Today, an individual
I no longer call myself a progressive. I once saw injustices and gladly threw myself into good battles. And my beliefs have not changed.
But I came to realize that progressivism doesn't stop, even when it's reached the announced destination. Progressivism keeps moving. No sooner has it achieved victory than it calls for the goalposts to be moved still further, declaring new struggles to wage and new vistas to be conquered.
Several examples leap to mind:
Smoking was once ubiquitous, an individual's own choice. Then ad hoc health groups sailed into unwanted action, reordering others' lives. First came restaurant smoking sections. Then followed entire smoke-free buildings. Soon after, smoking near those buildings was prohibited. Laws forbidding smoking in city parks were crafted, Next came landlords who rented only to non-smoking tenants. Not to be left out of the business, municipalities enacted restrictive bans of their own.
Smokers rights advocates warned that food police would one day rise. And they were roundly ridiculed. But today we have activists pressuring for restaurant menu restrictions, New York is regulating soda cup size, and the First Lady forces inadequate, tasteless detritus on public schoolchildren. (Of course, her privately-schooled daughters dine sumptuously, not held to the Dickensian gruel standards pressed on public schools.)
Free speech rights were championed by classical liberals. Historically, people fighting for justice from outside the political and social mainstream were able to promulgate their crucial messages and attract support thanks to First Amendment protections.
Examples of the powerful potential of expressed ideas include not only civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr but can be traced back to Paine's Common Sense. Artists and writers thought by polite society to be eccentric or even indecent benefited from constitutional speech safeguards, some influencing cultural attitudes far beyond themselves and their times.
But contemporary progressives (particularly those of the campus variety) view free speech as dangerous and detrimental to cultural integrity. Now, silencing "offensive" speakers is the rule. How many cities have Hate Speech laws on the books? How many colleges maintain narrow speech codes? And how often are visiting university speakers shouted down and air-horned deafeningly?
Confederate flags have largely disappeared from statehouse grounds. So professional activists have turned their blustery ire on private flag-hoisting targets. The threat to wreak economic avengement on Kid Rock's corporate sponsors is blackmail intended to stifle speech and regulate behavior by appealing to corporate heads' dollar consciousness.
The same "it'll cost you" tactic is engineered by those seeking to banish voices from talk radio airwaves by pressuring advertisers. Reprogramming the medium in their ideological image is the totalistic ambition.
The phenomenon of top-floor moneyed suits wielding veto authority over speech was once scorned by progressives. Now, they themselves encourage it.
The constitutional right of the accused to due process and a presumption of innocence is too often dismissed as an impediment to justice. It has been trod over in the fevered scramble to eradicate the supposed "campus rape epidemic," an hysteria without statistical support but which echoes nonetheless from ivy-covered halls to the U.S. capitol.
Blackstone once reformulated Maimonides's caution as: "It is better that ten guilty men escape than that one innocent suffer." Turn that good rule on its head and you'll see current zealots' faith.
No, I no longer call myself a progressive. That movement has marched into extreme, coercive territories, and I'm staying put.
.
end
I no longer call myself a progressive. I once saw injustices and gladly threw myself into good battles. And my beliefs have not changed.
But I came to realize that progressivism doesn't stop, even when it's reached the announced destination. Progressivism keeps moving. No sooner has it achieved victory than it calls for the goalposts to be moved still further, declaring new struggles to wage and new vistas to be conquered.
Several examples leap to mind:
Smoking was once ubiquitous, an individual's own choice. Then ad hoc health groups sailed into unwanted action, reordering others' lives. First came restaurant smoking sections. Then followed entire smoke-free buildings. Soon after, smoking near those buildings was prohibited. Laws forbidding smoking in city parks were crafted, Next came landlords who rented only to non-smoking tenants. Not to be left out of the business, municipalities enacted restrictive bans of their own.
Smokers rights advocates warned that food police would one day rise. And they were roundly ridiculed. But today we have activists pressuring for restaurant menu restrictions, New York is regulating soda cup size, and the First Lady forces inadequate, tasteless detritus on public schoolchildren. (Of course, her privately-schooled daughters dine sumptuously, not held to the Dickensian gruel standards pressed on public schools.)
Free speech rights were championed by classical liberals. Historically, people fighting for justice from outside the political and social mainstream were able to promulgate their crucial messages and attract support thanks to First Amendment protections.
Examples of the powerful potential of expressed ideas include not only civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr but can be traced back to Paine's Common Sense. Artists and writers thought by polite society to be eccentric or even indecent benefited from constitutional speech safeguards, some influencing cultural attitudes far beyond themselves and their times.
But contemporary progressives (particularly those of the campus variety) view free speech as dangerous and detrimental to cultural integrity. Now, silencing "offensive" speakers is the rule. How many cities have Hate Speech laws on the books? How many colleges maintain narrow speech codes? And how often are visiting university speakers shouted down and air-horned deafeningly?
Confederate flags have largely disappeared from statehouse grounds. So professional activists have turned their blustery ire on private flag-hoisting targets. The threat to wreak economic avengement on Kid Rock's corporate sponsors is blackmail intended to stifle speech and regulate behavior by appealing to corporate heads' dollar consciousness.
The same "it'll cost you" tactic is engineered by those seeking to banish voices from talk radio airwaves by pressuring advertisers. Reprogramming the medium in their ideological image is the totalistic ambition.
The phenomenon of top-floor moneyed suits wielding veto authority over speech was once scorned by progressives. Now, they themselves encourage it.
The constitutional right of the accused to due process and a presumption of innocence is too often dismissed as an impediment to justice. It has been trod over in the fevered scramble to eradicate the supposed "campus rape epidemic," an hysteria without statistical support but which echoes nonetheless from ivy-covered halls to the U.S. capitol.
Blackstone once reformulated Maimonides's caution as: "It is better that ten guilty men escape than that one innocent suffer." Turn that good rule on its head and you'll see current zealots' faith.
No, I no longer call myself a progressive. That movement has marched into extreme, coercive territories, and I'm staying put.
.
end
posted by DC Larson at
July 18, 2015
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