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In what was overall a very thoughtful, well-delivered speech, Sen. Marco Rubio reacted to the passage of the bill increasing the debt ceiling by describing two competing visions for the future of our country.

“Patriotic, country-loving Americans can disagree on their future vision of what kind of country we should be. But this division, this difference of opinion, is the reason why even though this bill passed, this debate we just had is going to move forward for some time to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-nj2H7ALzg

On the one hand, there are those who believe that the job of government is to deliver us economic justice, which basically means: an economy where everyone does well or as well as possibly can be done.

There is another group that believes in the concept of economic opportunity where it’s not the government’s job to guarantee an outcome but to guarantee the opportunity to fulfill your dreams and hopes.

One is not more moral than the other. They are two very different visions of the role of government in America. But it lies at the heart of the debate that we’re having as a nation.”

While I agree with a great deal of what Senator Rubio said, I take issue with his contention that the two visions he describes are equally moral.

Progressives would disagree with Senator Rubio as well.  They regularly congratulate themselves on their moral superiority, simultaneously casting Conservatives as small, mean, petty, wealth-hoarding extremists.  Although many on the left are more subtle, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s characterization of the dichotomy is so extreme, it provides an obvious example.  “What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget,” she said in describing negotiations regarding raising the debt ceiling. “We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.”

As a result of their efforts, Progressives have succeeded in “branding” themselves as the party of the people, the drivers of all successful legal and political reform, particularly in the area of civil rights, even though the impression they’ve created is actually contrary to historical fact.  For example, a letter published in the August 10, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star, questioned, “[W]hy do conservatives always seem to be on the wrong side of history when it comes to public policy?”  The writer urged readers to “Consider what we now take for granted but would not have been if the current rabid and uncompromising conservative mindset had prevailed:

• The 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage)
• Fair Labor Standards Act (40 hour work week, minimum wage)
• Voting Rights Act
• Social Security
• Medicare
• homosexual rights
• cannabis decriminalization (and hopefully soon, full legalization.)”

Although my knowledge of the history surrounding these reforms is spotty, I know that Progressives strenuously OPPOSED at least two of them.

19th Amendment (Women’s Suffrage). Woodrow Wilson, a notorious Progressive, vehemently opposed women’s suffrage. He actually summarily jailed suffragettes who were peacefully protesting outside the White House and allegedly tried a number of very shady tactics to have their leader, Alice Paul, declared mentally unstable and committed to a mental institution. Later, the 19th Amendment received, at best, only lukewarm support from Wilson and the Progressives in his administration, and then, only because it was considered necessary to the war effort.

Sufragettes protest Progressive President Woodrow Wilson’s opposition to giving women the right to vote – click for more images on webpage Why Women Should Vote

Civil Rights/Voting Rights. As for civil rights, Woodrow Wilson, once again, is a poster boy for the proposition that one’s progressivism does not necessarily correlate with one’s support of reforms that, in modern times, are assumed to have resulted from the exertions of Progressive politicians.  Wilson instituted policies during his administration that resulted in the segregation of many departments within the federal government, including the armed forces (they had previously been racially integrated).  Through civil service reforms, Wilson required job applicants to submit photographs with their applications, the result being that black applicants were identified and weeded out.  Wilson also made comments that attempted to justify the actions of the Ku Klux Klan and praised The Birth of a Nation, a film that glorified the Klan and portrayed Blacks in a very derogatory manner, as an accurate reflection of historical fact.

In fact, the Journal Star opinion-writer’s assertion that voting rights legislation would not have occurred without Progressives is FALSE.  The very first civil rights act was passed in 1957 and was initiated by President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican. It was primarily a voting rights measure and was opposed in Congress by the Progressives/Democrats, including Lyndon Baines Johnson, who actually led an effort that defeated a similar bill the previous year.  How ironic that history, at least the type of “social studies” taught in our public schools today, remembers LBJ as a civil rights activist rather than as the civil rights obstructionist he actually was.  (In a subsequent article, I plan to discuss the disastrous impact Johnson’s “Great Society” program has had upon minorities and their families.)

I don’t think I’m talking “out of school” when I share with you the fact that one of Shelli’s pet peeves with politicians on the Conservative side of the aisle and with the activists that support them is their failure to cast Conservative ideas in moral terms, to claim the moral high ground, if you will.  In fact, too often, Conservatives abdicate that ground to those of the Progressive persuasion, as if the Conservative political philosophy has no legitimate claim to that territory.

But, in reality, Conservatism is the more moral of the two visions for America’s future.  In my next article, I’ll demonstrate why that is so.  Taking a cue from James Madison, who allegedly drafted the Bill of Rights as a “charter of negative liberties,” I’m going to begin my proof of Conservatism’s moral superiority by listing 10 reasons Progressive policies actually harm the social and moral fabric of our nation.  My list is based on one created by talk-radio host, Dennis Prager. I intend to annotate his list and elaborate on some of his discussion points in order to prove the affirmative, i.e., that Conservatism is, in fact, the moral alternative to Progressivism.  I’ve linked his article here so you can read ahead if you so choose.

I’m also linking to some classic Stevie Wonder to help you contemplate that higher ground.