You'll read this Fundamental Concepts thread if you know what's good for you! [Weirddave]

This week, I was suffering from writer's block. Usually, something stupid happens during the week (with alarming regularity during the Obama administration), and it inspires me when it comes to this thread. Not this week. It's not that there wasn't stupid happening, Gods no. I think this week the stupid reached critical mass and my "Calgon, take me away!" fuse blew.

So I'm staring at a blank screen, and I think to myself "Self, maybe you could write a thread on all of the failed columns you tried to write that didn't come together.". "What a smashing idea self, I'll get right on it!". Somewhere between explaining where I was going with "2016 Republican presidential candidate Weirddave addresses the Hispanic media" and summarizing "How the market has reacted to Obamacare" (that one is almost done, I should finish it and post), a common thread leaped out at my brain (scared it too. Brain went under the desk for a while). Why, look what we have here, it's a Fundamental Concept!

Here it is, and I warn you, it's so stupidly obvious that nothing more should be said beyond stating it, but I'll do my best to drag a couple of paragraphs out of its corpse.

I met my wife on a liberal message board almost 15 years ago. The stated purpose of the board wasn't liberal, but almost everyone there made Stalin seem reactionary*. I was but a wee conservative, nothing at all like the proud, accomplished conservative warrior you see standing before you today, my granite jaw preceding my proud Nordic features, a steely-eyed missile man, reaching out to grab the future, take it by it's throat and shake it until it shows me is belly, radiating TRUTH! JUSTICE! AND THE AMERICAN WA... (Easy champ - Gingy).

*Ahem*

Where was I? Oh yes, my online life as a token conservative in a den of liars. I used to argue with these people about everything, and when pressed by facts, they frequently fell back on the tired old trope that people were too stupid to realize that Progs had only their best interests at heart, and if the people weren't so bleeding STUPID, Utopia was within our grasp.

How arrogant is that? "Voting against their interests" was a phrase I read so much that it's tattooed on my eyelids to this day. Name the subject, and if you weren't in line with Proggy doctrine, you were acting against your interests. Oppose abortion? It's against your interest to do so because you don't want to be "burdened" with a child. Hate unions? It's in your interest to love them. Gun rights? Your interest would be served by being disarmed in the face of violent criminals, after all, everyone carries a cop around, right? And so on.

That is, I think, the heart of the appeal of Progressiveism. Progressives are acting from the benign concern for the well being of everyone. By so doing, they are absolved from the consequences of their policies. "But my intentions were good!" is nice. It's comforting. It's a goddamn get out of jail free card protecting one against the actual results. It's also the epitaph of Western accomplishment.

Look, I'm an idiot. What I know is miniscule compared to my ignorance. Recognizing that, I hesitate to tell anyone else what they should be doing. I don't even know what I should be doing, who am I to tell you what you should be doing? I approach life from a position of humility. Progs approach life from a position of arrogance, and the space between those two points of view is vaster than the distance between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. My approach works in the real world, what have you Progs got? The 100,000,000+ people murdered in the 20th century by Leftists in search of Utopia await your reply. Dig them up and tell them how you have their best interests at heart.

*The story of how I got banned from that message board is amusing. I should tell it sometime.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:30 AM

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