"What I'm saying is that this premise is not true. The progressives don't want a free democracy. The progressives are at war."
Well maybe I don't understand progressives then:
progressive
[pruh-gres-iv]
adjective
favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, especially in political matters:
a progressive mayor.
making progress toward better conditions; employing or advocating more enlightened or liberal ideas, new or experimental methods, etc.:
a progressive community.
characterized by such progress, or by continuous improvement.
( initial capital letter ) of or relating to any of the Progressive parties in politics.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/progressive
Ok, lets look further:
"A progressive is someone who wants to see more economic and social equality - and hopes to see more gains in feminism and gay rights. They're also supportive of social programmes directed by the state - and they'd like social movements have more power in the US.
Snip
Within the realm of progressive, however, there are different, warring factions, explains David Greenberg, the author of a book called Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency.
One group is dominated by activists from social movements such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, he says, and the other is led by those who belong to the left wing of the Democratic Party (and aren't part of a social movement or cause).
Pretty much all of these progressives "view politics as a bottom-up progress", says Julian Zelizer, an historian at Princeton, and they support the fight for social change. (Though not everybody is on the streets, clamouring for it.)
They also believe that the government can help people, and they look back fondly at Roosevelt's New Deal jobs programs, which relieved suffering in the 1930s.
For these reasons they see the world and its problems in a similar way, but they often have different ideas about how to fix them. Nearly all progressives agree that banks should be regulated, for example, though they argue about how it should be done. Some believe the regulation should be aggressive - and dramatically change things."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35467470
What about the liberals?
"I often get asked what the difference between a “liberal” and a “progressive” is. The questions from the media on this subject are always something like, “Isn’t ‘progressive’ just another name for ‘liberal’ that people want to use because ‘liberal’ has become a bad word?”
The answer, in my opinion, is no - there is a fundamental difference when it comes to core economic issues. It seems to me that traditional “liberals” in our current parlance are those who focus on using taxpayer money to help better society. A “progressive” are those who focus on using government power to make large institutions play by a set of rules.
To put it in more concrete terms - a liberal solution to some of our current problems with high energy costs would be to increase funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A more “progressive” solution would be to increase LIHEAP but also crack down on price gouging and pass laws better-regulating the oil industry’s profiteering and market manipulation tactics. A liberal policy towards prescription drugs is one that would throw a lot of taxpayer cash at the pharmaceutical industry to get them to provide medicine to the poor; A progressive prescription drug policy would be one that centered around price regulations and bulk purchasing in order to force down the actual cost of medicine in America (much of which was originally developed with taxpayer R&D money).
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/whats-the-difference-betw_b_9140.html
Ok - I can see the difference, though I don't see the at war aspect you posit. Are you saying that the conservative position is unbridled ability to conduct business, and they are at war with progressives that want them to play by the rules, protect the environment etc?
But why is playing by the rules a bad thing? Is it wrong to want clean air, un-polluted rivers, environmentally sound treatment of toxic waste? Or in the focus of the book, to want vets who suffer PTSD to have proper care, that is focused away from treating them as victims, but as valued warriors who stood up for our nation, and getting them meaningful work etc. so they can reassimilate into our society?
If what you posit is unbridled business is good for our nation - let me ask you, for example - would you want no rules being enforced in the building industry? How many houses / buildings etc. would collapse without them?
Without rules we have anarchy - is that what you want? I doubt that is the case, but as an independent - don't you want some sort system of laws? You rail against the alphabet agencies, yet many of them serve needed functions. They restrain unbridled business practices. Some are not needed I grant, but take the AEC for instance - it is a vast department - but it controls nuclear waste - defunding them could be a hazard of biblical proportions if there were a major spillage. Chernobyl is a waste land. Fukushima is another. The nuke waste stored in Washington is leaking - what if it goes into an aquafer or the Columbia river?
Oopsie?
Mimsey
