Finding Common Ground -- Liberty vs. Power

I had an interesting response to the last post from an old friend who describes herself as "progressive" politically. Although we've recently been Facebooking, my comments had not been directed at her. She's been open and honest, as opposed to some of the smirking, snide, high school-like comments I've encountered elsewhere. But since I am finding this description adopted more and more by seemingly apostate Democrats, it may be helpful to examine her response, as well as mine.

She: "From my progressive seat, I'd say the thing I've liked most about your posts is seeing the common ground we have - namely, both worried about the U.S. jumping solo into another war! Both thinking that the "drug war" should end. I think finding and building on common ground is a way to move forward."

 ‎Me: "Progressive" is an elusive term to me. Just like "conservative." My general impression is this self-descriptor is someone who is socialist-communist, but doesn't want to use these "harder" terms. "Progressive" leads a certain amount of fuzziness, while not opening up to the charges that one is an old-style socialist or communist.

I've been perusing Danny Goble's book about Oklahoma's progressive roots. What I see could more accurately be called libertarian roots. There was certainly a reaction against the robber barons and the unfairness of what we would today call "corporatism," or more succinctly still, fascism.

America has been on a continual morph into fascism since the founding of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. Each supposed failure of capitalism brought more government control, with the attendant corruption and collusion that control breeds.

Fascism seems to have accelerated with FDR's response to the Fed-caused Depression; then the establishment of the CIA after WWII; LBJ's Great Society after the CIA's coup to get rid of JFK; the Vietnam War; and certainly with the vast expansion of US imperialism and total surveillance grid after the false flag 9-11 event.

I still wait for the Progressive-Left to call Obama out for being Bush on steroids. But they seem to be as neutered by Obama as the conservatives were by Bush. It seems that party still is more important than principle.

I should have added that I really agree with her point about finding common points of agreement. That is essential for our conversation. So much of the pervasive mind control in the MainStreamMedia is designed to drive us apart. Divide and conquer is an age-old strategy. The false left-right paradigm, which I've written about many times, is essential to the PTB strategy. Left-right, liberal-conservative, are components of a dualistic paradigm whose poles are self-contradictory in terms of the issue of liberty and power.

It's a form of Orwellian Doublespeak designed to obscure reality and inhibit any clear thinking about the issues. So many people I meet try to establish their "independent" credentials by saying they are economically conservative but socially liberal. The term they are searching for is "libertarian." That political philosophy was called "liberal" in the 1700's. It is fundamental to the American idea of limited, representative government bound by a Constitution. They just haven't studied the philosophy to see how to derive a consistent, non-contradictory political philosophy that will help them analyze our situation more clearly. (You might want to explore this further by taking the Nolan Chart Quiz here.)

In that vein, it is clear to me that when the Libertarians and the Christian Right come to see that the most consistent political position with Christianity is libertarianism, then we will have the makings of the powerful political force required to restore America. Far too many Christians let others do their political thinking for them and become easily manipulated by the NeoConservatives or the Progressive Left.

There is a legalistic, moralistic streak in too many Christians that wants to force areas of personal morality into their own mold. They want to deprive others of the freedom of choice that Jesus clearly gives in Rev. 3:20. He forces Himself on no one. Nor should we. As long as a person is not violating the inalienable rights of another by force or fraud, he should be free to make his own choices and live with the consequences. I don't have time to expound on this further in this post, but I've given you enough to think it through.

Here are a couple of examples of sound libertarian thinking that progressives and conservatives who don't put party above principle can surely agree on:

• Judge Napolitano on Obama's hypocrisy on state power and Guantanamo; and
• Ron Paul on why establishing a "no fly" zone over Libya is an act of war against a country that has done us no harm. If we fall for this one, I fear it will be a match to a powder keg labeled World War III.

What do you think? I have open comments, so please use them. Thanks!