What is "Progressivism"?

Progressivism is, like many other mass movements, tribalist, and based lies, arrogance, hatred, and hypocrisy.

1. It rests on fabricated, though emotionally appealing narratives, in order to generate support. The world is heating up. White people are racist. Recycling cardboard boxes is beneficial. America "rushed" to war in Iraq. Women earn 59% of what men earn -- and, for good measure, this non-fact is attributed to "sexism". Worse, these narratives are arrogantly stated as axioms, and the burden falls on others to "disprove" them.

2. They arrogantly know what is best for you, and will make you pay for it. Public schools. Restrictions on commerce. Penalties and prohibitions against improving your property. They also rely very heavily on the guilt-generating illusion of attempting to help the "other". In other words, "How can you possibly enjoy 'X' when someone, anyone, else is suffering with 'Y'?" And their solution to this "problem" is to take your property and control your behavior.

3. Their "causes" are never in support of anyone; their causes are instead are based on who they hate and are intended to incite. Example: Their 1990s boycotts against South Africa were ostensibly to support the black victims of the apartheid system, but they displayed an utter disregard for the routine slaughters and famines elsewhere in Africa. Conclusion: Their real "cause" was hating white people. Example: They display hypersensitivity to the "plight" of the "Palestinian" people when Israel defends itself against their attacks -- but are indifferent to the far larger number of Palestinian Arabs who are murdered by other Arabs. Conclusion: Their real "cause" is hating Jews.

4. Philosophy and logic are absent, and are instead replaced by base-instinct universal "wants". For example, they want clean air -- as if anyone else wants dirty air. They want "peace", as if anyone (at least in the western world) wants senseless wars. They want "health care", as though anyone else wants to be sick. Even their "positions" are meaningless: Discrimination against gays was fine when one of theirs (President Clinton) signed the Defense of Marriage Act. And war was fine when he authorized (without Congressional approval) the bombing of a European country (Serbia) that was no threat to the United States -- and when he launched missiles at Iraq. Similarly, their objections to the budget deficit under President Bush vanished when said deficit was to become much larger under President Obama.

5. Their support rests on dependency. They create entitlements (actually, coercive government-enforced claims against others) that leave the "beneficiaries" dependent on oppressive government. The main progressive entitlement is welfare for old people; i.e., Social Security. But after being compelled to make "contributions" to this "fund" for their entire working lives, who would want to vote for dismantling it? Who would, after being compelled to pay for Medicare for year after year, would vote to deny themselves this "benefit" when it becomes their turn to collect? What parent, after paying years of real-estate taxes, would want to abolish "free" government schools and subsidized state colleges? And so progressivism oozes along, growing, and using democracy as a weapon to further itself.

Does "Income" Have Any Meaning?

You say to me, "Please hold this apple for thirty seconds and return it to me." I then take the apple, and return it to you. Did you just make "income"?

Then you say to me, "Please hold this 25-cent apple for thirty seconds, and then return either the apple or 25 cents to me." I take the apple and return 25 cents to you. Now did you just make "income"?

If you answered the first question with a "yes", then please explain how you just became richer by shuffling an apple across a table and back.

If you answered the first question with a "no" and the second question with a "yes", then please explain how replacing your property with something of equal value has made you richer.

Obviously, there is something very wrong with the idea of "income".

Point #1: What About Expenses?

Let's say you give me an apple in exchange for my tomato. What is your income? A) The "market value" of the tomato? Or B) The extra gain in your pleasure derived from trading up from an apple to a tomato?

If you answer (A), then if you pay $1000 for a box of apples and sell them at a loss for $900, your "income" is nevertheless $900. You just got $900 richer! Would you care to pay taxes on this $900?

Now let's say you spent your last four years in school, paying tuition. You graduated and now have a job. What is your income from this job? What you see in your paycheck? Or, should your "true" income reflect the cost of your tuition? And the several years of forgone income when you went to school instead of having a job? Aren't those expenses similar to the $1000 you paid for the apples?

Let's say that your job happens to pay $100K per year, and that you would not have accepted less than $75K for this job. That is, the job is "worth" $75 to you. Wouldn't your gross income therefore be $25K? Isn't that $25K similar to your gain in trading up from an apple to a tomato?

So, when we see that someone has an income of, say, $500K, what does that really mean? If we don't know how much was invested to get that $500K, how much was forgone to get that $500K, and what your "trade up" gain (i.e., your marginal utility) was to get that $500K...then we really don't know what your income is.

Point #2: Exchange results in "income" in both directions

You sell me an apple for 25 cents. You gained 25 cents and I gained an apple. Your income is 25 cents and my income is an apple. Of course, you are not really 25 cents richer -- and that's because you had to surrender an apple. And I am not richer by an apple -- because I had to surrender 25 cents. But yet, we are both richer because if either one of us did not gain, then the exchange would not have taken place. By how much are we richer? You are richer by the 25 cents less the value of that apple. And I am richer by how much I value that apple less 25 cents. And it is very very difficult to calculate those amounts.

But the main point here is that that "income" accrues to both parties. But that is rarely recognized. To say nothing, of course, of actually calculating what those two incomes actually are.

Point #3: "Income" is a pejorative term for "adding value".

You sell apples for 25 cents each. Your customers place a value on these apples of at least 25 cents each. (If they valued each apple at less than 25 cents, they would be pretty stupid to buy any.) But many customers undoubtedly place a higher value on the apples. Some of your customers (but you don't know which ones) would pay 35 cents and are getting a 10 cent discount.

That is, you are making all of your customers better off by selling those apples. Some are made a little better off, and some are made a lot better off. But they all, via a simple exchange, now posses greater value. If you sold four apples, you just increased value by one dollar. And if your four customers secretly would have paid 50 cents for each apple, then you just (unwittingly) increased value by two dollars.

So, why must people say that others "make money" instead of "create value"? Isn't the point of the transaction to create value? My guess is that envy drives people to tear down those who are productive -- and demonize them by casting them as criminals who are undeserving of their wealth.

The crime is "income" and the penalty is "redistribution". They're both meaningless terms that are part of the lexicon of leftist/statist propaganda -- and this malignant ignorance has been threaded into the popular culture so successfully that it is universally accepted as a mass virtue, to the detriment of almost everyone.

Is It OK To Confiscate Jewish Assets?

Regarding Europeans complicit in The Holocaust:

The Hungarian government used the assets seized from Jews to extend its pension system and reduce inflation.

And how is this different from seizing assets of people making more than X dollars for government purposes? Are we supposed to feel revulsion at the confiscation of Jewish assets, but feel that it is proper to take the assets of affluent (i.e., productive) people? Why?

Also: Given that Jews tend to be among the most affluent people, and tend to pay higher than average taxes, could it be that the American tax system is in violation of "disparate impact" laws?