Back then, “progressive” or “reformist” meant something. Truly large corporations (including especially the railroad companies) held an enourmous power over local politics. Unions were still scrabbling for a toehold, up to the point where the Supreme Court struck down one collective bargaining agreement on the basis that said agreement violated the individual’s right to freely contract their own labor. Even most conservatives today would, I think, be appalled at that logic.

There was no such thing as a pure food and drug act, and you would be amazed at the crap they would put into food. The slums in the inner cities were as bad as Nancy Pelosi seems to think they are today.

And black Americans were second-class citizens. Which reminds me, let’s all thank the idealistic Woodrow Wilson for introducing Jim Crow to Washington, D.C.

Basically, there was tremendous room for reform and social/political progress. The problem is that, a century later, society has become more tolerant and open-minded, we hold higher expectations with respect to the environment and what we eat, and for the most part our elections are much less corrupt, Chicago notwithstanding.

Alas, progressives still seem to see the need for yet even more change. They have failed to grasp that we have reached the actuarial point of diminishing returns for more extensive government intervention in society. We’ve managed to more or less eliminate sexism and racism from our social and corporate structure, and even homosexuals have gained a tremendous degree of freedom unthinkable even thirty years ago.

Progressives see an imperfect society with residual bigotry, while independents such as myself see that it’s impossible to mold to 100% perfection.

One may not refuse to hire, or fire someone else based on their race, ethnicity, religion, politics, or even sexual orientation. Any citation of any of the above as a basic for some sort of political disqualification results in protest and abuse; I cite Obama and Romney in evidence.

In other words, all the legal and social barricades are gone. Alas, we still have the barricades inside citizen’s minds, and government is worthless for that. Doesn’t mean the loyal progressive will stop trying, which I think explains speech and hate-crime legislation. Progressive intentions are good -they trying to eliminate bigotry, racism, etc.- but the methods are questionable. They see such legislation as improving society. I see such legislation has criminalizing thought without any measurable social benefit.

Such impulses really do demonstrate a law of diminishing returns, excuse the pun. But that’s why (I believe) many progressives advocate things like hate/crime speech laws, or AA quotas. All real barriers addressable by government power have been overthrown, but they’re still determined to build a perfect world, so they’re sucked down the rabbit hole of social engineering.

This is not to say there are no issues with modern conservatism, but that isn’t the current topic.

In both cases we need to acknowledge how our society works today, and think of new approaches. Get our minds “out of the box,” as it were.

I think I’ll post this on my own blog. Not too bad for off-the-cuff. Not to mention getting a tad away from the original topic. Heh.

Teddy Roosevelt was liberal in his time-probably a moderate in ours. Before the word had such negative connotations. He undid most of McKinely’s approach to economics and took on some of the biggest corporations of his day. Most of his trust busting was considered anti free market by those who supported McKinely.

Sorry I didn’t make myself clear–I meant that it is sad that institutions like some of the Ivies prevent and/or put up barriers to their students because exposure of that segment of the social strata of America is good both for the Armed Services in the immediate sense and for the larger society over the long-haul as these graduates leave military service, return to the civilian life and nourish society with a viewpoint/outlook tempered by their service experience that they otherwise would not have had.

Substance with battle scars vs. empty suit sold by MSM.

b2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU-EpU13K_o

Enjoy!!