Government

I’ve grown tired of hearing the term progressive used to describe people and policies that embody anything but progress. The word suggests a movement toward liberty, reason and human dignity. But what now passes for “progressive” ideology is a regressive assault on foundational principles: race-based social engineering, denial of biological truth, hostility toward the rule of law and an obsession with censorship disguised as compassion.Progress gave us the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, constitutional government and equal protection under the law. It was built on Enlightenment ideals – reason, open inquiry and the primacy of the individual over tribe. The ideologues now claiming the label have rejected those very foundations.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) continues merrily to chop programs and departments left, right and center. Federal diversity, equity and inclusion officials were suspended on his first day in office, prior to being given their marching orders. Government employees have been ordered to justify their existence by explaining what, if anything, they achieved last week. All of this ought to be a positive influence on how the US is governed. Some will claim it to be an ideological war waged by the Trump administration. Yet it is really just the same process that private corporations undergo constantly in their search for greater efficiency and profits. Yet there is a chink in Trump’s strategy.

The year 2024 marks the centenary of Vladimir Lenin’s death. In April of that year, the consummate communist, having blighted as many lives as he could, finally shuffled off his mortal coil, aged fifty-three.“That was young,” you may say. But I reply, “Not nearly young enough.” As we embark on what is sure to be an eventful year, it is worth pausing to remember the hideous legacy of that ice-cold totalitarian. What I have in mind is not so much Lenin’s butcher’s bill as his more general modus operandi. Estimates of the number of people Lenin had tortured, maimed and murdered vary, but are always well into the millions. But what is somehow even creepier is his model of government.

Despite all the precautions and double-checks, at some level everything ends up a matter of trust. And in the case of Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, much of that trust was violated. Why couldn't the military trust him? Why do we have to trust him? The documents against Jack Teixeira, the twenty-one-year-old airman first class who is accused of leaking classified documents, indicate that he was granted a top secret security clearance in 2021, which was required for his job as a computer network technician in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. While that may sound like an exceptional degree of access for such a junior service member, having top secret/SCI (sensitive compartmentalized information) clearance in that kind of job is standard.

Here's a simple question: how much American taxpayer money is being spent to silence, censor, and blacklist opinions? Legacy media reporting on the House Oversight Committee's initial look into the actions of Twitter during the 2020 elections focused mostly on questions surrounding Hunter Biden's laptop. The committee's investigative reports, however, ought to hone in on the most disturbing aspect of this story: social media giants were routinely directed and coerced into censoring and silencing American citizens by entities funded by those same taxpayers.

There are lots of libertarians at the end of a pandemic — and for good reason. For more than a year now Americans have watched the actions of dysfunctional government officials play out like the worst reality show of all time. If the ineptitude wasn’t so infuriating, it might make for entertaining TV. There was the episode when the smug governor who asked his constituents to stay home got caught dining at French Laundry. Or what about the one when the White House coronavirus response coordinator broke her own travel restrictions to winterize her vacation home — and got ratted out by members of her own family? The past 12 months have showcased non-stop hypocrisy from our federal and local officials.