I have consistently told RNL readers that Progressives will openly tell you what they want, even how they intend to get it, but you have to learn how to understand the language they use.  In the past, several RNL readers have objected that I am making this up, or making unsupported claims.  I have tried to tell these people where to go and what to read to enlighten themselves, but sadly, I’ve come to accept that these people really have no interest in learning – they just want to prevent those readers who do from being persuaded by my arguments.  I have come to understand these people are actually agents of the Progressive ideology and their diversionary accusations serve no other purpose but to defend their agenda against those seeking to enlighten others.  Rather than try to deal with them on a case-by-case basis, I have decided it is best to stop telling RNL readers where to go to find the information they need.  Instead, I will bring it to the pages of the RNL and show you how and why I make the claims about Progressivism that I make.

But first, you must have an understanding of the tactics that are used by the Progressives.  I have urged people to read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals because it is essentially a handbook describing the Progressive way of doing business.  It is the source and driving force behind what we know as ‘political correctness.’  But this is important to understand: the Progressives follow the teachings of Saul Alinksy because they work!

Next, you need a solid understanding of our founding fathers’ original intent for this nation and our system of government.  Without a solid understanding of Natural Rights and Natural Law and the Social Contract as John Locke described them, you cannot understand how stark the differences between our founders and the Progressives really are.  They are literally the negation of each other, which is why the Progressive have fought so hard to erase and/or change the truth of our past – especially our founding period.

With that said, today’s lesson will focus on a recent Proclamation  by the U.N. on the subject of ‘social justice:’

UN Says Social Justice, Economic Progress Must Advance in Tandem

This proclamation begins with a paragraph that – when properly understood – summarizes almost everything you need to know to understand the Progressive mindset and how it operates:

Feb 20 2012 (UN News Centre) – Calling on people to tap into the spirit of recent public protests worldwide against inequality, corruption, repression and a lack of decent jobs, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the need for economic development to ensure greater social justice for everyone.

There is so much here, I honestly do not know how to call attention to all of it without writing something too long to keep your attention; but after many attempts, I believe this works best:

1 – First, notice that this proclamation just assumes the existing system is as bad as they claim it is, that the reasons for this are exactly what they claim and that only they have the answer for how to make things better.  In other words, they just start out claiming to be correct and assuming you must agree or there is something wrong with you.

This is absurd.  Ask yourself a few simple questions and see if the answers don’t prove to you that these are irrational assumption:

If we have spent trillions on welfare, yet we still have the same poverty levels as when we started, why should we keep spending money to reduce poverty?

2 – It is implied that the people at the U.N. and other Progressives are on the side of the poor and that they are not among the corrupt that they are complaining about.

This is absurd.  All we need to do is look at the people who have been running the U.N. and who have been in charge of our own government over the past several decades and at the policies they have implemented to see that – at the very least – the majority of the people claiming they have the solutions to the world’s problems have been in power for a long time.  So, how is it that they expect you to believe they have escaped the corruption that they claim is ruining the current system, and that they suddenly have suddenly answers that have escaped them all this time?

3 – It is also assumed that ‘justice’ and morality both require an equal or more equal distribution of material wealth.

This is also absurd.  There is no such thing as equality of outcome in this world – nor should there be.  To try to make this point clear, let’s take it to the extreme:

In the game of golf, the Masters’ is unjust because it represents a gross inequity.  Why should only one player be given the green jacket?  In fact, why should the ‘greedy’ Tiger Woods be allowed to trample the poor quadriplegic?  The quadriplegic should be allowed to compete at the masters right alongside Tiger Woods.  Furthermore, the game should be made more equal so that the quadriplegic has a ‘fair deal.’  The Masters’ should require Tiger and all the other players to play on their knees with their hands and feet tied behind their backs.  They can use their mouths to hit the ball just like the quadriplegic will have to.   This is fair, and this is ‘social justice,’ but we should all see the absurdity of my example.  Not only will no one ever watch this game, which would end the need for a Masters’ game at all, but handicapping Tiger Woods so that he cannot use his natural talent will eventually cause him to not even bother to compete.  The result is: no more hero, no more Masters and no more of the wealth that was generated by everyone who played and supported the game.

So let me ask you: why do we bother playing the super bowl or final four?  Aren’t they nothing more than an example of unequal distribution of talent?  To take this to the extreme in hopes that the irrational thinking here will become painfully obvious, we should make Tiger Woods play on his knees with his hands tied behind his back and with broken clubs so a quadriplegic can compete evenly with him in a powered wheel chair.

There’s more, but this should be enough.  Now, let’s look at how Alinsky ties in to the Progressive arguments for social justice.  First, let’s look at what Alinksy said was the primary purpose of the modern revolutionary (he calls them organizers):

In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace…. “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’ This means revolution.” p.3

This is at the heart of the assumption that Progressives have your best interest at heart: they are not following a plan to further liberty or the lot of the individual, they are seeking power first.

“From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams… only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues…. Until he has those means and power instruments, his ‘tactics’ are very different from power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals.”

Ask yourself this: when was the last time a revolutionary leader succeeded in leading a revolution and actually gave up power after winning it?   If you said the American Revolution, you are correct: but that is the system that these people want to now destroy.  So, what reasons do we have to believe these people will actually do what they claim they want to do if they succeed?

So how does Alinsky suggest this process of building and exercising power should start?

“Change comes from power, and power comes from organization.” p.113

“The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are  to be displace by new patterns…. All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.” p.116

This is at the heart of the assumption that wealth inequality is ‘proof’ that our current system has failed: they are not looking for ways to fix and/or correct the current system, they are looking for a path by which they can destabilize it so they can then destroy it.

Ask yourself this: what evidence do we have that Progressives are trying to cause disorganization in our society?  If you answer includes racial division, class welfare, illegal immigration, education or health care, then ask yourself this next question: how does actually solving these problems help the community organizer build and exercise power?  The answer is that it doesn’t: it actually undermines his efforts.

Have you ever wondered why Progressives are always talking about solving these issues but never seem to make any progress toward doing so?  Please think about this one for a while.  The implications should be obvious, but they should be equally damning to the Progressive’s stated cause.

What does Alinsky say about the proper method and/or means for achieving these goals?

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….” p.29

“The seventh rule… is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics….” p.34

“The tenth rule… is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.…” p.36

This is at the heart of doing anything necessary to achieve your goal and calling it ethical and moral to help you get away with it.  If you win, you then get to declare that you hold the moral high ground and your opponent is immoral and wrong.  In other words, Alinsky advocates “might-makes-right” and “history is written by the victor.”

This is actually an old ideology.  If you are not familiar with him already, you should make time to familiarize yourself with Machiavelli.  You may remember that Clinton was said to be very Machiavellian.  Clinton actually cited him on several public occasions.  If you read about what he advocated, it may answer a lot of questions you’ve had over the years.

Now, ask yourself a simple question: if you believe that the ends justify the means, how can you claim to be the person holding the moral high ground, and why should anyone believe you care about the poor or will give up power once you have it?

What did Alinsky say about truth?

“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth — truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing…. To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations….” pp.10-11

This is at the heart of why you can never nail a progressive/Liberal down: because they honestly do not believe anything like objective truth exists or matters.

Ask yourself this question: if they do not believe in the truth themselves, then how can you trust anything they say?

What did Alinsky say about using personal relationships to further the Progressive cause?

“And so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is probed by questions…. Is this manipulation? Certainly….” p.88

“One of the factors that changes what you can and can’t communicate is relationships. There are sensitive areas that one does not touch until there is a strong personal relationship based on common involvements. Otherwise the other party turns off and literally does not hear….

“Conversely, if you have a good relationship, he is very receptive…. For example, I have always believed that birth control and abortion are personal rights to be exercised by the individual. If, in my early days when I organized… neighborhood in Chicago, which was 95 per cent Roman Catholic, I had tried to communicate this, even through the experience of the residents, whose economic plight was aggravated by large families, that would have been the end of my relationship with the community. That instant I would have been stamped as an enemy of the church and all communication would have ceased.

“Some years later, after establishing solid relationships, I was free to talk about anything…. By then the argument was no longer limited to such questions as, ‘How much longer do you think the Catholic Church can hang on to this archaic notion and still survive?’ …the subject and nature of the discussion would have been unthinkable without that solid relationship.” pp.93-94

This is at the heart of why you cannot trust a Progressive/Liberal – even when they claim to be your friend.

Ask yourself this question: how can you trust a man who dedicated his book on how to build and seize power to Lucifer, and who advocates building personal friendships so you can convince people to help you destroy their world for the promise of something better – especially when all those promises are based on the word of a person who does not believe in truth, who thinks the ends justify the means and who believes their sole purpose is to destroy so they can build and exercise power?  In other words, would you trust the man you have just learned Alinksy to be? Would you trust his followers?

Finally, let’s go back to the U.N. proclamation and consider the closing paragraph:

Education can serve as a catalyst for “a new responsible citizenship,” according to a press release issued by the agency, which cited the positive effects that education can have on reducing poverty, increasing access to jobs, preventing conflict between groups and building tolerance.

The Progressive notion of ‘education’ is a subject for a separate post, but we have covered enough for you to ask yourself this question:

Why should you trust a Progressive to ‘educate’ you now that you know they only care about building and exercising power; they do not believe in truth; that they believe the ends justifies the means; that the best way to get what they want is to destabilize society; and that they believe it is acceptable to exploit personal friendships to achieve their means?

Oh, and in case you do not believe that people in the media and even our current government actually follow Alinsky, I leave you with this: