The new progressive (Puritanical) morality

Whatever two consenting adults do with their bodies is none of the government's business. The government has no business regulating what you do with your body or how you use (or misuse) it. What goes on in the dining room however, well that's another matter.

Apparently, the same folks who want the government to keep their hands off their bodies have no problem with that same government telling them what they are allowed to put inside their mouths (unless its, well, you know).

It’s fascinating to watch Puritanism mutate into secular nannyism. The intense sense of guilt remains. The need to micromanage and control with rules remains. The search for redemption through moral superiority remains. The fastidious obsession with purity remains. The missionary zeal to conquer and control all of humanity remains. All that is gone is Jesus Christ, hope, forgiveness, and the heart and soul of the gospel.

And this is spot on:

It’s the combination of values that is puzzling: a quasi-religious zeal to eliminate soda, salt, and saturated fat on the one hand, and the toleration—nay, promotion—of grave offenses against human dignity and health on the other. When premarital sex, homosexuality, contraception, and abortion are encouraged in health class, isn’t Michael Bloomberg’s crusade against sugary drinks a bit odd? As the Church is backed into a corner because of its teaching on sexuality, and its institutions face increasing pressure to compromise and cooperate with abortion, gay marriage, and contraception, and after the city bans religious groups from using public property, lawmakers are getting moralistic about food.

The Left has, for mysterious reasons, chosen not to be laissez faire about what you do with your body (which would at least be consistent), but to be laissez faire about what you do with that part of your body called your pelvis while focusing all its most repressive, moralistic, and puritan obsessiveness on what you do with that part of your body called your digestive tract. And so we get a strange inversion of Bronze Age purity obsessions and Christian belief. Nurse Bloomberg and his acolytes on the Left preach the exact opposite of Jesus.

Patheos


The soda ban is just the latest incarnation in the progressive morality of dictating against what they deem to be unhealthy for you. First it was cigarettes, then moves to regulate vitamins and natural cures and now they're cracking down on raw milk and backyard gardens.

If the government takes over the healthcare system, expect it to get even worse; it will be the government's business whatever you eat and what type of risks you take in your life because they will be on the hook for the bill if you get sick or hurt.

People say conservatives are confused when they call for less government but, want to legislate morality. It seems that progressives suffer from the same confusion, only their morality has to do with forcing so called "healthy choices" into people's lives. Not that we really have a choice.

Both parties are infected with old school Puritan morality; the need to control what they disapprove of. They just manifest it differently.

It is absolutely ridiculous that they are trying to legislate what we put in our own bodies....

You'd think we would be past that by now but apparently not.

I hope this is not too obvious, but there is a group of people (heavily concentrated in Washington and some state capitols) who firmly believe that they are better educated, wiser, and more moral than you are. That being the case, they believe that whatever decision they make is for your own good. If necessary they will force you to do what they believe is your own good. And anyone who opposes them is evil, stupid, or both.

That's why, I believe, a goodly number of people want Washington, and indeed, all government to be less powerful, less able to force things.

That would also have the side benefit of reducing the role money plays in politics. If the government can't force people to act in a way that helps a certain industry, what's the sense in buying votes?

I don't know how you formatted your post like that, it's beautiful.

Also, I'm learning everyday that the only people who don't contradict themselves are true atheist Libertarians, of which I am not one.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
The soda ban is just the latest incarnation in the progressive morality of dictating against what they deem to be unhealthy for you.

Im drinking soda in NY right now.
What the hell are you talking about?
Did Sean Hannity tell you something silly?

reply to post by FortAnthem


You do realize the hypocrisy goes both ways right?

The Conservatives say "get your hands off my Soda...but put your hands in that women's vagina".

Personally...I think one hand should be on the Soda and one on the vagina (meaning I think both regulations should be in place...on Soda...and on Abortion).

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

You do realize the hypocrisy goes both ways right?

I cannot even see it that way with this. This labeling of the left and right sometimes reaches too far. Even the prominent lefties in the media are against this soda thingy. It is just that it does not actually do anything so why bother fighting it. This is not a left thing. This is a nutty mayor thing.

reply to post by habitforming

You're right, that's why I didn't frame it as left v. right. It's a question of how much power a person has and whether they use it to order people around "for their own good." Libertarians don't want to use it that way, likewise, some Republicans and Conservatives. I'm not trying to start a fight, but to me it seems that the "nannys" tend to come from the left.

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by habitforming

 

You're right, that's why I didn't frame it as left v. right.

I did not realize this was your thread?

It's a question of how much power a person has and whether they use it to order people around "for their own good." Libertarians don't want to use it that way, likewise, some Republicans and Conservatives. I'm not trying to start a fight, but to me it seems that the "nannys" tend to come from the left.

So for no reason you told me it is not a right vs. left thing only to end on 'but it is a left thing.'
Wow.
Well the left wants to...make a rule that does nothing about how I purchase soda. The right wants to make birth control illegal and force me to give birth even if it puts my life in danger. I will keep my nannies if they will just keep theirs.

Originally posted by charles1952
I hope this is not too obvious, but there is a group of people (heavily concentrated in Washington and some state capitols) who firmly believe that they are better educated, wiser, and more moral than you are. That being the case, they believe that whatever decision they make is for your own good. If necessary they will force you to do what they believe is your own good. And anyone who opposes them is evil, stupid, or both.

That's why, I believe, a goodly number of people want Washington, and indeed, all government to be less powerful, less able to force things.

That would also have the side benefit of reducing the role money plays in politics. If the government can't force people to act in a way that helps a certain industry, what's the sense in buying votes?

Your point makes perfect sense !!

We all need to remember that throughout history (recent history especially), the "better educated" are the ones who have been responsible for most of the worst financial and social boondoggles ever.

That guy walking down the sidewalk over there isn't, but he takes all the repercussions.

Funny how that works.

reply to post by habitforming

Dear habitforming,

Please forgive me for creating a misunderstanding. When I said I didn't frame it as left v. right, I was refering to my earlier post, not the entire thread. No, it is not my thread, nor do I think I claimed that.

So for no reason you told me it is not a right vs. left thing only to end on 'but it is a left thing.'
Wow.

I must have written very badly, because I'm fairly sure I said "some Republicans and Conservatives," and "It seems that the nannys tend to come from the left. Surely, those statements are mild. If you feel that there are many politicians on the left who desire a smaller, less powerful, less intrusive government, I would be happy to know about them and vote for them.

Well the left wants to...make a rule that does nothing about how I purchase soda. The right wants to make birth control illegal and force me to give birth even if it puts my life in danger.

Allow me to disagree with those characterizations, but I don't think that was your point.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by habitforming

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by habitforming

 

You're right, that's why I didn't frame it as left v. right.

I did not realize this was your thread?

It's a question of how much power a person has and whether they use it to order people around "for their own good." Libertarians don't want to use it that way, likewise, some Republicans and Conservatives. I'm not trying to start a fight, but to me it seems that the "nannys" tend to come from the left.

So for no reason you told me it is not a right vs. left thing only to end on 'but it is a left thing.'
Wow.
Well the left wants to...make a rule that does nothing about how I purchase soda. The right wants to make birth control illegal and force me to give birth even if it puts my life in danger. I will keep my nannies if they will just keep theirs.

The right doesn't want to have to pay for your free sex that the left says to go out and enjoy, and the right wants you to realise that you are murdering life which stems from the free sex that the left says to go out and enjoy. One is fighting to not sanctify the consequences as the answer but rather look to the cause of the problem in the first place. Our respective position falls along that line - either you look to the cause of problems and tackle it, or look to the consequences and tackle those. The left asks and indoctrinates us to do the latter by stripping away the very tenants of morality that used to govern us - because that is the most effective way of legitimising the consequence. Make a society that likes it's free sex and you will have a society that demands the right to butcher life, get other people to pay for their lifestyle and deem anyone that abhors the new found sexual lifestyle as 'old fashioned'. The right then pisses these people off who have grown to love their cake and eat it too. The right then gets labeled as bigots, haters and intolerants. The entire time, however, the left is genetically altering our food, passing laws to outlaw gardens, stops you from collecting rainwater, legislates how big your soda can be, etc etc. These are Talmudic and Pharasaic laws which will govern what goes in your mouth, what you will and won't be allowed to do, and basically will govern every second of your life with thousands of pages of man-made laws that will take away your God given freedoms.

Understand the time in which you live. Understand that the western nations are falling under tyranny because our citizens are busy fighting to legitimise their newfound love of sin instead of stopping and thinking that what they are doing is destroying themselves. As long as they get to eat their cake they cannot see the monster rising in the background that is going to devour them and the cake. Every second of your day will require licenses to govern everything that you do, will dictate what is acceptable or not through bucket loads of useless laws and will take away every blessing that God ever gave. The left exists to do that very thing, and the right cannot stem a rising tide of cake eaters who don't want to examine why they themselves wanted the cake in the first place when all it does is result in evil and death. The right also doesn't address it. God is giving you the choice, and He is applying the pressure in an ever stronger grip to bring His people to repentance. Those that don't repent will face His wrath. Don't be Balaam who could not see the angel of the Lord standing in front of Him with a sword as he rode his donkey, be the donkey who could see the angel and tried in vain to steer his owner away from the impending wrath.

Sure, I know there's plenty of hypocracy over on the right as well and I know there's no law against drinking soda, only selling it in large portions. People will find ways around that law anyway. They always do, even if it means opening up a black market.

What I found interesting about the article is how it points out that porgressives use government to push their morals down people's throats just as much as conservatives do. The only difference is what the two sides define as sins.

The left is always complaining that the government has no business forcing some such religious principals on the people but, they still have formed their own form of morality and use government to force that brand of morality upon the masses in order to feel morally superior.

While the right may focus on sexual morals and such, the left focuses on eating and lifestyle choices and forced inclusiveness in order to make themselves feel morally superior. They use the language of religious morality to mark their opponents as "regressive" or "intolerant" and seek to have society shun their ideological opponents much like old time puritanical societies did in colonial times.

They claim that they are tolerant but are intolerant of anyone who does not toe the line of their new morality. How they can say that what they are doing is any different than religious morality escapes me.

Originally posted by WhoKnows100
The right doesn't want to have to pay for your free sex that the left says to go out and enjoy,

Really? So they want to do what with all the children born to mothers that cannot support them then? Either support the kids through welfare, adopt them and pay directly, or let them die in the streets.

Tell me how the right gets out of paying for the "free sex" that a poor, uneducated, young woman wants to have if she gets pregnant?

In reality, this can be boiled down to personal responsibility. The progressive movement doesn't believe in personal responsibility while the conservative movement wants to see it applied to everything and the neo-con movement wants to see personal responsibility applied to everything up to the corporate level on the societal ladder.

The only thing I can say with certainty is that neither the progressive nor the neo-con movements are even remotely close to what the founders of this country intended us to be. We weren't supposed to be some pathetic nanny state with a group of meddling elitists saving us all from ourselves, nor were we supposed to be a bunch of troglodites who had to deal with both our own issues and get called upon to rescue the corporations who faltered due to their own stupidity.

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by habitforming

 

Dear habitforming,

Please forgive me for creating a misunderstanding. When I said I didn't frame it as left v. right, I was refering to my earlier post, not the entire thread. No, it is not my thread, nor do I think I claimed that.

Can you tell me what your reply to me was all about then? It appears you replied to me as if we were having a conversation and we were not. I wrote something to someone else and you replied to me with "That is why I did not frame it as..."
I did not think I said you framed anything as anything and I am not sure what you were responding to.

I must have written very badly, because I'm fairly sure I said "some Republicans and Conservatives," and "It seems that the nannys tend to come from the left.

Which makes it left vs right. Just because it is not absolute does not excuse you from being called on exactly what you are doing. You cannot say that it is not a left/right thing and then go on to ascribe certain particulars only to the right and certain others only to the left.

Surely, those statements are mild.

What would the level of extremeness have to do with it? Mild or not, they are what they are.

If you feel that there are many politicians on the left who desire a smaller, less powerful, less intrusive government, I would be happy to know about them and vote for them.

As long as you are suggesting there are none, you are framing it as left vs. right. Why are you so desperate to cage that in something else?

Allow me to disagree with those characterizations, but I don't think that was your point.

With respect,
Charles1952

No, my point was not for you to disagree. My point was what I stated.

Its one big circle

Most people are at the top center of the circle in beliefs, morals and politics. The very bottom of the circle is tyranny at its very worst. Go right and you are told more and more what to think and say. Go left and you are told more and more what to think and say. Continue either direction to far and the absolute result is tyranny in whatever form you choose to name it. Halfway around either left or right will promulgate laws that severely constrain liberty.

Eventually it matters not the label put on those you disagree with in belief, morals or politics whether nazi, communist, progressive,leftist, rightest, right wing. No matter the label its all about control of you and how you live life. Everyone of these extreme viewpoints leads to the same place,

Tyranny