JimisJim,
Welcome to the Un-Welcome forum. A good post by the UW which I find myself in agreement on some major points. But that is another story, let us look at "progressives".
I believe this is a slippery definition, one that has changed over time. Perhaps like Jonah Goldberg mentions in his excellent book "Liberal Fascism" (a well balanced and reasoned book despite its firebrand title) that Fascism nearly defies definition even by the experts who have studied it.
IMO or guess really, that this similarity is part of the explanation, as the two movements do share other things inherent in their system besides the difficulty of a clear definition. This was a surprise to me until I started to study fascism, national socialism and related areas as all I (or most people) knew before was not much more than propaganda. I just want to make CLEAR, I am not any of those things, I am a Libertarian who feels free to study other systems of government.
I suspect that Progressivism and Libertarianism never had any substantial links and if they did the parting of the ways must have been early and decisive. The Bottom Line difference, as I see it, Progressives rely on government and the government systems they invent and install to solve the problems that they perceive are extant in society, while the Libertarians mostly perceive government and government systems as THE problem that obstructs the natural human condition which should be Freedom within society.
However I am still studying all of the above as I believe the country will be moving in the direction of making choices over the next few years between various ideals. IMO, the republican and democratic parties that we have known over the past few decades no longer exist and are morphing into, well let me just say for now, something else. If they change their name or not it doesn't really matter and it doesn't matter if you believe in it or not, the parties have changed and will change, that is a fact and there is a stronger chance of a new or third party than at any time since WWII. |
