Progressivism Is Anything But Progressive

For those who have been following the National Public Radio story and thanking God for small miracles that resulted in the release of Ron Schiller, senior vice president for fundraising, and its CEO, Vivian Schiller, you might recall uber-intellect Ron Schiller stating the following during his “power lunch” with representatives of  the fake Muslim Education Action Center:

“The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian — I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move.”

With a statement like this from a purportedly intellectual elite, I can only draw two conclusions. Either this guy is a theologian and political scholar of the highest order, or he is an exceedingly inane ideologue who is delusional about the TEA Party. Suffice it to say a proletariat rube such as myself would place my wager on the latter impression. If you lean towards the former impression, however, then take a gander at this little pronouncement:

“Tea Party people” aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

So Schiller, a progressive liberal operative, believes the TEA Party is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives? On what basis would he make such a charge? To my understanding, the TEA Party advocates for limited government, low taxes, and personal responsibility. In other words, they want government out of people’s lives so there is more local control and personal liberty. I would hardly think someone who wants these things has any desire to be involved in other people’s lives, let alone be fanatical about it. These are people who just want to be left alone, and who will be the most likely to leave you alone as people who make up a strongly libertarian-leaning group. On the other hand, Schiller wants to dig into your pocket to fund an operation that is more than happy to use government coercion in doing so, instead of competing in the private market with its “must have” radio programming. Well thanks, but no thanks, Ron, even though you tried to pretend that things would actually be better without public funding. I won’t address what he means by “fundamental Christian” or “an evangelical kind of move,” because I don’t think he even knows the definition of Christian fundamentalism or the evangelical movement, which really has nothing to do with getting into people’s lives unless it is at their request (i.e., they become Christians and submit to Christian teachings of their own will, without any manner of duress). It was probably from his own NPR where he learned such twisted views on Christianity, which in my view is a most suspect of sources.

And speaking of being fanatically involved in people’s lives, did we hear any opposition from NPR when the Democrat party was ramrodding through one-size-fits-all healthcare legislation that puts the federal government in between the doctor and patient, one of the most intimate of relationships? And where has NPR been in various cities where law-abiding citizens have been trying to express their 2nd Amendment rights by owning a gun to protect themselves and their families from harm, only to be deterred by Democrats who, since they don’t like guns, don’t think anyone else should have them either? Seems to me that qualifies for getting fanatically involved in people’s private lives. And where is NPR when the government tells you what food you should eat, and what light bulbs you can put in your lamps? Is that not a private matter? So when Schiller and his NPR ilk accuse others of wanting to insert themselves into other’s private lives, he need look no further than the liberal progressive policies that his now former company promotes on a daily basis. And could someone tell me when it became ignominious to be a white, middle-class gun owner who wants to protect his country from all enemies, foreign and domestic? At one point that was called patriotic, but now it is called vile and racist in the politically correct world of NPR. I think in such a world this view would qualify as a phobia: an irrational fear of your patriotic countrymen. If this is progressivism, then please count me out. Progressivism is anything but progressive.