Amendments XVI – XIX are known as the “Progressive amendments”
Many on the left today call themselves “progressive,” and they do so not just because it’s a nicer way of saying “liberal,” but also because they very much intend to revive the political principles of America’s original Progressives, from the Progressive Era of the 1880s through World War I.
The reason is that America’s original Progressives were also its original, big-government liberals. Most people point to the New Deal era as the source of big government and the welfare state that we have today. While this is perfectly accurate, it is important to understand that the principles of the New Deal did not originate in the New Deal; rather, they came from the Progressives, who had dominated American politics and intellectual cultural a generation prior to the New Deal.
Progressives themselves look at the following governmental actions as accomplishments:
-The 1883 Civil Service Reform Act (or Pendleton Act), which placed most federal employees on the, (so-called), merit system
-Passage of the 16th amendment creating the Federal Income Tax
-Federal regulation regarding food
-Federal regulation of businesses
-Federal regulation of thye banking system
-The passage of the 17th amendment changing the way senators were elected
-The passage of the 18th amendment which prohibited alcohol
-The passage of the 19th amendment regarding women’s suffrage
The Progressive Agenda is characterized by loose, multiple, and contradictory goals that impede the efforts of the “reformers”.
The Progressive conception of government have an “evolving” or a “living” notion of government (yes, we get the term “living constitution” from the Progressives), and thus want government to take on whatever role and scope they believed the times demanded.
They “reasoned”that people of the founding era may have wanted a limited government, given their particular experience with George III, but they argue that people of our time want a much more activist government, and that we should adjust accordingly.
Quite simply, the Progressives detest the bedrock principles of American government.They detest the Declaration of Independence, which enshrines the protection of individual natural rights (like property) as the unchangeable purpose of government; and they detest the Constitution, which places permanent limits on the scope of government and is structured in a way that makes the extension of national power beyond its original purpose very difficult. “Progressiveism” is, for them, all about progressing, or moving beyond, the principles of our founders.
In the blink of an eye, or in a generation, society itself unravels as it seems today to have lost the ability to retain the qualities that once made America exceptional.
Liberty, freedom, truth, and the Constitution have given way to ideology, entitlement, and moral relativism. What we are left with is a pervasive atmosphere of decadence and moral bankruptcy that stands no chance in fighting an ideology that is consuming us.
Thanks to a “progressive,” anti-intellectual educational system we have created a generation of students who can’t read or write as they function like zombies attracted to materialistic greed and outraged at the latest perceived instance of “injustice”. Students today are “brainwashed into feeling that their minds are helpless and they must adapt to ‘society’, that there is no absolute truth and that morality is whatever society says it is.
“It is a tragic irony of our time” to forget that the bloodiest tribe of our history, the Communists of Soviet Russia, were “motivated by brute powerlust and a crudely materialistic greed for the unearned.” –Ann Rynd
Communists only show respect “for the power of philosophy (which they called ideology)” as they spend “billions on propaganda and indoctrination, realizing that man’s mind is their most dangerous enemy and it is man’s mind that they have to destroy.”
The group-think mentality that dominates society today is an example of this, and to dare question the mob is to be ostracized, marginalized, and politicized as being radical. The ability to think for oneself is a virtue that has been lost on a generation that cannot see past the future of tomorrow, let alone the repercussions of their actions today.
With both political parties devoid of principles or respect to their own constituents let alone country, America’s future looks to be heading at breakneck speed towards Soviet Russia’s past.
The underlying principle that serves as the catalyst for this is the prevailing ideology of socialism and communism. It goes by the much friendlier name of progressivism today and all that it asks of you is to abide by its principles without question while it slowly and methodically takes from you your rights until you’re rendered defenseless.
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