Just the other night I was watching MSNBC (purely for blogging material I assure you) and they were blatantly throwing the Progressive® brand around. When I was a youngster we called them Liberals®. Of course, before that they were called Progressives®. The reason they changed to Liberal was because of WWII. Progressivism is nothing but Socialism for North America. After WWII Socialism and its’ offshoots, fascism, Nazism, communism, or progressivism (which Hitler and Mussolini were big fans of) were not exactly popular.
So the Progressives stole a word with a 
good reputation, Liberal, and made it their own. Same crap ideas, new label; same terrible product, brand new package. But now it seems they are back to their roots. Chris Matthews said that this year is going to be a bad year for Progressives®; more like it has been a bad Century. Oh sure, they have gained power again, but they are destined to lose it. They grow mad with it, they cannot control themselves and they fail, but not before causing untold misery. . We need to agree on the definition of failure. I say failure of a government would be when they were Socialist (or communist, or fascist) and either a revolution takes place , they are no longer functioning states, or are no longer Socialist.
Let’s make it even simper than that, I would say a failed government would be one where the populace is not better off now than when that government took power, or when that government is no longer in power. Now, hard line Socialists are going to tell you that if Socialism fails then it is because of a) outside influences made it impossible, b) they didn’t follow the plan Marx laid out correctly or c) did not spend enough time in one of the stages.
But let’s see…
Germany Pre V-E day, East Germany pre 1989, the USSR, Mussolini’s Italy, Argentina, Cuba, North Korea, The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Mao-ist China, Afghanistan pre 1992, Greece pre 1949, Chile Pre 1932, Sudan pre 1985, Nicaragua, or…you know, just about everywhere it has been tried; It has Failed.
There has never been a Socialist country that has went without violence and revolution for more than 100 years, and most make it roughly 20. But our experiment here with limited government has lasted 230+ although we are without a doubt beginning to fail.
It is very frustrating to me that history proves again and again that the more socialist you become the more unstable you become. Socialism will only work when it is forced upon people because it removes human nature from the governance equation. It is in human nature to want to succeed and to compete and prosper, but socialism removes the incentive for that and instead rewards mediocrity and dependence. When you add force to the equation it ultimately increases to the level of total government and at some point the system fails.
There have been other noble experiments through history that have ultimately been proven fruitless. The notion that Lead could be turned into Gold was tried for centuries but our understanding grew until we learned that Alchemy does not work. No one seriously tries it anymore.
It used to be widely believed that the measurement of ones head and the study of the bumps and dents could predict criminality or other parts of behavior, but Phrenology was eventually proven to be incorrect.
Scientists from the middle ages believed that one type of life could spring forth from another, they thought flies could come from a piece of meat, but since then we have learned Spontaneous Generation was a huge misunderstanding of procreation.
So why, after more than a century, does it seem impossible to prove to the proponents of Socialism and its offspring that it does not work? Europe is falling apart due to the machinations of Socialism, and we, having begun from a much more stable position, are gaining on them every minute in the race to the bottom.I guess it is difficult to exterminate because the idea that you can have something for nothing is very powerful. I suppose because, to those who covet power, socialism is the perfect vehicle to subjugate people. I suppose because those of us who value freedom really do not want to mess with other peoples lives, and so it is un-natural to us to tell our story, and we allow the radicals the steal our language. While we are working and raising our children and living our lives in peace and prosperity they arm themselves with megaphones and lecterns and protest signs. While we study Business and Medicine and Engineering, they study Sociology, Politics, and Journalism and become professors, politicians, and talking heads. As we work to build things; they work to tear them down. While we work hard to leave something to our kids; they work hard to fool the children into giving up their birthright.
There are really only two paths. Government, by its very nature, will always pull us down the left hand road. There will always be people to oppose them who would like to take the right hand path, with no obstacles. The genius of our founding fathers was that they sought to restrain both of these desires and they created roadblocks and restraints on Government. Government by definition, seeks to control people. The founders were the first to suggest that people should also control Government. A nation of people who take the blue road do not have
this power, by definition, and they are assured misery. Any time there is not enough government the strong and wicked will destroy the weak and the gentle. -It is nearly the oldest story the human race knows, and yet we forget it every generation or so.
-KOOK
