Suppose you wanted to subjugate the strongest, most prosperous nation on Earth. How would you do it? If you wanted to conquer a weak nation with few resources and currently laboring under tyranny, it'd be easy: just roll the tanks across the border. But if the target of your ambition is strong and free, you'd somehow have to get them to willingly hand you their power. That's what statists have been working on for more than a century in America. It's called progressivism.
The philosophy behind America is that free people will continuously strive to better themselves, entrepreneurially driving prosperity and strength while unfettered by a totalitarian government. That philosophy is what has made America "exceptional" - a willingness to limit the government and take personal responsibility for society's betterment at the level of the temporally-sovereign citizenry. And it's that exceptional underpinning, embodied by our Founders in the U.S. Constitution, that has made America (and the world she leads) more strong and prosperous than any people have been in the history of the human race.
How do you get such a brilliantly-conceived society to willingly go back to tyranny, scarcity, and aggression by the few against the many?
You start by coming up with a competing ideology that is easy to articulate and looks like it'd work: statism. It's been called by many names (communism, socialism, collectivism, fascism), but statism combines all these shades of grey under the umbrella of removing power from the people and resting it in a dominant national government. Statism seeks to make the state (the government) big, and the people small... exactly the opposite of the Constitutional approach.
Then, since you can't just roll the tanks over America's border or foment a bloody "revolution," you need to slowly make Americans change their minds through a progressive "evolution" of their beliefs. You need them to forget generations of miraculous success under freedom, and ignore (or forget, or fail to grasp) the stunning failures whenever statism has been tried on a grand scale (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China). You need to make them believe that capitalism has made the great mass of them victims of a privileged few; you need the less-successful to feel seething resentment and the more-successful to feel wrackful guilt. And you'd want to start in on them at a very early age. It might take you decades (as it has), but eventually, you may well get them to grow up and willingly hand over their hard-won sovereignty to a totalitarian state.
That's where progressivism comes in. It sounds like "progress," but that's only one example of how they deftly make one thing look (or sound) like another in order to produce the desired emotional effect. Everyone likes progress! But few people realize that progressivism is about as far from progress as tyranny is from liberty.
Here's how it works: If you are told from the time you can first comprehend language that your ancestors have deeply wronged, say, people with brown eyes - if, every time you're given information or entertainment of any kind, this subtle "brown-eyed people have been oppressed" message is embedded - if, every time someone tries to point out that some brown-eyed folks have lived privileged lives or that some blue-eyed people have also been oppressed, that message is drowned out or loudly decried as "hateful" or somehow a denial of the truth... what would you grow up to believe?
"Infotainment" has long been the life-blood of the progressive movement. Messages extolling statism and denigrating freedom (or capitalism, or the Constitution) are embedded in a stunning percentage of the media from which any American might draw the information we all use to form our opinions and beliefs... and this is especially true in the media targeted specifically at the young.
It starts in school. Decades ago, we watched something called "film strips" to learn everything from history to hygiene... and some of those film strips simply taught history or hygiene, but many tacked on some values-driven messages about "fairness" and the like. Tonight, as the most statist president in U.S. history uses that buzzword, it will light up something inside every American whose education, from an early age, has taught her to believe success is somehow "unfair." (By the way: today's kids are exposed to a much more constant barrage of statist messages than we were in the film-strip era.)
How about something as innocuous as board games? How about Monopoly? Invented during the Great Depression, Monopoly is a game about the competitive nature of entrepreneurial ventures, and it's filled with messages about how, the more you're winning, the more you're "bad." After all, just for landing on a square or drawing a card, you are likely several times during the course of a Monopoly game to have to go to "jail." Most of us kids thought it was just a silly game - but a few of us might've got it in our heads that jail is unavoidable, natural, and justified if you're "bad" enough to stay in the game long enough to outlast your opponents and win.
Extreme examples? I don't think so. Look at the "news" media. So important to a free society that it is protected by the very first amendment to our Constitution, the free press is supposed to give us unbiased facts from which we can form opinions and make informed choices. These days, though, the overwhelming majority of news producers in America are actively shading the "news" to favor the statist ideology. They can do this simply by deciding what to put in and what to leave out; and when you consider how things are phrased and presented, the power of the press is undeniable. Think it isn't true? Actually, perhaps it's always been a little true, but today, it's a LOT true. In the last fifty years (since the assassination of John F. Kennedy), the Democratic party in America has aligned itself more with statism than has its chief competitor, the Republican party (though both parties have a hefty dose of progressive statism in their bloodstreams). And it's a verified fact that more than eighty percent of the decision makers in the "journalism" industry today are active Democrats.
A liberty-oriented thinker can't even often find refuge in entertainment. You don't have to hear the emotional speeches or learn about the huge Democrat donations made by countless Hollywood luminaries; for proof of the power of entertainment, just look at the themes and subjects of the vast majority of movies and television shows. Even video games. Don't take my word for it: check with your own kids. What do they believe? If things are going well in your house, do they feel any guilt about it? If things are tough, are they harboring any resentment? I hope you can see them growing up to be self-reliant entrepreneurs, starting a business, helping others because it's the right thing to do... and not to be government-reliant victims, spending their time complaining about what others have (rather than working to get the same things), and expecting to be helped by people who are forced to help them by a power-heavy central state. But by the time they're young teens, you're far more likely to see the powerful impact of progressivism in your little cherubs, especially if you've let the progressive infotainment blood get freely transfused into their minds and hearts. Will they buy the class envy, the over-perception of racism, the false story of the failings of capitalism and free markets? Will they dash to embrace Big Brother, who opens his loving arms to them every time they grab the remote?
Unless things change soon (and radically), the progressives will get what they've wanted for more than a hundred years: they'll radically transform America. They'll topple the great exceptional "city on a hill," the beacon of liberty upon which so much of the rest of the world has relied for so long. They'll replace it with yet another socialist country controlled from the top by yet another statist regime. And they'll do it by getting us - and our kids - to willingly hand them our power.
The time is now to oppose the progressive march toward this disaster. Get a handle on your values, and teach your children about the importance of personal responsibility and values-driven life choices. Get smart about what's really going on in the world, and tell your kids. Above all, the time is now to realize and teach that progressivism, for all its appealing entertainment value, is not progress. Far from it.
Infotainment: The Life Blood Of Progressivism
by Michael D. Hume, M.S.
Michael Hume is a speaker, writer, and consultant specializing in helping people maximize their potential and enjoy inspiring lives. As part of his inspirational leadership mission, he coaches executives and leaders in growing their personal sense of well-being through wealth creation and management, along with personal vitality.
Michael and his wife, Kathryn, divide their time between homes in California and Colorado. They are very proud of their offspring, who grew up to include a homemaker, a rock star, a service talent, and a television expert. Two grandchildren also warm their hearts! Visit Michael's web site at http://michaelhume.net
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Economics Article FeedFind More ArticlesSearchSimilar ArticlesProgressivism Isn't Progress, VIIProgressivism Isn't Progress, VIProgressivism Isn't Progress, VProgressivism Isn't Progress - IIProgressivism Isn't ProgressThe Academic Roots Of ProgressivismProgressivism Isn't Progress, IVRenewing Limited Government: Term LimitsRenewing Limited GovernmentRenewing Limited Government IIRecent ArticlesHow To Solve The Homeless SituationHow Secure Is Your "Secure" Job?A True Comparison Of Increasing Debt Between Bush And Obama AdministrationsHow To Compete With ChinaWould Einstein Think Us Insane?What Will Happen If Greece Defaults?A Cluster of (Minor) ErrorsThe US Recovery Is Producing SurprisesA Sigh Of Relief For The Economic Status Of The USHuman Nature, Capitalism, and Greed and Power DiscussedSubmitted On January 24, 2012. Viewed 2 times. Word count: 1,446.MLA Style Citation:Hume, Michael".".24 Jan. 2012EzineArticles.com.26 Jan. 2012
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