That implies validity of constitution. Something long gone.

@Krunoslav You are not wrong. However, some still hold it highly.

@Ranticore Yes they do. I would argue that the sooner they can let it go the better, because the enemy is not playing by those rules and cannot be defeated within the framework of constitution.

I also don't think constitution is any kind of legit protection if there is no shared moral code. And since constitution is a legal document not a moral code, critical for Americans was so called civil religion, a shared moral code based largely on Christian values. Once that evaporated , legal framework was used against the population.

“The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless.” ― Russell Kirk

“Kirk defined the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” Unleashed during the most radical phase of the French Revolution, the spirit of ideology has metastasized over the past two centuries, wreaking horrors. Jacobinism, Anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism—all shared the fatal attraction to “political messianism”; all were “inverted religions.” Each of these ideologies preached a dogmatic approach to politics, economics, and culture. Each in its own way endeavored “to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Thus did the ideologue promise “salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.” ― Russell Kirk, The American Cause

The Progressive Era

The difficulties brought on by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption in the 19th century were attempted to be solved by a number of legislative reforms, the creation of new federal agencies, and political activism.

A new zeitgeist known as “progressivism” emerged, resulting in the “Progressive Era,” starting in the 1890s and roughly lasting until the start of World War I (somewhere between 1916 and 1920).

They say, the road to hell is paved with noble causes. In hindsight, noble ideas promoted by progressivism, gradually turned America into something so far removed from how it was founded, that one can only think of it as regressive policies, instead of progressive ones. To be fair. Not all was bad. It’s a mix bag.

Progressive ideas serve as the foundation for modern liberalism in the United States and some, to this day, still refer the radical wing of the democratic party in United States as progressives.

The Beginnings of Modern Liberalism

Developed over time to address the concerns about inequalities created by laissez-faire capitalism. The goal is to respond to a set of economic and social circumstances that, in view of the progressive intellectuals, couldn’t have been foreseen at the founding and for which the founders’ constrained, constitutional government was insufficient. This was an argument put forth for significantly expanding the federal government’s authority. Progressivism, which calls for letting go of the political goals of the American founding fathers, claims that the constitution of the United States is outdated and that American society must progress by implementing new solutions to new problems.

Classical Liberalism was about protecting civil liberties by safeguarding a system under which individuals could independently grow to the potential. Government rules, regulations, and social programs were kept to a minimum, with every person acting on his or her behalf. Because of their outsized capital, large corporations could influence the government more. This inevitably, over time, increases social and economic inequality. Modern Liberalism, at first, argued for creating equality of opportunity for all individuals, with more individuals in society receiving rights. And they were keen on using the government intervention to ensure that the most vulnerable people are cared for.

Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil or, more naively, as a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the progressive belief that the entire society was one organic whole, left no room for those who didn’t want to behave, let alone “evolve,” and thus couldn’t avoid the temptation to use the state’s power to become more authoritarian as it “progressed.”

As Camille Paglia, in her book “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism,” elegantly pinpoints the problem; “Modern liberalism suffers from unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. On the other hand, it expects the government to provide materially for all, a feat manageable only by an expansion of authority and a swollen bureaucracy. In other words, liberalism sees the government as a tyrant father but expects it to act like a nurturing mother. ”

The movement began by focusing primarily on local issues, but as time passed, it gradually began to operate at the state and federal levels. In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from the late 1860's and the 1890's, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Western United States.

Throughout the Gilded Age, the parties were reluctant to involve the federal government heavily in the private sector, except for railroads and tariffs (late 19th century). The laissez-faire philosophy, which opposes government intervention in the economy other than to protect law and order, was universally accepted by then. This attitude began to shift during the economic depression of the 1890s as small business, agricultural, and labor groups began to press the government to act on their behalf. The middle class backed progressivism, as support was given by many business owners, clergy, educators, professionals, and medical personnel who saw government intervention as beneficial to their self-interest at the time.

Hence, even in its early stages, social issues regarding women’s suffrage and racial relations were also pushed by the progressives. New reforms and laws that were passed, included labor union laws, income taxes, and antitrust laws in an attempt to curtail monopolies. The very term “progressive” reveals the fundamental nature of the movement. Always keep pushing for more and more changes, arguing for rapid progress on the way to Utopian better world. Eventually, political activism became the core of the movement, more evident today than in the past. It’s not about improving anymore, it’s about the pursuit of political power and, on a broader scale, social utopia. In that sense, the ideological, rather than practical push for progress, is more forceful and far-reaching today than it was at the end of the 19th century, when the era began.

Some progressives believed that by improving regulatory operations and services, the American government would be better able to meet the requirements of the populace. Instead of using legal justifications to challenge conventions, they attempt to do so by citing “scientific principles” and data compiled by social scientists to argue their case. The progressives’ pursuit of efficiency occasionally conflicts with their pursuit of democracy. Politicians’ voices were muffled as power was transferred from elected officials to professional administrators, which in turn muffled the public’s voice.

While centralizing decision-making and giving local governments less authority may have resulted in less corruption overall, it also encouraged a distinct type of corruption, since it kept local government farther from the people it was intended to serve. Progressives who stressed the need for efficiency frequently asserted that trained, impartial professionals might make better decisions than the local politicians. This technocratic attitude toward society is still in place today and has only gotten stronger over time as technology has developed.

Far from being founded on scientific method, it has evolved into a religion of scientism, or technocracy (rule by experts, the new priests of the religion). This managerial class in ever larger administrative state was led by a class of professionally trained “experts” who serve as the system’s gatekeepers. The new priestly class, enjoying special privileges in the new order. This was not unique to America, and we see it today in the European Union, Great Britain and all over the English-speaking sphere where unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats are making decisions that influence every aspect in the lives of millions of people.

“The appeal by twentieth-century pluralists to scientific method was also ideologically—and even messianically—driven. It ignored scientific data that interfered with environmentalist assumptions and misrepresented socialist faith as ‘scientific planning.’ ― Paul Edward Gottfried

Some progressives believe that science should be applied to all aspects of life, including family, government, business, industry, finance, healthcare, and education. This resulted in a much darker side of progressivism. The Eugenics programs, a set of beliefs and activities that aim to enhance the genetic quality of the human population, were born because of this. During the Third Reich, Hitler adopted some of these principles and methods after being inspired by American eugenics. Even today, in some situations, American men and women are required to get sterilized. Compulsory sterilization in America continues to this day, as does promotion of abortions and euthanasia programs.

Numerous policies were adopted during this particular progressive era, including perhaps the most far-reaching overall. A significant overhaul of the banking system by establishing ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island,’ in 1913. It’s more commonly known as ‘the FED’ (Federal Reserve System).

What's more with the civil rights movement, second constitution was effectively created.

America's Secret Constitution - Auron MacIntyre discuss Christopher Caldwell's book The Age Of Entitlement and how civil rights legislation created a parallel constitution in the United States.

@Ranticore The aristocracy of victimhood

Op-ed by Auron MacIntyre
April 05, 2023

Western liberal democracies were supposed to be governed by rule of law and constitutional order, but now, those claiming victimhood are being granted special privileges. I discuss the Left's push to create an aristocracy of privilege built on victimhood and why it naturally destroys legal equality.

Western liberal democracies have been engaged in a narrative of political and social progress, believing themselves superior to all that came before. According to this story, the scientific revolution led to the Enlightenment, which produced new social technologies to replace the backward superstitions and traditions that once governed human relations. Armed with a more scientific and rational understanding of human affairs, these new political technologies would free those who had once been subjects of the state.

Popular sovereignty, rule of law, and constitutional government were supposed to protect the rights of the individual from the whims of capricious rulers. This ambitious project has now proven a failure, as democracies across the West seem to be, in unison, creating an aristocracy of favored groups.

In America, trans activists can storm state capitol buildings and BLM protesters can riot for weeks on end while January 6 protesters rot in jail. In Canada, transgenderists can punch their opponents in the face without penalty while police chuckle in approval. In the United Kingdom, those praying silently outside abortion clinics are arrested while Muslim grooming gangs prey on women with little to no fear of reprisal. These nations all share a tradition of Western liberal democratic government and also seem to have simultaneously developed a social class with special privileges and the ability ignore the rule of law as long as they are punishing the political opponents of the ruling elite.

For many this feels like a radical shift in the way that Western nations are run, but in truth, this has been happening for a long time and has been formalized in U.S. law for decades. Affirmative action and disparate impact have warped the American legal system, not only allowing bias, but in many cases legally mandating it as long as that bias benefits groups that have been granted the status of victim.

Even when the practice is not formally mandated by law, it is enforced culturally by institutions like corporations and universities. Harvard is currently arguing in a Supreme Court case that it must continue to use racial bias in its admissions if it wishes to obtain a diverse student population. The university’s lawyers take for granted that labeling those groups who are elevated through racial preference as “disadvantaged” absolves the institution of any wrongdoing.

What many in the West never grasped was that the leftist concept of social progress was always destined to dismantle classically liberal constitutional government. The left is a coalition of groups who benefit from the destruction of natural hierarchies. The organic limitations inherit in family, church, community, and even biological sex are an unacceptable barrier to the leftist conception of progress.

While legal equality was originally the stated goal, when it failed to reliably produce equal outcomes, there was no way the left was simply going to shrug, assume this was the natural order of things, and go home. Many conservatives attempt to hold the left to account for the linguistic transition from equality to equity, but this is a mistake, because for progressives, these terms were always one and the same.

In order to “progress” beyond the natural social hierarchies, one must engineer society itself. If legal equality is achieved but inequality of outcome persists, then the only remaining option is to privilege some and suppress others in hopes of deriving the desired result. Legal equality must be dismantled because it failed to generate the unstated expectation: equality of outcome.

At first, people did not object to special privileges being granted to those who were characterized as disadvantaged. Most Americans are generous and kind people who would genuinely like to see others succeed and are happy to help those who have ended up on the bottom of the social pyramid. This is especially true when it comes to the civil rights movement, which many Americans saw as a noble correction of a deep wrong that had previously existed in their society. The population at large was willing to grant a form of emergency power to the movement, often ignoring the violation of legislative procedure and prior understandings of constitutional rights in order to fix a historical wrong.

Activists took notice, and it quickly became standard practice for groups who had no claim to the specific historical legacy of the civil rights movement to join themselves to its narrative. Any group that did so successfully gained access to the supra-constitutional framework and moral authority granted by the civil rights movement. As this trend continued, and more traditional understandings of religion and American identity collapsed, the civil rights narrative took their place. America became defined by its ability to discover human rights for increasingly obscure minority groups and export those rights to the rest of the world.

Instead of going to war for security interests, America and the wider West now go to war on behalf of democracy and LGBTQ rights. Anyone who opposes those rights basically opposes the new Western religion and is probably in league with both Hitler and Putin. The wrong side of history is a scary place to be.

Each of these increasingly obscure social minorities is grafted onto the civil rights narrative and given a quasi-sacred victim status that grants them access to the special privileges that lie beyond rule of law and constitutional order. Eventually society reaches a tipping point where the incentives for being an oppressed minority are greater than for being someone who is naturally elevated due to the legal equality granted under the rule of law and the constitutional order.

Couple that fact with the almost deistic elevation through victimhood, and the drive to achieve this new aristocratic status becomes overwhelming. Who would not want to be on the right side of history while getting to punch people they hate in the face?

This has brought us to a very strange place where Western regimes must continually parrot the rhetoric of freedom and constitutional rights while exercising an ever-increasing level of totalitarian state control to impose their artificial and inverted social hierarchy. Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau lecture countries like Iran or Russia about human rights violations while arresting their own political opponents, stealing the bank accounts of protesters, and jailing meme makers.

The West now values the maintenance of a totally artificial social hierarchy over its commitment to legal equality, but this feat of social engineering is by its very nature incredibly fragile. The weight of the inverted social pyramid makes it increasingly unstable, and the social engineers who erected it must search relentlessly for any remaining barriers to power that they can dismantle. Progressives hope that by securing enough power, the state will be able to preserve this artificial construct before it comes crashing down around them.

The West has a vast amount of wealth and can fight for a very long time, but those who make war on reality will always find that it ends in disaster. Maintaining an aristocracy of victimhood will inevitably cost more social capital than any civilization can produce. Let us hope that progressive hubris is brought to heel before that final bill comes due.

[theblaze.com]

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