Progressives ruin everything

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That statement is kind of a joke, but while part tongue-in-cheek, it is real. They don't have, they just always will. Why? There are some reasonable ideas, that taken too far, become very very unreasonable. Things like FISA warrants, Russia investigation, stop and frisk, abortion, immigration laws (both ways, first too restrictive, then too lax), justice reform, social safety nets, healthcare, hating Trump, Political correctness, homelessness (and remedies), protecting victims and hate crime, me too, and so on, and so on. If your voices are extremist activists that exaggerate or mischaracterize (or don't understand) a problem, and see the only solution as fascism (State control of private business or the individual), and they refuse to be moderated by reason or accept when it is failing, it will always end poorly. Some disasters may take longer than others, but with no moderation or checks and balances, it's just a matter of time.

Centrism versus Progressivism

The extremes are almost always wrong. But here's the typical pattern that Progressives (mostly Democrats) refuse to admit, so we can't avoid:

  1. First there is a problem - the Progressive Democrats often ignored the problem until it grew unmanageable, or created the problem with another one of their solutions, but we'll ignore that for now. Just accept there's some problem.
  2. When they finally jump on board, they have exaggerated the problem which requires an exaggerated solution, and they take it way way too far - if they were good at moderation, or conservative with change, they wouldn't be progressives.
  3. This new "solution" because worse than the problem -- which makes everyone legitimately resent the solution more than the problem
  4. Then we burn down the solution, go back to having a bigger problem than before, and progressives either ignore that (which causes more anger), or they blame what happened on the other side and claim, "that's why we can't havre nice things" -- if they could learn/grow, they wouldn't be progressives. They would be moderates or conservatives.

But it's important to remember: the problem often isn’t the solution, it’s the lack of moderation or checks and balances in implementing it. (Not being conservative enough, or being too progressive, in implementation).

This is the problem with giving progressive activists power. It’s not their problems don’t often have a grain of truth, it’s that when your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like thumbs. Or less metaphorical, when your own solution is more government centralization, all their solutions look like fascism.

Stop and Frisk

An example given is Stop and Frisk.

  1. The idea of targeting the Demographic most committing crimes (or youth and high crime areas), and giving them extra scrutiny, makes some sense. It's how Japan (and many other countries) created less crime.
  2. It is the idea of assuming that it’s race-based, and going into outright police harassment, is definitely not OK.

So the problem isn’t stop and frisk (that reduced crime and helped people), the problem is another Democrats over-the-top implementation of it. And people will take away the wrong lesson. Like that stop and frisk is bad, instead of that Bloomberg is an asshat... or that race based stop and frisk is bad, or that reasonable checks and balances weren’t put in place, there was no transparency on implementation and results, and once abuse was found, It was NOT rectified, until they had to eliminate the whole system.

But it didn’t have to be like that. It just Igno-Arrogance, and letting the most self-righteous (and least informed) get control of the solution, and that solution is not moderated by more conservative (less progressivre) voices.

The same Democrats that rail against Trump for authoritarian abuse (of putting in constitutional judges that dilute federal and presidential power and reducing the power of Obama era taxes, laws and regulations done by executive fiat), will suddenly excuse the abuse of their sides real authoritarianism and abuse, once Bloomberg does penance by apologizing, denying it happened and blaming Trump for being worse. It is another governor or Prime Minister caught in blackface blaming the other side for racism/racial insensitivity.

🗒️ NOTE:
Many people will shut off and assume that this is anti-Democrat. The truth is this rant is anti-progressive. Because progressivism is not moderate or centrist. Democrats have been hijacked by the Progressives, so it is true that they're a problem. But if the Democrats could learn to stifle their extremist activists, and hold their side accountable for bad actions, I would have no problems voting Democrat.

e.g. It’s not partisan, it’s anti-extremism. You cant fix problems that you refuse to admit exist, or you misattribute. If the Republicans controlled pop culture, youth, education and the media, with little accountability, they would probably be nearly as bad, in 50 or 75 years. But that’s not where we are at.


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📚 References

Unintended Consequences
Unintended.png
Every action causes a reaction. Some reactions are pleasant surprises, many are negatives, some are counter productive (perverse) and make the problem worse. Since consequences matter more than intentions, we have a social obligation to plan for them (and avoid them). The phrase "unintended consequences" is used as either a wry warning against the hubristic belief that humans can control the world around them, or more often against a really bad implementation of not-so-smart ideas or implementations. Those that deny unintended consequences are denying science (reality).
Progressivism
Progressives by nature want progress. Since the majority of progressives are young kids (or old children), that suffer from chronic Dunning-Kruger effect (those that know the least are the most self-assured) and think they know how to fix everything better than the people who have spent their lives in those industries, progress is virtually always an immature "knee-jerk" far-left reaction on how to make things better, that results in unintended consequences and would make things much worse. If only they had the wisdom to listen to the experts before regulating/legislating. But if they had that wisdom and temperament, they would be moderates.