Why do all progressive movements regardless of the nation result in more central planning and more authority?
Progressive authority.
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17
They don't. That's a faulty generalization. Recent examples of progressive movements that did not result in more central planning or more authority include:
- Wall St. reform
- Gay rights/gay marriage
- $15 minimum wage
- College loan forgiveness
- Child tax credit
- Linux/freeware movement
- Women's March
- etc
Everything in that list was implemented with a more expansive government and more central planning.
Especially the things on the list dealing with finances.
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@Greyparrot
Giving progressives the benefit of the doubt is a uniquely American thing. The phenomena traces its roots to New England puritanism and the ideal that America as founded should be a shining city on a hill, standing as a beckon forward that the world may follow. Progressives have gotten many things right, including equality of opportunity without regard to your race, sex or sexual orientation.
If they're caught being right, they take credit. But if they're caught being wrong, their faults fall down the memory hole. The history of what progressives have gotten wrong isn't so familiar. For example, the progressives' overt eugenics programs (such as lobotomizing the "feeble minded," forcibly and involuntarily sterilizing women deemed unfit to reproduce by technocrats in the 1910s-1970s).
In the same sense, what progressives continue to get wrong isn't always caught. In fact, some of their most egregious and ongoing moral filings are celebrated as a victory for civil rights. For example, the progressives' covert eugenics programs are often not what they're held out to be (such as pushing abortions on minority women while calling it "the right to choose," making birth control universally accessible and promoting law enforcement regimes which marginalize minority communities and institutions that relegate them to a position of de facto servitude).
Unlike the rest of the world, progressives believe --- yes, they actually believe --- that intent entails outcome.
Thomas Sowell explained perfectly in the 1980s why this is so stupid. He notes that progressives confuse "results that we are hoping for" with "processes that we are setting in motion." But progressives fail to ask whether "the processes they set in motion" in fact result in their desired outcome. Just because you set processes in motion, and do so with an intent (however noble), there is no way you can know whether you're going to improve the thing you're trying to solve. Yet, to even address those problems, you have to empower the government to categorize people which itself necessarily limits freedom. Letting the government ascribe status then becomes the problem in itself.
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@coal
For example, the progressives' covert eugenics programs are often not what they're held out to be (such as pushing abortions on minority women while calling it "the right to choose," making birth control universally accessible and promoting law enforcement regimes which marginalize minority communities and institutions that relegate them to a position of de facto servitude).
Nonsense.
The poorest within a nation (minority ethnicity or not) have less access to contraception and such. They tend to therefore end up with unintended pregnancies more often and are the least capable of all income brackets to cope with raising many children. This is due to both finance, the access they have to information and examples of good parenting in their own communities and the fact that they often are faced every three days at least with dilemmas of needing to starve themselves an amount they have to estimate they can cope with, in order to feed their young.
The only way out of this hell for the children and parents is to give them a way to go 'oh shit I'm pregnant and didn't mean to be'. You can focus so hard on caring and loving this being that isn't born yet but the difference between you guys and progressives is that each child born is cared for in a progressive society after they're born, not just until they're born and thrown to the wolves and told 'you are lazy if you are poor'.
There is also the fact that during pregnancy itself, due to less access to quality food, healthcare products and checkups in any society where healthcare is private and simply needing to work a ton just to make ends meet, pregnant women of the poorest communities can't cope with pregnancy very easily, so actually going through pregnancy can put their whole family in danger of regularly being underfed.
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@oromagi
In fact the most ardent freedom fighters in history tended to be Progressives (relative to national political spectrum) in almost all civil war scenarios.
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@coal
I am a huge fan of Sowell, as he was a true progressive in every sense imaginable, but he was smart enough to question the outcomes.
Much like Moynihan. Most people know next to nothing about these 2 people.
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@Greyparrot
Why do all progressive movements regardless of the nation result in more central planning and more authority?
Because progressives believe in the notion that society should actively work to solve its problems. That requires a central authority, otherwise society wouldn’t have fallen into such problems in the first place.
The thing that really gets me is, what do conservatives believe? Do you believe in the concept of society? Do you believe society should work to solve its problems? If so, how does society do that without some form of authority?
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@Double_R
The thing that really gets me is, what do conservatives believe?
I have no clue. Some days they seem to believe in an all overreaching government and other days they pretend to care about individual liberty. You would have to ask a conservative.
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@Greyparrot
The thing that really gets me is, what [does DART user Greyparrot] believe?
That better?
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@RationalMadman
As to the story you tell, even if all of those things may be true, you realize it doesn't falsify what I said, right?
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@coal
Yes it does. You seem to think that the aim of legalising abortion is to target minorities to abort, you even called it covert eugenics.
I corrected you on the reasoning behind the non-deceptive agenda of pro-choice.
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@RationalMadman
I didn't say the aim of legalizing abortion was eugenics or that legalizing abortion had any aim. Why do you think I did? I didn't even use the word "legalizing."
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@RationalMadman
Idk maybe this wasn't clear, but keep the following in mind.
I referred to the practice of "pushing abortions on minority women," not legalizing abortion in the first instance. Legalization had to come first, but legalization is just a precondition to pushing abortions on minority women. Pushing abortions on minority women is what I object to.
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@coal
But progressives fail to ask whether "the processes they set in motion" in fact result in their desired outcome. Just because you set processes in motion, and do so with an intent (however noble), there is no way you can know whether you're going to improve the thing you're trying to solve.
Precisely why I believe when policies are created and have had enough time to record results, we should roll back the policies if they failed to accomplish what they set out to.
Unfortunately in the moment you usually get a cope, that despite not accomplishing it's stated goal, that the policies are still worthwhile.
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@Incel-chud
So that's a pretty good point, actually, but not directly related to your broader point:
when policies are created and have had enough time to record results
I don't think we're disagreeing on this issue, but I can see how some might read what I wrote to mean "coal doesn't think we should ever pass new laws about anything." And truth be told, that is mostly true. In fact, I think we should make a conscious and deliberate effort to roll back laws, starting from the most recently passed ones and working our way back through the books.
The exception would be when new laws are created to expand freedom or promote free and open competition in the market.
- Congress should regulate social media companies at least to the extent they are subject to the same liabilities as publishers when they act as publishers; or otherwise treat them as utilities/common carriers. For example, social media companies who exercise editorial control over the content hosted on their platforms beyond removing content that would actually violate American law (e.g., copyright violations or illegal pornography), for example, should be liable in the same way that the New York Times would be liable for the content it curates.
- Congress should also explore providing statutory damages for contractual breaches arising out of a contracting party's conduct that does not materially impair performance. For example, it is absurd to terminate a business (or employment) relationship based on another party's political views. Doing so is bad faith by definition and this practice turns transactional relationships into moral minefields that frustrate business purposes. For illustration, when Harry's terminated its relationship with the Daily Wire over some idiotic tweet, the Daily Wire should be allowed to sue for statutory damages (or specific performance, depending on the type of contract). In the same sense, if the Daily Wire terminated its relationship with Harry's over its idiotic wokeness, Harry's should be able to do the same.
Also, another point of yours I agree with:
we should roll back the policies if they failed to accomplish what they set out to
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@coal
Sunset provisions are rarely enforced.