THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 209, August 24, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE VAST LEFTWING CONSPIRACY
By Alan Caruba
PARTISAN POLITICS, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, & THE AMERICAN POLITICAL LEFT: RON ARNOLD ON MONEY,
POWER, POLITICS, & THE VAST LEFTWING CONSPIRACY -- A ROMP THROUGH THE JUNGLE OF LIBERAL LEFTIST POLITICS --
MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE LIBERAL LEFTIST UNIVERSE -- HOW THE LIBERALS, OR PROGRESSIVISTS, INTERACT THROUGH
NETWORKS OF WEALTHY FOUNDATIONS, ADVOCACY GROUPS, THINK TANKS, & LEFTIST MEDIA -- LIBERAL VALUES,
BELIEFS, & GOALS COMPARED WITH CONSERVATIVE VALUES, BELIEFS, & GOALS
FULL STORY:
As a dues-paying member of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, it came as a revelation of sorts to
learn about the parallel universe in which a Vast Leftwing Conspiracy exists. Within it, Liberals do endless battle with
one another for control of the Democratic Party, U.S.A.
Ron Arnold’s book, Freezing in the Dark: Money, Power, Politics and The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, is not light
reading. This heavily researched and documented narrative reveals all the major players of the Liberal universe and how
these renamed “Progressives,” or "Progressivists," interact through networks of wealthy foundations, advocacy groups,
think tanks, and Leftist media.
Freezing will particularly please policy wonks, but it is also a brilliant romp through the jungle of Leftist politics. If
you have the stamina to get into and through it, you will understand what drives the Left. To get you started, I will quote
Winston Churchill, who defined Socialism as “a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its
inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
As I reached the end of Freezing, I had a random thought about the 2008 election and its outcome. Simply put,
Democrats who have been driven insane by the very existence of George Walker Bush cannot run against him. In the
funhouse of modern politics, the Republican they must defeat is more like them than not. John Sidney McCain III is
Democrat Light. One of his best pals is Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman, who, in the 2004 election, ran as the Democratic
Party's candidate for Vice President on the ticket with John Forbes Kerry, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate!
Emerging swiftly from the text is the way the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act transformed how politics was to be
funded. Little wonder that U.S. Senator Barack Hussein Obama III abandoned his pledge to work within the constraints
of federal campaign funding in favor of raising gobs of money from the Internet and the traditional supporters of anything
and anyone labeled "Liberal" or "Progressive." Never mind that the Communist Party, U.S.A., also supports Obama for
President. It must surely just be a coincidence.
McCain-Feingold banned “soft money” donations, the large and unlimited contributions from individuals, unions, and
corporations to political parties. This “reform” required Democrats to create a networking restructure with the many
satellite groups competing to use the Party to get the only reform they ever wanted, namely, the trashing of the U.S.
Constitution.
It’s useful to remember that the Constitution exists to limit the power of the central government and, via the Bill of Rights,
that of the states to the extent that individual liberties are protected. This is why the Liberalism discredited by Ronald
Reagan in the 1980s has returned as a Halloween mask labeled “Progressive.”
Progressives, however, come in many colors of red. There are, as Arnold notes, Social Progressives, Labor Progressives,
Anti-Globalization Progressives, Anti-Corporate Progressives, Anti-Capitalist Progressives, Environmentalist
Progressives, Post-Nationalist Progressives (who, like Senator Obama, see themselves as citizens of the world), and
Campaign Finance Reform Progressives, who think that the current electoral system is a threat to democracy, mostly one
suspects because it keeps defeating Progressives.
As Arnold reveals, one can hardly call Liberals, or Progressives, a movement. “It was more like a mental hospital without
doctors or nurses.” They don’t have a cohesive culture, have no coherent ideology, but are “just quarrelsome factions
with loads of issues.”
What they all seemed to have, however, was gobs and gobs of money from Leftist foundations and millionaires who
wanted to change the world by supporting one or more of the myriad of issues they embrace as their penance for being
successful, thanks to capitalism.
The ultimate symbol of this is the billionaire George Schwartz Soros. As Arnold points out,
“The Soros mishmash of Leftist causes at home ranged
from financing the anti-gun lobby to abolishing capital
punishment; from anti-Israel activism to promoting
abortion rights; from feminism, population control, and
gay liberation to anti-corporate campaigns, radical
theories of education, and replacing national
sovereignty with global institutions.”
Compare this with Conservative values, which include “hard work, duty and obligation, self-reliance, high levels of national
pride, pro-life values, rejection of homosexuality, belief in the importance of religion and God in one’s life, and that children
should learn respect and obedience.”
Essential to the compact that the American government makes with citizens is the understanding that, if you work hard and
stay out of trouble with the law, it will leave you alone!
The Vast Leftwing Conspiracy believes that your life must be guided from birth to death by the government, its prohibitions
and its demands, a society in which everything not mandated by law is prohibited.
To achieve this, Progressives come at voters from all directions, conjuring up hoaxes like global warming, promises of often
imaginary “clean” energy, the demand to end “urban sprawl,” the “right” of same-sex couples to marry, support for the
United Nations, and endless charges of racism, among other charades, to gain control of the U.S. national government and
its judiciary in order to implement a top-down control of your life.
Freezing in the Dark is a roadmap to understand why we are assailed daily with the insanity of Liberalism, an utterly
failed system that depends on coercion, while seeking to devalue the central principles of our constitutional system, from
private property to individual merit and, yes, the promotion of wealth as a good thing.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
American Politics & Political Competition:
Elections, PACs, & Political Parties
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
-------------------------
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES:
COMPETING SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Conservatism
Traditional Conservatism: Questions & Answers
Conservatism: Attitudes, Types, & Present Status
Constitutional Conservatism: American & British
Liberalism
Classical Liberalism: Intellectual Foundations
Classical Liberalism: Conservative Liberalism
Manchester Liberalism & Social Darwinism
Modern Social "Liberalism": Statist "Liberalism"
Radical & Totalitarian Ideologies
Radicalism, Utopianism, & Totalitarianism
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2008
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity