The End Game

By Philip Ahlrich

 

Progressivism is a grudging and pernicious ideology. It is a vision of the state with neither Democratic nor Republican principles to distract from the central idea of one-party rule. It is a vision of the state without political choices. It is a vision of usurpation. But usurpation is a task of many seasons. Its seed is scattered on the travelled ways and on the ways not taken. A necessary few survive, but always the seed germinates in darkness. Its cause is no less a threat to America than was the cause of slavery.

In either brood of depravity, we find the argument for both an intolerable expansion of programmatic injustices and for separation from the idea of America. Through the catastrophe of Civil War, our nation ended the horrible condition of human servitude; but we have yet to recognize the effects of human error that come of serving an ideology of force. Progressive elements are in thrall to an imperious design that no written amendment will cancel. Those who prefer the genius of government to the genius of society have already accepted the weaker argument. They are slaves of their own uneducated desires, to the teachers of intolerance and power and to a debased culture of political correctness -- for they are only slaves who do not know how to be free.

We need not wait for the oracle of history to tell us how the liberal myth will end, for the invention and sport of our delusions has no ending. It is better that we plan for a restoration of original principles -- a difficult but necessary correction -- for the liberal, in his waxed and polished arrogance, has turned the nation towards a fool’s bargain with evil. We are set on a course of foolish expectations, of political and moral decline. We have lost years and purpose; and we have gained only an understanding of the corruption of modern liberal instruction -- its determined will to power, its unscrupulous vote farming tactics, its forcible wealth redistribution schemes -- all under the banner of "social justice."......

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