Not everyone remembers the '60s and '70s as clearly as I do.
This was the period of tumult and change that inspired Barack Obama and his friends – people like domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, both acquaintances of mine during that era.
What's striking to me, as someone who lived through that time, is not how the warped ideas have triumphed and now dominate the mainstream culture. What's striking to me is how the arguments of the left back then have been stood on their head, turned 180 degrees, flipped completely – so that the things the so-called "progressives" were for then, they are now against and vice versa.
I've already discussed in some depth how the left of the 1960s and '70s loved firearms, brandished them, made heroes of those who did and advocated extensive weapons training for the purpose of overthrowing the established order. Today, now that they are the established order, they seek to tightly restrict the possession and bearing of arms. Why do you suppose that is? Because they don't want to lose their position of power.
Here's another example: Back in the '60s and '70s, during what was termed "the sexual revolution," the argument made by the progressives was that "what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is not the government's business." Today, however, the left is imposing hate-crime laws against anyone who objects to flagrant and public displays of sexual deviancy. Now it's everyone's business what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms – or anywhere else for that matter. There are even affirmative action programs in place – special privileges – for those who are other than heterosexual. The "alternate" lifestyles advocated in that era have become the "preferred" lifestyles.
Back in the '60s and '70s, the "progressives" mocked marriage and even monogamy. Today, they insist the institution of marriage is for everyone, regardless of gender.
Back in the '60s and '70s, the "progressives" complained the deck was stacked against women and minorities. Today, they insist on stacking the deck in favor of women and minorities.
Back in 1968, the "progressives" rioted at the Democratic National Convention. Today, they run the Democratic Party and protest anything and everything Republican.
Back in the '60s and '70s, when the "progressives" were promoting abortion on demand, they insisted it was because women had an absolute "right" to make decisions about their own bodies. Today, those same "progressives" and their disciples defend the murder of babies outside the mother's womb – even female babies!
Back in the '60s and '70s, the "progressives" said they had a right to protect their own children from prayer and Bible reading in the public schools and succeeded at eliminating it. Today, the "progressives" say that parents are not really the guardians of their children – that they belong to the entire community collectively.
Back in the '60s and '70s, the "progressives" complained about the majority imposing their morality on the minority. Today, the "progressives" never miss an opportunity to impose their version of morality on others.
I could go on.
But you get the idea.
What does this mean?
Here's what I take away, as a former leftist who saw through the lies and hypocrisy:
- The so-called "progressives" have no respect for the rule of law. They will use the law when it is advantageous for them and discard the law when it no longer suits their objectives.
- The so-called "progressives" have no fixed values. They're blowin' in the wind.
- The so-called "progressives" are in rebellion against God and His order.
- The so-called "progressives" aren't for progress at all. Progress was what America's founders gave the world in the form of self-government and limited government. "Progressives" are really "retrogressives" who want to return to the old system that dominated most of world history in which the state was supreme, not the individual.
- The so-called "progressives," while they claim to represent the interests of minorities and the oppressed, actually seek to keep minorities and the oppressed in chains because they make good subjects for them.
- The so-called "progressives" hate just about everything that made America the greatest experiment in liberty the world has ever known.
Do I have that about right?
Does it take a former leftist to understand the manipulation and tyranny the so-called "progressives" embrace?
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