Enlightened. Progressive. Modern. Shining cities in America are designed to be the model for how everyone should live and die in a fair and equal America. Progressive policies have reshaped the landscape of our cities, introducing reforms regarding the justice system, crime-prevention, social-justice, electric bikes, added bike lanes, and a warm and fuzzy attitude toward anyone who wants to do anything they desire in public (or in front of kids in drag shows or at libraries) because they identify that way. Drugs have been legalized and bail has been kicked to the curb. Government programs have increased, and with them so has income taxes; but don’t worry, the corporate tax rates are hitting high marks to make sure those wealthy people pay their fair share.
Utopia.
As a result, homicides are up, drug addiction is up, prices are up, rental rates are up, homelessness is up, fire deaths are up, public violence is up, the overall cost of living is up, misery is up, and suicides are up. Prosperity is down, well-being is down, job growth is down, and private property ownership is down. America’s cities are many things under progressive rule, but they are definitely not utopia.
America, as a result, is stagnant. We are sliding backward. And the cities? They are nowhere near being the oasises that they’ve been advertised as. Instead, our cities remind us more of dystopian hell-holes we read about in science fiction novels after the end of the world finally arrives.
Modern progressive policies remind us more of a world built by George Orwell, than one built by the gods of progressive mythology.
The problem is that the political leftwing progressive socialists do not understand how anything can operate without their hands ensuring that it is all well regulated. Rather than laissez-faire, they rely on ideas kin to Rousseau’s general will where an allegedly benevolent ruling class makes well-intentioned decisions based upon what they believe to be the best course for the overall community.
Except, historically, that kind of collectivism always fails. When the collective comes before the individual, failure looms quickly upon the horizon. When well-meaning intrusion dictates lives, lives are destroyed.
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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. – C.S. Lewis
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This is not to say that the opposite extreme in all cases is the answer, either. Of course a society must collectively come to a decision regarding the rules it will operate under, and form a collectively funded law enforcement arm to handle it. A consent of the governed is necessary for a society to operate in an orderly manner. But the closer the issues come to the individual, the less any government should be involved. Laws and government intervention must only exist where necessary, not where desired by well-meaning ruling elitists. Unfortunately, progressives believe individuals can’t be trusted. It takes a village, explain the collectivists; which is fine until the village decides to cancel any opposition for daring to think individually.
History tells us where we need to go next, if we are willing to pay attention, and carefully listen. Sometimes change, for the sake of change, is not the right path to take on our way to bettering a society.
Greece soared to great levels of prosperity until mob rule through direct democracy burned it down, over and over again. Rome became the greatest civilization in history until the republic demoralized into an empire full of prominent men who ruled, rather than represented. Britain once inhabited all points of the globe, ensuring the sun never set upon its empire, only to shrink into nothingness thanks to a power-greedy ruling elite, and a shameful continuation of various mercantilist policies. When government gets too big for its britches, and decides it knows better than an individual when it comes to individual decisions, the culture will rot and the society will fall. It happens every time.
Has America fallen into the same trap? Are our cities the canaries in the coal mine? If we don’t heed what has led to their deterioration, will their rotting fates spread like a cancer across the fruited plains from sea to shining sea?
Globalists like George Soros and Klaus Schwab sure hope so. In fact, they are betting on it.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
