tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post3848830577168083033..comments2023-10-20T05:51:51.625-04:00Comments on The THINK 3 INSTITUTE: Who Were (or Are) the Progressives?Samuel Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-65347027860417656502010-09-29T09:25:28.270-04:002010-09-29T09:25:28.270-04:00No one likes being told how to live. But if how y...No one likes being told how to live. But if how you live is not conducive to the welfare of those around you, you either accept what you are told or you suffer the consequences.<br /><br />If you catch a child playing with matches, do you wait until he burns the house down before taking the matches away?<br /><br />I think the idea of disinterested benevolence is a great idea. But did the founders actually act with benevolent indifference? After reading a number of Jefferson's writings concerning banks, corporations etc., I agree with what he has to say, but was it out of benevolent indifference or because he was a plantation owner whose status would suffer if money become the measuring stick of wealth, rather than land?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-18303452102726044302010-09-28T16:47:26.613-04:002010-09-28T16:47:26.613-04:00The issue between Progressives and (as it sometime...The issue between Progressives and (as it sometimes seems) everybody else is exactly "what is good for them." Left and Right have their own set ideas, but many liberals would argue that there is no single definition of the term that has compelling authority over competing interpretations. They might think differently if they can be convinced that the survival of the planet was at stake, but under non-crisis circumstances, they see no reason why everyone would need to pull in one direction.<br /><br />You also have the native skepticism about politicians to overcome. Americans seem to have lost track of the Founders' ideal of "disinterested benevolence," and assume now that anyone who seeks political power wants it to enrich himself or to gratify some personal whim. <br /><br />Also, objectivity and logic leave people cold because they don't seem to fit with the prevailing idea of freedom. That idea has devolved over time. Orwell would have said that freedom meant being able to say "2+2=4" when someone's trying to force you to say otherwise. Today, I suspect, a lot of people feel freedom means being able to say "2+2=5."Samuel Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8820814198873126054.post-57091702216335996972010-09-27T20:06:52.622-04:002010-09-27T20:06:52.622-04:00The more I look around, the more I am convinced th...The more I look around, the more I am convinced that the progressives have the right of it. Let's define "progressive" by it's root word: Progress. Maintaining the status quo is not progress. Progess is a moving forward, a betterment. If the average human is too stupid to realize what is good for them, then they must be told what to do and, like a child with behavioral problems, punished when they are obstinate. This planet is too small and the human race too large for small minded idiots with short sight to maintain "control". btw - let us define "stupid" as the inability or unwillingness to question. To learn. To seek understanding.<br />When I was born, the world population was about 3.5 billion people. Within the past 40 years it has double to about 7 billion. In another 20 years, projects say it will double again. There is already limited food and water to maintain the current population. If the human race insists on breeding beyond any control, like locusts, we will soon have stripped this planet of it's ability to sustain us. This is already leading to wars in third world countries over control of vanishing natural resources - many of them being (more or less) stolen by foreign corporations all in the name of profit. This is unconscionable in a sapient species. If the dirtclods are unwilling to listen to reason because they "don't want to be told how to live." then the alternative must be a weeding out of the dirtclods in favor of the human race having a future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com