The great oxymoron in US politics: Liberals call themselves "progressives"

Why Do Liberals Call Themselves "Progressive?"
Posted on the internet Jan 6, 2007 @ 14:25

One of the major reasons that I wrote my book "Conservative Comebacks
to Liberal Lies" is that I was sick and tired of hearing liberals
refer to themselves as "progressive." The more I thought about
their stated positions and their actual track record of success (or
lack thereof), I realized that the term "progressive" is actually a
misnomer.

So I don't get it. How is it that the political and educational elite
left still refers to themselves as "progressive?" The word
"progressive" is actually defined in my McMillian's Modern
Dictionary as, "proceeding forward or onward; advancing; making
progress or improvement; favoring or advocating liberal or advanced
ideas." But if one evaluates liberal "progressive" ideas,
proposals, and institutions, it becomes abundantly clear that their
"advanced ideas" have all been unmitigated disasters for America.

A short list of these "progressive" brain children include: The
ERA, The Great Society, public housing, The New Deal, Carter's price
controls, The ABM Treaty, The windfall profits/luxury taxes, the estate
tax, the Wall Mart tax, the living wage, National Health Care (Hillary
Care), government run schools, sex ed, national daycare, bilingual ed,
motor voter, social security, abortion on demand, same sex marriage,
embryonic stem cell research, human induced global cooling in the 70s
and now "human induced global warming."

And yet, the modern day liberal Democrats continue to refer to
themselves as "progressives." The "progressive" Democrats are
now proposing in their "first 100 hours" a minimum wage increase
among other "progressive" new spending bills which they like to
euphemistically refer to as "investments." Even though almost every
economist who ever lived has said that raising the minimum wage leads
to higher unemployment especially among low skilled minorities, those
smarty-pants "progressives" are going to propose it anyhow
regardless of whether it ends up hurting the very same poor
constituencies they purport to represent.

My question is, why should any American with a least half a brain (for
Senator Kerry this would included any of our military in Iraq) support
any Democratic "progressive" economic proposal when they have been
incorrect in every prediction they have ever made about supply side tax
cuts since JFK?

Take for example some recently released economic statistics as reported
in today's Wall St. Journal:

"Job growth in December exceeded expectations at 167,000 and the
jobless rate held at a very low 4.5%, despite a slowdown in
manufacturing and construction." (The very opposite of what the
"progressives" predicted when they howled about the "jobless
recovery.")
"Since the Bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains passed in
mid-2003, the economy has created 7.2 million new jobs according to the
survey of business establishments, and an additional 1.2 million in the
more variable household survey." (The very opposite of what the
"progressives" predicted.)

"Federal receipts rose by 14.6% in fiscal 2005, another 11.8% in
2006, and kept rising by 9% in this year's first two months despite
slower GDP growth." (The very opposite of what the "progressives"
predicted.)

"The budget deficit...fell by $165 billion in two years, and
including state surpluses is now down to about 1% of GDP, which as an
economic matter is negligible. Tax revenues as a share of the economy
are also back above 18.5%, which is their modern historical norm."
(The very opposite of what the "progressives" predicted.)

And now, Pelosi, Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton, and the rest of the
"progressives" will conveniently ignore this "inconvenient
truth" (to borrow a phrase from that other enlightened
"progressive" Algore) and will continue to play the class warfare
card by talking about "two Americas," "excessive CEO pay," the
"evils of Wall Mart," etc...with the hopes that Americans never
figure out that their "progressive" ideas represent anything but
real progress.

"PJ O'Donovan" wrote in message
ups.com...

(snipped)
Why Do Liberals Call Themselves "Progressive?"
Posted on the internet Jan 6, 2007 @ 14:25


Study Gramsci. It all becomes very clear in an instant.

"PJ O'Donovan" wrote in message
ups.com...

Why Do Liberals Call Themselves "Progressive?"
snip

Pyjamas, at long last would you please stop embarrassing yourself?

http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?opt...ask=view&id=46

It's not necessary that you to agree with that, but do go away until
you've read and understood it. And stop being a troll. Instead, be a
man-- or don't you do imitations?

In article . com,
says...

Why Do Liberals Call Themselves "Progressive?"

A more pertinent question would be "Why do Merkins call themselves
enviable?"

PJ O'Donovan wrote:

Why Do Liberals Call Themselves "Progressive?"
Posted on the internet Jan 6, 2007 @ 14:25


Copied and pasted without attribution. Off-topic nearly
everywhere it was posted.

**** off, pajama-boi.