THE BASIC ILLOGIC THAT DEFINES PROGRESSIVISM

There’s are several basic disconnects that define Progressive thought. The following passage shines some light one of the most basic.

From DANIEL HENNINGER’s The Scalia v. Stevens Smackdown:

In the universe inhabited by Justice Stevens and President Obama, corporations—the private sector—are a suspect abstraction, ever tending toward “the worst urges” which have to be “comprehensively regulated.” The saints regulate the sinners.

If you think this way, what one does to the private sector, such as the proposed $90 billion bank tax, can never be wrong in any serious way, so long as the rationale offered is the “public good.” Private-sector players are seen as barely more than paid galley slaves on the ship of state. So it is with the health-care bill’s mammoth, comprehensive regulation of American medicine and insurance.

The basic disconnect is this: a collection of flawed men, acting out of self-interest, ambition and profit in the private sector is inherently evil and needs the strong foot of government on its neck. That same government that is composed of a collection of flawed men who act out of their own self-interest, ambition and profit.

In other words:

Private Companies = bad
Government = good

A corollary might be:

Private decisions = evil
Government decision = Good

And if you’re a Progressive, that’s about all you need to know to defend your positions on just about anything.

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