There is a fundamental change underway in American politics. Progressive is becoming conservative and conservative is becoming progressive, if you define conservative as protecting the status quo, while progressive is defined as rejecting the status quo and promoting changes which make sense in today's world.
It's conservatives who want to throw off the progressive experiment, while preserving some of the better traditions of the American experiment. It’s conservatives who want to reshape American politics so that the voter and taxpayer have more decision-making power than big-money unions and political action committees. It's conservatives who want progress by downsizing and restructuring government programs so they are affordable, effective and sustainable.
"Progressives" on the other hand, are desperately clinging to the past. Oh, don't get me wrong. Liberal rhetoric is definitely "progressive," and an excellent example is spelled out in the Progressive Strategy Handbook, published by the Cognitive Policy Works (think George Lackoff, one of the most left-leaning of Berkeley liberals). They still believe that conservatives are people who cling to "guns and bibles," and liberals are the tolerant and forward-looking people who will lead us all to a world without want.
While a majority of conservatives may desire traditional social values, instead of embracing and celebrating any deviate behavior whatsoever, conservatives look at a changing world -- and what needs to change -- when it comes to the success of the American people to determine their own destiny.
Yet almost the opposite is true if you ignore the liberal rhetoric and look closely at their actions.
Progressives will tell you they are the tolerant ones, but only if you toe the party line. And if you're black, Hispanic or a woman of any color, and are conservative, look out. They will attack you with all their might. Consider comments like that made by Sen. Harry Reid, who said he couldn't understand why anyone of Hispanic descent would be a Republican. And watch how they demonstrate. They make the Tea Party demonstrations look like a picnic, and the liberals don't clean up after themselves, either. I guess that's the job of their government. And when the vote will go against their programs, they cut and run. Democracy has been shut down in Wisconsin.
As William F. Buckley, Jr. said once: "Liberals claim to want to give hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views."
Just reading two leading liberal columnists, Paul Krugman and Eugene Robinson, you'd think that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is a dictator whose sole purpose is "union-busting," that it's not about the budget, but about money and power.
But the actual bill is in fact quite different than what is being presented by both the left and the mainstream media.
There are no unions to be busted. Collective bargaining remains in place, though is more limited than before, which previously essentially had no limits. Instead of the unions deciding what taxpayers pay for government services, it’s the taxpayers who are attempting to take back the decision-making.
Robinson calls it a "coup," while Krugman calls it creating an oligarchy, neither of which is even close to reality. Other parts of the Wisconsin bill are also bad according to Krugman, especially the parts that allow the state to sell off industries it no longer wants to run, like a few power plants. Privatization is a bad word in liberal speak.
Limiting what and how much some public service unions can actually negotiate for is important, or we'll just end up like before. Don't get me wrong. At one time unions were a very important part of the nation's effort to end the stranglehold that business had on workers. But today, we have laws and regulations in place that prevent those sorts of things.
But the fact remains that it costs the state of Wisconsin nearly 75 cents in benefits for each dollar in salary. This amounts to an average salary and benefit package for teachers of about $100,000. Private industry averages about 25 cents on the dollar. "What these numbers ultimately prove is the excessive power of collective borrowing," is the conclusion of the Wall Street Journal. And it's the taxpayers who work in the private sector who pay for teachers.
And yet, Milwaukee, the largest city in the state, can’t even manage to graduate half of their high school seniors each year.
But liberals want more of the same: More education spending and more (or at least the same) power for unions, more of 40-plus years of the same old tired policies that have failed to work. Look at how they wail and protest at any hint of reducing any spending programs. They'll even complain if you propose to cut the increase in spending.
The majority of the American people are awakening. No longer can liberals hide in the shadows and force their programs on us. It's time for change, and change for the better, and it won't be our "progressive" friends that get us there, no matter how much they wail about the injustice of it all.
Finally, there might be real hope and change.
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