{"id":653,"date":"2012-11-28T15:43:09","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T20:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=653"},"modified":"2012-11-28T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T20:43:09","slug":"inside-the-progressive-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/inside-the-progressive-mind.html","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Progressive Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whatever else they disagree on, Republicans and Democrats are of one mind when it comes to paying lip service to the Constitution and its Framers.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, however, far more frequently than not, this is just<\/em> lip service\u2014especially in the case of self-styled \u201cprogressives.\u201d\u00a0 In reality, there is an unbridgeable chasm between, on the one hand, the progressive\u2019s rhetoric concerning the Constitution and its progenitors and, on the other, his attitude toward them.<\/p>\n

At best, the progressive views the Constitution as an instrument to be exploited for the sake of impeding the allegedly \u201cunconstitutional\u201d designs of his opponents.\u00a0 At worst\u2014and for the most part\u2014he regards it as an impediment to his own designs.<\/p>\n

Never does the progressive view the Constitution as the authority that its Framers intended for it to be.<\/p>\n

Indeed, according to the very logic of the progressive\u2019s vision, matters could not be otherwise.\u00a0 In other words, the progressive\u2019s disdain for the Constitution and its authors will give way to genuine reverence if and only if he ceases to be a progressive.<\/p>\n

What makes a progressive a progressive is that he has his eye forever on the future. <\/em>The present has significance only inasmuch it supplies opportunities for paving the way for a brighter tomorrow. But for the past\u2014the real past\u2014there can be nothing but contempt on the progressive\u2019s part. It isn\u2019t that he is any more disinclined than anyone else to invoke past events and names when it suits his present purposes to do so.\u00a0 Yet the idea that the past has or can have any sort of authority over the present or future can only be anathema to the progressive.<\/p>\n

There was a time when conservatives didn\u2019t need to be reminded of this.<\/p>\n

In the eighteenth century, at the height of the blood soaked Revolution in France, Edmund Burke\u2014\u201cthe patron saint of conservatism\u201d\u2014combated tirelessly the progressive conceit that the past is an encumbrance to be surmounted.<\/p>\n

Burke noted that if \u201cthe temporary possessors\u201d of society are \u201cunmindful of what they have received from their ancestors,\u201d then they are liable to \u201cact as if they were the entire masters\u201d and, thus, bring ruin upon \u201cthe whole original fabric of their society [.]\u201d\u00a0 The ease with which the progressives of his time sought to transform the state according to \u201cfloating fancies or fashions\u201d threatened to sever \u201cthe whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Famously, Burke declared that: \u201cWe are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason,\u201d for \u201cwe suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

In glaring contrast, Thomas Paine, Burke\u2019s contemporary\u2014and adversary\u2014expressed nothing short of outrage over the notion that the past has any sort of claim whatsoever on the present. \u00a0\u201cThe vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies,\u201d he asserted. \u201cMan has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paine continued: \u201cEvery generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contra Burke, who he accused of \u201ccontending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living,\u201d Paine claimed that he was \u201ccontending for the rights of the living<\/em> (emphasis original) [.]\u201d He objected fiercely to \u201cthe rights of the living\u201d being forfeited to \u201cthe manuscript assumed authority of the dead [.]\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paine mocked Burke\u2019s reverence for the wisdom of his ancestors by charging him with positing a sort of \u201cpolitical Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Paine\u2019s vision is <\/em>the progressive\u2019s vision.\u00a0 And we can rest assured that our contemporaries on the left find the notion of a \u201cpolitical Adam\u201d just as indefensible, just as ludicrous, as Pain found it.<\/p>\n

But since our \u201cpolitical Adam\u201d is represented by America\u2019s Founders, this in turn implies that, if they are honest with themselves, progressives must acknowledge that it is at once indefensible and ludicrous that their compatriots should defer to the Founders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever else they disagree on, Republicans and Democrats are of one mind when it comes to paying lip service to the Constitution and its Framers. Unfortunately, however, far more frequently than not, this is just lip service\u2014especially in the case of self-styled \u201cprogressives.\u201d\u00a0 In reality, there is an unbridgeable chasm between, on the one hand,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nInside the Progressive Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/inside-the-progressive-mind.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inside the Progressive Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whatever else they disagree on, Republicans and Democrats are of one mind when it comes to paying lip service to the Constitution and its Framers. Unfortunately, however, far more frequently than not, this is just lip service\u2014especially in the case of self-styled \u201cprogressives.\u201d\u00a0 In reality, there is an unbridgeable chasm between, on the one hand,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/inside-the-progressive-mind.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-28T20:43:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Inside the Progressive Mind","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/inside-the-progressive-mind.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Inside the Progressive Mind","og_description":"Whatever else they disagree on, Republicans and Democrats are of one mind when it comes to paying lip service to the Constitution and its Framers. 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