Why I consider myself a Progressive

Now, simply, the economy.

That is why. I believe that if you have a strong amount of consumers, purchasing the items that they create, it ends up creating jobs and raises the standard of living for all citizens. Which can be seen through history. Ei the 90’s. And the opposite can be true, ei The Great Depression. Now that is base on my read of history, bare in mind there are detractors to both.

But having lived through a Recession, on history’s marching path of re-living what we haven’t learned. And watching the average United States citizen being squeezed for all they are worth on a wage that can only afford the basics of living, I would say there is strong evidence that consumers build wealth and stability, not job creators.

Which is Supply and Demand.

It doesn’t matter what the product is, if there is no demand, then the company making it will go out of business.

Now that does not mean I turn a blind eye to social injustice. Again.

But I am not a Utilitarian.

Though I am of the opinion that those who are represent the best of humanity. The exemplify the Golden Rule.

I am an Enlightened Egotist.

Ei, Family, Those I deem Family, and Friends matter more to me that world as a whole. I care about their well being more than my own.

Now broadly, just due to the fact that I am an Enlightened Egotist, many would place me as a Libertarian, based on the fact that they share a similar ideology of the self. And in some ways I agree with them, I believe that government shouldn’t be as involved with the individual as they sometimes are.

Though if you look at Progressivism it to shares many similarities to Utilitarianism and Enlightened self-interest.

Again this is broad, and really a lot of this comes down to a person’s outlook and opinion. But I stand by the fact that what are considered far right and left have more in common that the middle. That Progressive and Libertarians have more in common than the middle, Republican egotists and the Christian Majority. I feel that I do need to stress this again however the broadness of this post. Politics are messy, and ideologies are messy.

Society though, should have equal footing for everyone, everyone should earn their spot within it. Like say a doctor, that requires, at the moment quite a bit of money and time. If a person comes from a family that can ill afford to send their child to become a doctor, if that is their dream, society itself looses out. Not just the family, not just the child, but society. Because that child, who wanted to make people feel better, could have developed a cure for how many diseases, or saved how many lives in the ER. The possibilities are endless, they could even become a very bad doctor and be responsible for multiple deaths.

It’s an unknown.

But what isn’t is that the society lost someone who had the drive and desire to become a doctor. Because their starting point was not equal to others.

In essence making our lives, again I am an egotist, my, life worse. Because that could have been my doctor.

In a nut shell; we all do good, when we all do good.

There are arguments against that, and I don’t think we should place everyone on the dole…which is also why I am a progressive, cause we all are on the dole at the moment…ei credit cards and welfare…it goes against nature, as a whole, competition breeds new ideas. However, so does cooperation.

I will use a sports term here, because teams are a streamlined view of this.

There is no ‘I’ in team, sort of thing.

You have one player who is phenomenal, and the coach pampers him and he is responsible for a majority of the goals, etc. But if he didn’t have the team, if it was one against five or ten, what would the outcome be? More than likely he’d get creamed. It’s possible he could still win, but his chances would not be good.

Having that player acknowledge the team, and their support is not a bad thing. That he knows that he can rise to greatness because of them is also not a bad thing. The group, the team, does better when they all work as one, even when there is a special snowflake among them.

And now swing that around to the worst teammate, the one who struggles, and brings the team down. Yeah you could kick him out or bench him, make him feel worthless, which in society has created disastrous results at schools across the US. But keeping it simple, by doing that he becomes bitter, and possibly tries to sabotage the group. It creates enemies. But what happens when the team comes together, helps him get better, develops a stronger bond because of it?

They get better as a whole. It builds. Yes that child may not be the best, but his short comings are lessened by the group, and are brought up by the better player.

There is a reason sports, and the military, focus so much on the group dynamic. Because one special snowflake doesn’t win without the group, and the group can make a bad player passable.

Basically if society is doing good, Me and mine will be doing good.

And sometimes that means the government, like a coach, has to come in and stop the assholes from being assholes.