism in action. Progressives continue to consolidate power, and they're banking on the public zoning out and becoming submissive. These aren't scandals, but rather the normal course of action for progressives in a statist system. Progressives are determined to use interventionist government in ways that offend those remaining who care about the Constitution, and we'll see how many are left who care about the Constitution or even know what it says. Progressives are convinced they have a majority who care more about government action than Constitutional limits.

After a century of Progressive advancements, the public has been trained and softened to the point government can do pretty much whatever it wants to do. Obama's lies will be forgotten, most likely, or just accepted. The State machine will send out their operatives who'll obscure the issues so that enough Americans just let the corruption wash over them because it's too complex to sort out and follow the trails, or because they know that politics is a nasty business. Progressive supporters will say the GOP is so evil that dirty tricks and lies are necessary. Progressives are counting on a majority -- that's all they need, a majority.

We hear this morning on cable news that only 40% or so people care about Benghazi, or something to that effect. This means in media that it's not a problem. As long as they can show polls where the majority is okay with the Progressive direction, then all is well, regardless of how bad the fundamentals of the economy become. The economy is not important to Progressives, because they will use the Fed to keep the country and welfare state going, even if millions are suffering in unemployment. This is what Americans voted for, so I don't see them rejecting it just because "a few rogue" actors at the IRS decided to act stupidly. And the AP story is about spying on media who leaked a story that caused national security problems -- what difference does it make?

Progressives and war

Because Benghazi is getting hotter for Progressives in the administration, on top of a long economic slog, we can expect Progressives to escalate military action to divert the public from growing corruption and economically damaging interventions like Obamacare.

After Obama visited Israel, Israel is now bombing Syria. Israel would not bomb Syria without US permission, so we're effectively going to war with Syria through the backdoor of Israel. Americans can't allow this to happen. The next thing we'll hear is that Syria's threatening to retaliate and then there's an attack on Israel -- Obama will give a speech stating we have to protect Israel, our forever partner in the Mideast. For what? Does anyone really think Israel is threatened by Syria? Why would Assad attack Israel when he's in a battle with terrorists in his own country?

Israel has to know that if Assad goes, Syria will be taken over by terrorists who are more of a threat to Israel then Assad. Israel is doing this for us -- some deal has been made. I guess Israel thinks that if Syria is further torn and weakened, it good for them short-term. The American people oppose war with Syria by 62% -- this should rise to 99%.

Debt doesn't matter -- Part II

Limited government Conservatives and Libertarians are being pushed to the margins as the economy gets worse. Not enough Americans understand the principles of hard money, free markets and the necessity for government limits enough to realize why they should support those in government who advocate for economic liberty and limits on power. Progressives are winning the culture/class war and pop culture is more influential than political philosophies that a relative few understand. Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Steven Colbert will influence more votes than Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Justin Amash.

As the economy gets worse, it's good for Progressives who will frame Republicans as misers who protect the rich, penny pince and couldn't care less about the poor, the oppressed, the lagging middle class, women, the environment, so on and so forth. Progressives will continuously frame their agenda as a human agenda -- they're, of course, more concerned with employment, a healthy environment, gender equality and social justice than debt. Krugman and other economic experts will present charts and reasoning why debt and deficits don't matter. Once the public no longer cares, either, about the debt, and as they get anxious for job creation and economic growth, they will be ripe to submit to the Progressive plan for recovery. As I wrote earlier, National Healthcare will be pushed when Obamacare falls apart, and the State will push FDR type programs to put people back to work.

A Progressive government can continue the deficit spending by making deals with China and India and Russia. Our sovereignty will soon be at risk. When Republicans stand up and warn about the debt and approaching unfunded entitlement liabilities, Progressives will show how their plan for economic growth will bring in more revenues, and how other we and other emerging countries are interdependent, and Progressives will convince the public that the wealthy have to pay more (not a hard sale). All this is already in progress -- it will only become more urgent as the economy gets worse. Progressives can't afford for the public to realize the truth about the economy-destroying nature of statism. Progressives will prod media, unions and all the special interest groups to take to the airwaves and streets to make the case. This could backfire on Progressives if they can't control the radical Leftist groups, but media is expert at putting the best face on Leftist protest. Van Jones and the troops are ready for the battle. It's coming to a head in 2014.

As I've written, Progressives have the advantage because the State is gaining complete control of education, and media is still influential and on the side of Progressives and statism. The public becomes more pliable and apatheitc toward the Constitution as time goes on, despite the Tea Party reaction. The entertainment industry will do all they can to push the Progressive message, creating a sense of urgency. Progressives have to marginalize limited government and free market advocates. Once the Rand Pauls and Mike Lees are marginalized, Centrists will fold, telling the GOP establishment that the Republican Party might lose the House because of Tea Partiers, but this will finally shut the Tea Party down and allow the Republicans Party to prepare for 2016 or 2020. Centrists are the modern useful idiots. If the Rand Pauls and Mike Lees are marginalized, it's over. Progressives will control and change our government into a social democratic machine which will make a grand bargain with other nations to take the global "village" in a different direction. More later.

We can't do this without liberals

Nothing makes me sicker than the obscurantist efforts of Centrists who tell us we need to drop political labels and vote for representatives who will compromise and work together to get things done. Our biggest problem is that statists in both parties have worked together for decades to maintain the status quo that has finally suppressed economic growth long term and is drowning the country in debt. Our problem now is not that Republicans and Democrats are refusing to meld together in a symphony of beautiful, harmonic legislation -- it's that both sides need to limit government power.

Our political problem is complex. Underneath the status quo, which, in large part, is made up banal statists who love power more than anything, there's a battle raging between Conservatives and Liberals that is basically over social/cultural issues. Somewhere along the line, the social issues became politicized, and I don't know who's at fault, Social Conservatives or meddling, do-good Liberals. Going back to the statists in government, although many are banal power-mongers, there is also an influential Progressive presence that wishes to use interventionist government to transform America into a socialist-type country. I use the word socialist because it's still a good word, although it's loaded with images of the old Soviet Union. The new socialism is more like the European Democratic Socialism. There's a global element to the new socialism, in that there's a Progressive push to manage global affairs to achieve environmental justice, gender justice, social justice, and so forth.

This new socialism will not fare any better than the old socialism. We're dealing with consequences presently that will only get worse if Americans don't gain control of their government. To make this crystal clear, I don't see much difference between the results of Bush's presidency and Obama's presidency, except that Obama is doubling down on expansion of State power. I believe that Bush was more understanding when it came to economic freedom, but he eventually violated the principles of economic freedom in a statist effort to "save" economic freedom. We didn't have economic liberty to start with, so this makes Bush's talk just that, talk. Obama is more of a bonafide Progressive than Bush, but Progressivism infected our government with statism around the time of Woodrow Wilson and it's sickened the nation since, under Republican control and Democratic Party control. Nixon hammered the nails in the coffin first built by Wilson to lay economic freedom to rest.  Now, Progressivism is literally killing the nation.

In order to avoid national collapse, like Britain before us and Rome way before them, to name a few popular examples, Liberals and Conservatives both have to realize that the battle in the political realm must end, and any social and cultural differences must be dealt with in the free market of ideas. But how do Liberals and Conservatives come together to put proper limits on government power, and to allow the development of a free market? Are Liberals really so far gone they agree with Progressives that free markets must remain dead, not to be revived under any circumstances? Have Liberals drugged their consciences when it comes to foreign interventions and drone killings? Have Conservatives and Liberals forgotten their non-interventionist heritage as Americans?

Conservatives are just as guilty as Liberals when it comes to giving into Progressivism on the issue of the welfare/warfare State. Progressives have convinced Americans, even if most Americans might not realize the origination of the ideas due to the nature of our State-run education, that a powerful State is necessary to educate the poor and middle class, to protect the powerless citizens of foreign nations who are abused by power, to provide assistance to the needy, unfortunate and handicapped, to manage the money supply in order to avoid domination by wealthy private interests, to regulate the economy so that monopolists don't rule and set their own prices and destroy the environment in the process, to give advantages to unions so that powerful corporations don't run roughshod over workers, to provide health coverage and treatment so that profit seekers don't drain the people of their money when they get sick, on and on to control all areas of our lives. All these justifications for a powerful, controlling State appear reasonable until you learn the history of domination and freedom. When you begin looking at private sector means to deal with these issues, you begin to realize there are ways to avoid the anti-social takeover of the State.

Conservatives at least verbalize a desire to limit the power of government, and Liberals should know better,  but once Progressive ideology sold the nation on the vital need for the State to provide welfare, generations have accepted this as truth, and once Wilson led the nation to a world war, followed by a bigger war under FDR, Americans have been sold on the military/industrial complex, but it hasn't always been this way, and it doesn't have to be this way now. How do we end the war between Conservatives and Liberals in a real way, and not just some Centrist attempt to join opposites, preach pragmatism, and call it a day? Both sides, first, need to realize that they are equally responsible for our present statist system, and even if one side has pressed for statism more than the other, it's not enough to give that side justified righteousness.

I don't know which side will have the harder time accepting a political truce, Liberals or Conservatives. It only has to be a political truce, if both sides realize that the political realm is for protecting rights. As a classical liberal, I can't fathom why either Conservatives or Liberals believe our current statist system is the appropriate avenue to make changes in society and to assist the needy in society. What change is lasting that is forced on others through legislation -- what moral act is really moral if it's not a voluntary act? Why have Conservatives and Liberals become so cynical they've lost trust in our ability to work together to solve social problems and create an open, enriching, diverse culture? Would Jesus lobby government to make laws forcing people to behave the way he wants them to behave? I seriously doubt it. He would likely try to persuade, then give people the freedom to decide their moral code. He would most likely agree only with the laws that prevent coercion. Why have Liberals adopted the way of government to generate the changes they think are best? When did Liberals become manipulators and masters of other people, controlling their economic choices?

I think Liberals and Conservatives can make a political truce long enough to stop Progressivism from destroying the nation. Once government is properly limited and we're on the road to growth, peace and prosperity, Liberals and Conservatives will have more time and money to debate the social and cultural issues of our time on bigger and bigger stages.

Why Liberals have to speak up

I've been writing lately about the distinction between Liberals and Progressives, hoping there's still a distinction. Rather than berate Liberals for supporting Progressive policies and goals, I want to undertand why it is that liberals have become so complicit in an obvious attack on classical liberalism. Surely Liberals have some connection to their past. It makes no sense for liberal to mean something up to a certain point in time then become something totally different.

I've wondered why Liberals don't champion economic freedom. I can understand that Liberals possess a strong desire to help those who are powerless, but losing economic freedom hardly seems the best route to helping the poor and powerless. It's the opposite, actually, economic freedom is what's necessary to help the poor move out of poverty and to enjoy a measure of prosperity. I can't understand why Liberals are so resistant to searching for private sector solutions to poverty, inadequate education and discrimination. It appears that anyone today who still embraces statist solutions is someone who values coercive control over others, and this is an illiberal desire.

I've wondered how Liberals can maintain silence when America is still at war in Afghanistan after a decade of corruption and nation-building failure. I've wondered how Liberals can support a President who shows no concern for civil liberties. And, very recently, I've been astounded at the Liberal reaction to the atrocities committed by Kermit Gosnell. Several Liberals like Kirsten Powers and David Weigel have spoken up, but for the most part, Liberals appear reluctant to speak against the multiple baby-killing perpetuated by this monster and to demand answers regarding why regulators turned a blind eye, as if to speak out on this issue would mean association with the Right and, thus, be politically incorrect. I can't understand this.

Liberals have to be liberal, or they're just statist Progressives. If that's the case, then, fine, let me use this perfectly good word to describe myself again. As it stands, I can't call myself a Liberal, if it means supporting Progressive economic and foreign policy madness and being silent for political reasons in face of atrocities.