We're all Progressives now

[madmusic]

Jonah Goldberg: We're all Progressives now
Conservatives and liberals are shifting. Both are finding faith in the power of the state.
June 29, 2006

PARTISANSHIP has a funny way of making small differences seem huge. Listen to Howard Dean and you'd think that Republicans are orcs while Democrats are the saviors of Middle-earth. Similarly, in the 1990s, Republicans — including, at times, yours truly — talked about Bill Clinton as if he were the worst thing ever spewed from the bowels of Mordor.

Many have noted that this partisan rage is a result of the tyranny of small differences. Clinton's New Democrat rhetoric made him sound like an old Republican. And George W. Bush's "compassionate conservative" boilerplate made him sound like, well, a New Democrat.

snip

But times change, says Brooks, and today "the chief problem is not sclerosis but disorder." From immigration to terrorism to downsizing, people aren't afraid of bureaucrats anymore. They want bureaucrats to impose order and provide security, Rudy Giuliani style.

snip


These changes aren't unrelated. In the 1990s, both the left and the right fell in love again with the American Progressives. Brooks led the Weekly Standard's crusade for Teddy Roosevelt-style "National Greatness." When Newt Gingrich took over the House as speaker, he declared that it was the dawn of a new progressive era, and on the stump today, he sings the praises of the Progressives. (Full disclosure: My wife consults for Gingrich). Sen. John McCain openly models himself on the Progressive Teddy Roosevelt, and just this week Time magazine has an essay by Karl Rove on what T.R. can teach us.

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Progressivism is not merely the faux populism of the Internet. Nor is it solely the label for whatever policies self-described Progressives prefer. It is a faith — often grounded in Christianity, but not necessarily so — in the redemptive power and professional competence of the state. And, frankly, I despise it.

edit: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg29jun29,0,1904337.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Me too.

[The2ndWheel]

1. Order is the order of the day

I don't see that stopping either. As the system gets bigger, more energy will be needed to keep it together.

[madmusic]

2. Why did I post this?

Blame it on Google.

In the days of the Progressive Era's faith in http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/americanmagazine.org/">science, the real battle was in http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/bio-ethics/buckbellmarker.cfm">law, when less than 1500 men - supported by a http://www.slate.com/id/102374/">prefecting life craze - took control of the United States. So I try to keep up with law blogs and cases.

While reading a brief in favor of California's three strikes law, http://www.cjlf.org/briefs/Ewing2.htm">CJLF: Briefs: Ewing v. California, I wondered who wrote it: Charles L. Hobson, Attorney for Amici Curiae, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "Who cares?" you ask. "Ewing's a psychopath and that is that."

Who is the http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=615">Criminal Justice Legal Foundation? They are most supported by The Carthage Foundation and the Armstrong Foundation.

Who is The Carthage foundation? A http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientsoffunder.php?funderID=4">wingnut group. And the Armstrong Foundation? The http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientsoffunder.php?funderID=31">same.

Different scalpel, same operation: http://www.appendx.org/issue3/ford/index6.htm">the law. Then it was the feeble minded, today it is the http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/lhr/18.3/br_19.html">psychopath.

Such was, and is, the Progressive Era.

edit: Ewing's