So what do Progressives believe? According to Michael Schwalbe (Common Dreams, May 30, 2008), a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University, you might be one if:
- You think health care is a basic human right, and that single-payer national health insurance is a worthwhile reform on our way toward creating a non-profit national health care service.
- You think that human rights ought always to trump property rights. (Stripping individuals of their property rights.)
- You think public education should be free, not just from kindergarten through high school, but as far as a person is willing and able to go.
- You think that electoral democracy is not enough, and that democracy must also be participatory and extend to workplaces. You think that strengthening the rights of all workers to unionize and bargain collectively is a useful step toward full economic democracy. (Economic democracy? Five wolves and one sheep get to vote for what’s for dinner. Wonder how the sheep will make out?)
- You think that as a society we have a (note the term) collective obligation to provide everyone who is willing and able to work with a job that pays a living wage and offers dignity.
- You think that a class system which forces some people to do dirty, dangerous, boring work all the time, while others get to do clean, safe, interesting work all the time, can never deliver social justice.
- You think that regulating big corporations isn’t enough, and that such corporations, if they are allowed to exist at all, must either serve the common good or be put into public receivership. (Government ownership of production either outright or through taxation and regulation.)
- You think that the legal doctrine granting corporations the same constitutional rights as natural persons is absurd and must be overturned.
- You think it’s wrong to allow individuals to accumulate wealth without limits, and that the highest incomes should be capped well before they begin to threaten community and democracy.
- You think that wealth, not just income, should be taxed. (Read seizure of private property.)
- You think it’s crazy to use the Old Testament as a policy guide for the 21st century. (State atheism-Secular Humanism)
- You believe in celebrating diversity (anti-white racism), while also recognizing that having women and people of color proportionately represented (in denial of individual achievement and merit) among the class of oppressors (Marxist’ language) is not the goal we should be aiming for.
- You think that national borders, while sometimes establishing territories of safety, more often establish territories of exploitation, much like gang turf. (More Marxist’ rhetoric.)
- You are open to considering how the privileges you enjoy because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and/or physical ability might come at the expense of others.
- You believe that voting every few years is a weak form of political participation, and that achieving social justice requires concerted effort before, during, and after elections. (Just how concerted? Where do we cross the line into state oppression or armed revolution?)
- You think that, ideally, no one would have more wealth more than they need until everyone has at least as much as they need to live a safe, happy, decent life. (More Marxism)
- You recognize that an economic system which requires continuous expansion, destroys the environment, relies on rapidly-depleting fossil fuels, exacerbates inequality, and leads to war after war is unsustainable and must be replaced. Score a bonus point if you understand that sticking to the existing system is what’s unrealistic. (Marxists and other socialists have hijacked so-called climate change and related issues as a means to a political agenda. It has nothing to do with science.)
Source http://www.sullivan-county.com/id5/peck22008.htm
