Do Progressives Want a Police State?
Many progressives seem to yearn for a police state. Although I can not believe that all progressives desire a fascist state, even a small fraction of authoritarian-leaning Leftists is very, very scary. Certainly, by now it can not be much of a surprise to anyone paying any attention that progressives are intolerant of any opinions, views, world-views, or ideologies that do not agree with their own. For examples of this, sample the following links: here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and … Well, you get the point.
None of this is to say that there are not a number of right-wing examples of intolerance. Intolerance is a very human reaction to the opposition to one’s beliefs. The more important an idea is to a person and the more emotionally invested she/he is in it, the more threatened that individual feels by opposition to his/her beliefs. And if one believes the opposing idea will be existentially threatening to the kind of society in which one wants to live, a person can become very hostile to the other.
Nevertheless, in recent years the intolerance of progressives to anyone who opposes them seems to have become somewhat more blatant than right-wing intolerance. Perhaps it is due to the instinct of many progressives in political office to try to criminalize conservative political activities. We have for example the attempts by the Obama administration’s IRS to deny conservative groups the same tax-exemptions as allowed to progressive groups (see here and here and here).
Another, equally disturbing example is the attempt by Democratic Wisconsin state prosecutors to try conservative organizations for violations of campaign finance laws. The legal sins of these conservative groups were to support the same kinds of conservative causes advocated by the Republican governor of the state, Scott Walker. Is this political speech not what the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution declares can not be abridged? Ultimately, the accusations of these prosecutors were thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but not before a number of the accused came under considerable legal duress.
A tendency toward desiring a more authoritarian state seems to have been stamped into progressive DNA at least since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The first American president to be openly contemptuous to the Constitution’s restrictions on federal government power was the progressive Woodrow Wilson. This impatience with constitutional restrictions has been evident ever since. Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court with his own supporters to get justices who would interpret the Constitution as he desired. Our current president Barack Obama wants to treat the U.S. Congress as irrelevant and tries to rule as much as possible by edict (see here and here). Some progressive intellectuals have yearned for the powers of authoritarian regimes such as communist China and Lee Kwan Yew’s Singapore.
Any American citizen who requires a modicum of freedom, both for himself and for his descendants, would do well to keep the authoritarians of the Democratic Party on a short leash – if he can. The members of that party believe they have our best interests at heart by increasing the power and authority of government. But as Friedrich Hayek warned us long ago, the way that the Democrats are traveling is the road to serfdom.
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Modern liberals/progressives are basically an amalgamation of the New and Old Left. Their goals are totalitarian, and a police state is inherent in that (even though they dislike the bureaucrats and police who will run such a state).
What strikes me is that progressives generally do not think that they are moving in an authoritarian direction, but are only acting in a way that is generally beneficial to the people. However, a number of their assumptions about the nature of reality seem to force them in an authoritarian direction. The first of these assumptions is that ordinary people lack the power to withstand what progressives view as the rapacious oppression of corporations and of that infamous group, the “1%”. Since the common people can not defend themselves, the progressive elite must obtain the reigns of government and defend… Read more »