“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of snivelling brats.”.~P.J. O’Rourke.O’Rourke wasn’t one for beating around the bush and he summed it up brilliantly. May he rest in peace..Modern progressives live in a self-induced, entitled bubble. They know what they want to see while refusing to accept any explanation of why they can’t have it. Instead of reconsidering a policy when it fails to achieve its objective, progressives scream louder and double down as if that could change the outcome..What got me going on this was hearing some elected officials and activists calling for rent control..Yes, inflation and higher rents are pressuring many citizens and we would all like to find ways to ease that pressure. The problem with rent control is it has been tried dozens of times in dozens of jurisdictions and has maintained an impressively consistent 100% failure rate. It only causes shortages in supply as investors and property owners flee the rental market..Undeterred, by reality, progressives insist upon soldiering along and demanding rent control because this time, just maybe this time it might work. Much like contemporary supporters of communism..This habit of willful blindness doesn’t stop at rent control. That is just a recent and stark example..Addiction enablement activists continue to push their ideology of deadly, unintended consequences despite the catastrophic failure of their policies in every city on the West Coast of North America. Supervised consumption sites, decriminalization of hard drugs and a permissive environment for open drug consumption has caused overdoses to explode in cities. Portland Oregon saw overdoses double under their progressive approach. Not to be outdone, Vancouver legalized hard drugs and is handing out a “safe” supply. The fruit of that effort has led to Vancouver break records in daily, recorded overdoses. Still, progressives insist if we just enabled addicts more, they would somehow kick the habit and become functional members of society..Addicts need treatment and mental health supports. Not free drugs and there is no such thing as a “safe supply” of meth..The addiction epidemic is complicated and has many factors attached to it..One factor is the progressive trend of deinstitutionalization over the last few decades. Well meaning but misguided governments closed down mental health facilities and moved toward community living initiatives. Unfortunately, that initiative has led to people with mental health challenges finding themselves either on the streets, in jail or dead. We don’t like the idea of incarcerating people due to their having a mental health issue through no fault of their own. It doesn’t matter what you like or don’t like. A reality has to be faced that some people simply have to be kept in secure environments for their own protection and the protection of others. Progressives say the dignity of addicts must be preserved. Are they maintaining dignity on the streets?.The growing addiction problem leads of course to a growing gang problem as criminals compete to supply the drugs. The competing gangs often go to war and we are seeing a spike in shootings in city centres. Progressives love to demand simple solutions to complex problems. Rather than dealing with the sticky issues of ethnic based gangs and illegally imported handguns, they demand the illegalization and seizure of firearms from law abiding citizens. There is no evidence such seizures make anybody feel safer, but progressives aren’t bound by evidence. Only impulses and kneejerk reactions..As the cost of living skyrockets, progressives accuse food producers and retailers of greed and gouging despite readily available data indicating narrow profit margins in those industries. Meanwhile, progressives refuse to accept the impact government actions such as carbon taxes or chemical fertilizer bans may have on food production costs. Cognitive dissonance can get expensive..The protests and even eco-terrorism against petrochemical production in Canada continue to expand. While progressives continue with an ongoing tantrum against petrochemicals, they refuse to accept the reality that we don’t have a feasible alternative to them yet. Intransigently digging in their heels, they demand we transition out of oil and gas but can’t explain what we will be transitioning into. Germany learned this lesson the hard way rather recently and have gone back to burning coal but our local progressives plant their fingers in their ears when that is mentioned..Like most incalcitrant children, progressives scream loudest when their demands are blunted..Just listen to them if somebody dares to point out that no matter how hard one may wish it, we can’t change a boy into a girl or a girl into a boy. People can make every effort to transition and I have no problem with respecting how they want to be identified. I refuse to indulge in claims contrary to biological reality..Conservatives aren’t heartless though that is what we are often accused of. We are bound by reality, even when the reality stinks. It doesn’t matter if a policy feels good and it doesn’t matter how good the intentions are behind it. If a policy doesn’t work, it needs to be abandoned..Conservatives aren’t this way because we don’t care. It’s quite the contrary..We care enough to set aside sentiment even when it feels bad in order to find solutions to problems that work..If we didn’t care, we would let ourselves sink into the fuzzy world of delusion enjoyed by modern progressives.
