 progressives who what are they  progressive sounds like such a nice word if a politician is a progressive they must want what i want because we all want progress don t we that s where the confusion begins you don t have to be a democrat or a republican to be a progressive you just need to adhere to an ideology on what the function of government should be that is why it is so difficult to identify a progressive unless they tell you they are one like president obama and hillary clinton have done progressives have been around for over 100 years and at times they have had famous democrats and republicans among their members including woodrow wilson d fdr d teddy roosevelt r and william taft r in many ways president george w bush was a progressive and so is john mccain so what makes the democrats and republicans different often times it is very difficult to make that determination based on their beliefs the problem we have as voters is that many of us vote based upon what our party affiliations have traditionally been rather than being knowledgeable of where a politician stands on the issues of importance to each of us with that said let s look at what the progressive ideology encompasses progressives believe the supreme court should decide what is right and wrong based on their morality cultural trends and foreign law rather than what our constitution says essentially they believe that our original constitution is obsolete and that it is a living and evolving document and the original rights privileges and protections are open for analysis and modification progressives understand what is best for the country when it comes to your tax dollars and how much you pay in taxes they feel the greater your success is the more responsibility you have to contribute to those who have less in society this is better known as redistribution of your wealth progressives believe guns are inherently bad in the hands of the citizenry and there should be severe restrictions on possession and ownership isn t this just another example of the progressive s attempt to strip the constitution of one of our guaranteed rights progressives believe that government should be the vehicle for meeting your needs rather than you being personally responsible for your own welfare they need to take care of us because we aren t capable progressives believe that it is their responsibility to make us better human beings by molding us into what they feel we should be based on their standards of acceptability progressives believe that christianity is a dangerous religious belief and that it must be suppressed in its influence on society progressives believe that having access to abortions is a fundamental human right disregarding the rights of the unborn child they save endangered mice but have no respect for the human fetus to a progressive anyone who doesn t have the same ideological beliefs they do is considered to be uneducated and inferior ie tea bagger flat earther birther racist domestic terrorist or any other derogatory term they can think of ask yourself if your belief structure is similar to that of the progressives regardless of their political ilk if what they believe is what you believe then read no further you will get what you deserve in due time however if you disagree with what their vision is for your future you owe it to yourself to do some research on your own to determine where your elected officials stand on these and other issues of importance the founding fathers gave us the governmental infrastructure to correct abuses by our elected officials and the time has come to make your voice heard it is time to restore our republic to what it was intended to be and to ensure responsibility accountability honesty and the morality of our elected representatives in lansing and washington it is our responsibility as electors to put people in office who represent us and to eliminate the malignant progressive elements that have infested our government at all levels we must restore the republic to once again to be of the people by the people for the people not of the progressive by the progressive for the progressive the 2010 primary and general elections give us a chance to correct the wrongs and put us back on the right path send a message to lansing and washington that you are not satisfied with what they are doing submitted for publication to owosso independent lainsgburg independent perry independent st johns dewitt independent dewitt bath review clinton county news as a viewpoint submission to the lansing state journal on february 22 2010 viewpoint submission to the lansing state journal denied by the lsj editorial board published in the dewitt bath review on february 28 2010 and march 21 2010 the lainsgburg independent owosso independent perry independent on febryary 21 2010 st johns dewitt informer on february 22 2010  steve s letter re progressives  progressive ranks in my mind right up there with hope and change as words that mislead uninformed voters they are easy to say and fall softly on the ear but they have multiple definitions in the modern lexicon not too long ago i heard a suggestion that we need to also educate voters as to the positive meaning of the word republican it seems that immigrants do not always understand how a republic is a superior protector of individual rights to a democracy which political imagery they equate to the democratic party since then i have observed that a majority of young people born in the usa suffer from the same lack of understanding remember the failed soviet union its official title was union of soviet socialist republics like many of the fascistcommunist national structures worldwide in which the working man is treated as a serf to the statists it includes the misused word republic and oppressed peoples have come to the usa to escape that in favor of a democracy which they perceive in its ideal to be a bastion of personal liberty and opportunity the reality in the us however is that republicans understanding the true spirit of the governmental republic as envisioned by the founders who wrote our constitution are the party that wished to protect minority rights from majority despotism wished to put the rule of laws superior to the personality cult of career politicians wished to insure that economic opportunity for all would not be sapped by the voting of largesse from the public purse in short we are republican because we wish to constrain government from progressively expanding its impact on our work effort and life choices progressives by contrast have voted themselves the majority thought in the democratic party and their vision of democracy is approaching the economist s definition of fascism the very economic oppression generations of immigrants risked life and property to escape the republican party likewise is the original source of the courage to challenge the social injustices of slavery in the southern plantation states an insidious holdover from the european feudal property structures of centuries prior to the war in which american colonies fought for independence from autocratic rule of royal families the progressive tendency to make certain american families into quasiroyal political dynasties is a throwback to the antirepublican culture of the precivil war plantation societies and depends upon the democratic tendency to vote for incumbents familiar names instead of for the clarity of vision required to sustain limited government in the history of the world the first true republics were israel greece and rome all rose to greatness from their founding as republics all in the complacent comfort of their economic success made a conversion to democracy after which at the first sign of trouble the more timid majority voted in kings emperors and dictators after which they declined economically and spiritually and eventually fell to barbaric foreign aggression we are now in a period where decades of touchyfeely progressive thinking have weakened us economically spiritually and in our understanding of history which then tends to repeat itself we keep hearing how the present conditions parallel the great depression but we lack the history to understand how progressives both got us into that mess and then prolonged its agony in part by copying the socialist experiments in the ussr a little history lesson is needed and it currently falls to republicans to do the teaching with the help of both the hard working law abiding immigrant and those of us who descend from long ago generations of immigrants that understood the ideals of liberty and opportunity embodied in the young american republic the lesson can also be put back into practice and the spirit and productivity of the usa restored only a progressive is inclined to turn conservative into a dirty word the question voters have to ask is who is more likely to preserve hope in the economy for everyone not just those who fit certain criteria and adhere to one world view who is more likely to bring change to overburdened systems that prefer multigenerational poverty locked into entitlements over offering motivations to escape into a more prosperous selfdetermination who is more focused on offering progress that is defined by individual liberty and a moral consciousness rather than a collectivist socialization of society compared to the original forms of government collective property under a tribal chief feudalism under inherited royalty or the empires imposed under military rulers democracy is certainly an improvement but for a society to benefit from and preserve its liberty of thought action and rights of property the republican ideal of a limited government subject to the constraints of its people is what we need today to slide into a progressive democracy as we have done and are doing is to allow hardwon liberties to slip away one at a time and if we study our world history economic opportunity and personal liberty go hand in hand  