Progressive?

How Progressive Are You?

The Center for American Progress suggests that the mean score is over 200 on their quiz, with "conservative Republicans" sitting around 160. Our friend Feddie at Southern Appeal reports having scored 141; I scored 114, which is probably downright shocking.

It would be, at least, if you trust the methodology. I'm not at all confident that I'm more "conservative" than Feddie, having spoken to him and read his works often over the years; in fact, I'd guess I'm rather less so. I'm also not confident that the average American is quite as "progressive" as suggested by their mean; when you write the questions and cast judgment on the answers, you get to define the landscape to a large degree.

That said, there's no doubt that the average American wants the government to do more for him or her than is worthy of a good man to desire. John Kennedy said something on that score; but if "progressive" has a center, it is the concept that government should do more for everyone. It is not a question of what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you, and everyone else.

Frankly, that whole concept strikes me as a moral failing. I suspect it would have struck Socrates as a failing too: and he was ready, if Plato is an honest guide, to concede to the government a tyrannical status in its relation with the citizen. A man owed everything to the government, because the city-state gave him the stability on which his whole live was based. That was without the city-state actually being devoted to the service of the individual; it was just the byproduct of the city-state's normal operations, which involved compulsory military service and a host of other demands.

Now, so many want government to do everything and give everything in return for no service at all, beyond the taxes of those who happen to make money. Not, as someone recently mentioned, those who have money -- 'it is an income tax, not a wealth tax.'

Having spent a fair amount of time lately in an environment in which government gives all, of such quality as it knows how to give, let me assure you that we can do better. And that is an environment of service. Imagine how well you will be rewarded not as honored servants of the nation, but as a despised class: and guess whether you shall be despised more if you belong to the class of beggars, or the class of creditors.

If I were the sort of man to offer investment advice in this environment, I think I would suggest going long in rifles. All signs point to that commodity having been undervalued for too long.