Inside the Progressive Psyche

Ideology is the Enemy of Reason  

We all have our doxies, and they drag us down.  We also tend to hold caricatures in our heads, along with biases, Truths Which Shall Not Be Challenged, and fixed notions about those we perceive to be the "other."  They really came out this past week as we discussed land issues out west.  

We had two East Coast progressives try to tell Hugh, who owns ranchland out here, and the rest of us who live here and who have farmed, that we don't know what we're talking about. That in itself is a nutshell metaphor for what is wrong:  People thousands of miles away dictating what they do not understand.

Jersey represents the the typical, pop-culture-marinated American Slob:

Sits on his fat ass bitching about the petroleum industry, food producers and "sleazy" developers...

... as he enjoys his developer-produced home...

... eats food every day produced by people he scorns...

... and enjoys a petroleum-supported life of luxury most of the world envies...

Ducky: An Insight into Progressive Hobgoblins and Bugaboos

Ducky's comments pull back the dark, musty curtain and give us a scary glimpse into the progressive psyche, where villainous rightwing religious cabals plot to take over the US government and the world.  In this dystopian theocracy, hypocritical religious fanatics ban birth control, put up pictures of Jesus in every classroom, and torture blasphemers, porno masturbators and leftwing environmentalists with with nipple clamps, red-hot pokers and looped speeches of Ronald Reagan.

Right up there with the scary dominionists are the Marlboro men:  Rough cowboys galloping across the mountain west and despoiling it at the behest of large corporations, pausing only to rape minority women and burn down Indian villages... A Randian anarcho-nightmarish range war of all against all, raiding one another's barns, poisoning the water hole, rustling cattle, lighting sheep on fire, shooting the piano player in the back down at the old saloon ...  

Big-city-progressive ignorance of country folk is embarrassing and laughable. Farmers and ranchers do not see themselves as a hero in a turgid Any Rand novel.  They depend on one another all the time.  

How many of your neighbors would get out of bed at two in the morning in the freezing cold to help you birth a calf or save a valuable outbuilding from collapse in a snowstorm?  How many would drop their own work to help you with yours? 

The progressive caricature is balderdash.  No sane farmer or rancher believes he could go it completely alone.  Most of them are generous, hard-working, God-fearing humble people who have a Turgenev's understanding of the beauty and wonder of nature, and also of nature's fearsome power.

Libertarians also loom large in the progressive gallery of villains, although libertarianism hasn't gotten so much as a tiny toe-hold anywhere outside of legalized drugs and gay marriage; two things progressives have long championed.

Ducky and Jersey also slipped the Enviro-Vegetarian argument in there, carping about "Grossly inefficient production of protein (i.e. beef)", as they echo Malthusian fears of "scarcity" and "conflicts," which are natural phenomenon in the human, plant and animal world.

They call the ranchers "moochers" (nice turn-around of a typical conservative accusation) because they don't want to "pay their fair share," a simplistic cartoon, since the real issue is that government shouldn't own that land, government does nothing for that land, and what the ranchers do on that land doesn't cost the taxpayer one damned dime.  East Coast city-dwellers insist it is their land, maybe because they want to look at it through their car window on a vacation out west...

US Government: Most Powerful and Dangerous Corporation on the Planet  

Progressives rightly rail against corporate abuse of power, but fail to see the same abuses in the government they bow down and worship.  Worse, they keep themselves studiously ignorant of the dangerous government collusion with corporations and private interest groups, which almost always end with innocent citizens getting screwed for the greater good of the cartels that have hijacked government and suborned it to their own narrow purposes.

Progressive Hive Mentality

At the bottom of the progressive psyche is an arrogant contempt for those who would question the wisdom of government, and there is no subtlety of thought:  Either you accept complete dominion and subject yourself to the collective predations of government bureaucrats and acquiesce to government's ever expanding role, or you are a dangerous and subversive anarchist, and if the jackboots with badges gun you down, you deserved it, unlike the poor kid whose only crime was cuffing around a little Hindustani shopkeeper and stealing some cigarillos*. 

Progressives are no better than the Christian moralists they fear and mock, and progressives are every bit as fervent in their own progressive religion, perhaps moreso.

* - Yes!  #BlackLivesMatter!  Can progressives agree that #CowboyLivesMatter?  In Baltimore, Ferguson, or in western lands, government abuse is government abuse.

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Related: After Oregon Standoff: Some say, right fight, wrong tactics