A primer on Progressivism versus Americanism.

This is the choice before us. Are we to be ruled by experts as if they are our guardians simply because they might be smarter than us in specific fields, or are we to rule ourselves?

The supposed legitimacy of the former approach comes from fear. We are told the world is too complex. We need the experts to guide us, protect us, and save us. We need an elite guardian class to rule over us because we cannot make it on our own. But this cowardice makes us nothing more than slaves, not citizens.

The legitimacy of self-rule springs from our love of justice and our virtue. In our republican system, it requires a commitment to the truth that all men are created equal, and to the proposition that the just powers of government are derived by consent. It requires courage, moderation, friendship, and grace. It is these virtues that allow us to live free, apart from the “chains of despotism” as Madison says in Federalist 55.

The rule of expertise is not politics rightly understood; it is management. There is no deliberation involved. Instead, there is only bureaucracy, administration, and a religious—actually, cultish—devotion to what we now call science.

The rule of the people allows for statesmanship and liberty. Though statesmen might not always be “at the helm,” we the people, as the safeguard of our own liberty, can elect representatives with wisdom and prudence or pay the price when we don’t. We evaluate how well they do, discuss, debate, and then decide who should govern through elections.

Okay, good enough to this point, and right as rain so far. But then he begins to miss the mark just a little bit.

The rule of expertise, while on the surface promising intelligent leadership, is incapable of prudent government. The rule of expertise leads to incompetence, strife, and corruption instead of scientific precision and impartiality.

This is because the rule of expertise is built on a weak foundation. People’s faith in “science” is often misplaced. Most of what we call science is really just scientism—the foolish belief that men cease to be men when they put on white lab coats and begin charting numbers and lines. Scientism overstates what men can actually know. Moreover, the rule of expertise stands or falls on the belief that men are basically good and scientists are immune to the unjust desire to rule for their own benefit.

Regardless, the vast majority of “experts” are useless academics and professional bureaucrats. Their fields of study are full of jargon and credentials that lead to conformity and groupthink. Experts learn early that challenging the authorities in one’s field is risky for one’s career. Whatever thinking is involved quickly devolves into vague, abstract theorizing about ideas that are unable to be proven or disproven and thus do not threaten the ideas of one’s peers or superiors.

Often, what is supposed to be science ends up being just another form of cronyism, and what we call “expertise” ends up being knowledge of otherwise useless jargon and how to navigate a career field. The government bureaucracy that results is incompetent, often harmful, and tyrannical.

This is not to say there are not very smart men whom we can legitimately call experts—men like Dr. Fauci. But even at their best, these experts are incapable of prudence. Their knowledge is specific and precise, limiting their ability to consider circumstances broadly. Their skillset is often highly technical, built on years of experience and careful adherence to established protocols, limiting their ability to consider new solutions. And, besides, they typically confront only one problem a nation faces, not the full spectrum of the problems we must face.

In short, science and expertise can be wonderful things that help us to know what is, but they cannot answer the question of what we ought to do. This is the difference between science and politics. One is about knowing; the other is about acting. Expertise and science are subordinate to the art of politics. Experts make terrible rulers.

And here is where he begins to lose me. Mind you, I don’t disagree with any of the above, either; he’s not wrong, not at all. But the real point of this whole discussion isn’t whether the self-anointed “experts” are more knowledgeable, or more qualified to rule, or even more competent rulers.

None of that matters—NONE of it. The only thing that does—which happens to be the premise central to every word uttered or written down by the Founders—is whether or not one believes in the people’s right to the ultimate say in who will govern them, and in how they will be governed. THAT is the question that truly matters. All else, including the above analysis of “experts” and “science” and skillsets, is just so much idle jaw-jaw compared to that one.

And that right there is where Progressivism “faw down an’ go boom.” THEIR central premise, the idea from which the whole toxic ideology grows like an ugly, noxious, strangulating weed, is that the people should NOT have a say in their own governance. After all, the unwashed masses are not intelligent, not altruistic, not “evolved” enough to be trusted to make proper decisions about such weighty concerns.

No, for their own good they must under the direction and control of superior beings with the vision and moral purity to help them, to protect and provide for them, and to nudge them ever forward along the path to true “enlightenment.” Their base urges must be reined in, all rowdy individualism brought sharply to heel; the moronic superstition that insists on the existence of some mythical “God” educated out of them; their primitive reverence for the old traditions and long-established ways of doing things transformed into the Progressivist’s reflexive acceptance that change—any change, all change—represents real “progress” and can never be anything other than good and desirable.

Only then can the Progressivist dream of shaping and molding the primordial clay into New Progressive Man be achieved. Only through this inspiring metamorphosis from savage to civilized—under the sting of the lash, if need be—can the perfection of man be realized. Only through the Progressivist program can the cave-dwelling, revanchist knuckledragger finally rise to walk erect, then take his place with his fellows to make his due and proper contribution in service to the glorious State.

Of course, there will always be some number of dim, backwards apes who, whether out of stubborness or stupidity, either refuse to be or actually cannot be reformed. No need for our betters to waste a lot of time on determining how to deal with them. There are a variety of options for dispensing with them, from slave-labor camps to gulags to forced starvation to mass graves. Such ignominy is no more than such creatures deserve; they cannot, MUST not, be allowed to hinder Progress.

Nor can the knuckledraggers be permitted to freely express any irrational dissent from Progressivist dogma. The risk of infecting other minds and perverting whole sectors of society by exposure to such blasphemy cannot be tolerated; its potential influence on society is far too insidious to be overlooked. No extremity of oppression could be too harsh in safeguarding the State and The People from such wanton, destructive criminality.

Well, Real Americans say nuts to all that happy horseshit, and to hell with them what’s pushing it. The Progressivists positively HATE us for this defiance, a mad hate that burns so fiercely inside them it blackens the very soul whose existence they deny. Nonetheless, Real Americans would rather not bother ourselves about them at all; we’d be content to just leave them alone, to let them all toddle off somewhere and cherish their doot-brained fantasies to their shriveled hearts’ content.

Trouble is, though, that they will NEVER grant us the same courtesy. Actually, they can’t; Progressivist cant itself commands that they interfere with and harrass us to whatever degree they can manage, until the job of either converting us, subjugating us, or snuffing us out is done.

Since they’re lazy and childish, they’d dearly love to short-cut the whole frustrating process by just crushing us utterly, wiping us right out of earthly existence so’s they can just get on with things. Tragically for them, the puling, mewling pussies lack the stones to actually jump the fuck up. The vegan diets, scrotum-torquing skinny jeans, and general feminization have left them so sickly and weak that they couldn’t physically do it anyway.

All of which means that, much as we’d prefer not to have to waste perfectly good ammunition and put unnecessary wear on our barrel rifling, it looks like sooner or later we’re just gonna have to buckle down and shoot them all in their fucking empty heads. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, really I have, but I just haven’t been able to come up with any other way out of this. They created the problem; they’re responsible for bringing it to our very doorstep and waving it around obscenely at us. And it ought to be abundantly clear to even the meanest intelligence that they will never, ever back off a single inch, damn their eyes. So we’re gonna have to be the ones who solve it, if it’s ever to be solved at all.