The Progressive Dream

A very dear friend of mine and my wife's could most accurately be described as a liberal. By "liberal" I mean a modern-day liberal, a "progressive"; the limited government, pro-individual, tolerant and open-minded connotation that word originally held having long ago been discarded by so-called "progressives".

I qualify "progressive" with quotation marks intentionally because, despite its adherents' endless self-congratulation, there is nothing truly progressive in this philosophy. A worldview that sees people not as individuals but rather as cogs in a giant collective, pieces of clay to be molded and shaped to fit the ideal defined by a select few "enlightened" people armed with the full force of the state, is anything but progressive. 

But regardless of our political differences, I value my friend; she is a trusted confidant, and a worthy adversary. 

Most importantly, I respect my friend.

Though we may disagree, even often, on some, even many things, I know that she gives these matters careful consideration and is answering my arguments with thoughtful rebuttals. That's the nature of respectful disagreement.

Recently we were hanging out with her and began a discussion on changes that we've each noticed taking place in society, particularly since we were young. I mentioned that when I was 14, I took Ninth Grade art and spent an entire semester drawing really violent pictures; how the teacher would comment on my technique, but would only shake her head in mild disapproval at the content — the sign of a truly good teacher.

There were no trips to the school psychologist's office. We didn't even have a school psychologist. 

My friend, however, had a different take. When I described exactly the kinds of pictures I would draw, she became alarmed.

"If a kid did that today, I'd say ban him from the school," she declared.

"Ban him?" I asked, giving her a chance to reconsider her initial position.

"Yes!" she replied, firmly entrenched. "Any kid drawing pictures like that is experiencing horrible violence at home and should be sent to psychiatric counselling!"

This was stated as a matter of fact, beyond debate.

I asked her to pause a moment and think about what she would be doing to such a child; if her "expertise" — formed without any substantive knowledge about this hypothetical child in school today — might be a little presumptuous, laced with that air of superior problem-solving ability that "progressives" attach to their many government-backed edicts.

"Some psychologists have suggested that when a kid draws such pictures — or plays 'violent' games like cops 'n' robbers, et cetera — he's actually engaging in a very important psychological process: forming a healthy understanding of right and wrong," I said. "Do you really think it's fair to potentially condemn this child to years in the clutches of a Therapeutic State?"

After a moment, she did reconsider. "Well," she said, "maybe 'ban' was too strong a word."

I decided to let the matter drop. 

Still, her initial reaction has stayed with me. There's certainly no shortage of examples of kids today being tormented by school bureaucrats for trivial matters — incidents that would never have qualified as "incidents" a generation ago. Do an Internet search of "child suspended for" and the World Wide Web will graciously fill in that implied final word with plenty of absurd reasons for why that action was supposedly required.

In the interests of "zero tolerance" for anti-social behavior, so-called "progressives" are building a world in which such behavior need not actually take place. Experts seemingly know already what's going on — in the child's mind, and even in his home. The tragedy, they say, would be in not allowing those in charge to act out their power fantasies on those in their "care".

Years of "higher learning" — in institutions which pride themselves on such "progressiveness" — have ostensibly equipped today's bureaucrats with a sort of sixth sense when it comes to these matters.

They don't need to actually witness violent behavior — they preempt it.

Like George W. Bush's mythical WMDs in Iraq, they aren't waiting for actual evidence of a threat — lest that evidence come in the form of a "mushroom cloud", or an equivalent disaster that we're regularly assured will strike if those in power aren't busy employing it.

Never mind that these bureaucrats typically get it wrong. That's just proof that more training and resources are required — if only those evil Republicans and libertarians would loosen the purse strings a little.

So confident are "progressive" school authorities in their ability to mold students like pieces of clay, that their reach apparently needs to extend beyond school property: students have been suspended for activities that take place off campus — even for something that happens at home.

Big Brother is truly always watching.

To make matters worse, a school's alleged need to act decisively — however incompetently — in the event of a "possible threat" even extends to harassing parents. In early 2012, RT reported that the father of a 4-year-old girl was arrested, handcuffed, taken to jail, and strip searched — because of a picture his daughter drew in school. 

"[Jessie] Sansone wasn't expecting to be greeted by police when he went to pick up his three children from school last week. Faculty there had become concerned, however, after the man's 4-year-old daughter drew an image last Wednesday that they thought warranted investigation. It was a picture of a man holding a gun, and when teachers asked the girl to explain it, she said it was a depiction of her father.

"'He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters,' teachers say the girl explained."

The school's staff — no doubt inculcated with all the latest psychological mumbo-jumbo conjured by some "progressive" teacher-training academy — "became shocked", RT reports.

They saw a picture like those drawn by kids for decades, maybe centuries — and they were "shocked"?

We can only hope that such timid souls never have to face the searing image of children engaged in a snowball fight. Perish the thought.

"So much so, in fact," were these worldly experts' sensibilities offended, "that they rang up child welfare officials and local law enforcement and arranged for them to meet the girl's father at the end of the school day. By that evening, Sansone had been handcuffed, whisked away to jail and forced to remove his clothes so he could be subjected to a strip search."

This Kafke-esque nightmare only got worse. Authorities then "took all three of Sansone's children and dragged them to Family and Children's Services to be interviewed." Jessie Sanson's wife tried to reason with them. "He had absolutely no idea what this was even about," she said. "I just kept telling them, 'You’re making a mistake.'"

The report continues, "Despite her pleas, the ordeal went on for hours. Sansone says he was scared and was told he would be charged with possession of a firearm. The problem was, he says, that he doesn't own a gun. After being held for hours, Sansone was eventually freed from jail and was asked to authorize a search of his home. Though he didn't have to comply, he says he did so anyway."

No weapons were found.

That's because Jessie Sansone wasn't lying; he doesn't own a gun. 

As the RT reporter added parenthetically (and sardonically), no monsters were found either. Sansone was never charged with a crime.

Reporters following up on the story a few days later were told by the police officer handling the case that, "We had every concern, based on this information that children were in danger." From the bad-guy fighting father, or the monsters? He didn't specify.

Since Jessie Sansone doesn't own a gun — and therefore, isn't shooting bad guys or monsters — it's fair to presume that his daughter was figuring out concepts like "monster" and "bad guy" — and yes, "good guy", in the form of her father — and putting them in a concrete form more understandable to a four-year-old's mind. This is perfectly normal behavior. 

Except that, to "progressive" school officials, it was anything but normal behavior.

Now, had she drawn a picture of a police officer — or some other member of official authority — wielding a gun in defense of the innocent, that would have been perfectly acceptable. We can't have everyday citizens — "mere mundanes", as blogger William N. Grigg sarcastically identifies us — presuming an expertise best left to the more enlightened.

Oh no.

Apologists and water-carriers for such absurdities will warn against condemning this exaggerated response from the school and police, on the grounds that "we live in different times now."

The United States is a violent country, and what with the ready availability of firearms here — well, you can't be too careful. The highest homicide rate of any western industrialized country, remember? Better safe than sorry.

There's just one problem: this happened in Ontario, Canada.

According to no shortage of "progressive" commentators, that country's homicide rate of 1.6 per 100,000 residents is acceptable — and strict gun control is always the reason why. The fact that this rate is higher than that found in many US states — where legal firearm ownership can reach as high as 30% or 40% or even higher — means little to them.

But if Canada's strict firearm laws have made folks up there so damn safe, why the hysteria? 

For "progressives", enough is never enough; they always want more control, over everyone's life. Crime and violence rates — and guns — are but an an expedient — a scare tactic — for gaining that control.

The trouble is, once control has reached a sufficiently oppressive level, freedom has long been smothered in the name of safety and security. At that point, a child's doodle warrants police-state tactics. Innocence is no defense.

Better hide the crayons.