Popping the progressive bubble
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
181.03314
Summary
Progressives live in a self-induced, entitled bubble. They know what they want to see, while refusing to accept any explanation, though, of why they may not be able to 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.
Transcript
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I want to start with a quote from a fantastic man, P.J. O'Rourke. I loved his work.
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And this quote really says it well about, he calls it liberalism, I call it progressives.
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At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child, miserable, as all spoiled children are,
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unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic, and useless.
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Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats.
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Yes, O'Rourke wasn't one for beating around the bush, and he summed it up brilliantly.
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Now, modern progressives live in a self-induced, entitled bubble.
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They know what they want to see, while refusing to accept any explanation, though, of why they may not be able to have it.
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Instead of reconsidering a policy when it fails to achieve its objective,
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progressives scream louder and double down, as if that could change the outcome.
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Now, what got me going on this one is hearing some elected officials and activists recently calling for rent control.
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And yes, inflation and higher rents are pressuring many citizens, and we'd all like to find ways to ease that pressure.
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The problem with rent control, though, is it's been tried dozens of times in dozens of jurisdictions,
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and it has maintained an impressively consistent 100% failure rate.
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It only causes shortages in supply as investors and property owners flee the rental market.
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Undeterred by reality, though, progressives insist on soldiering along and demanding rent control,
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because this time, just maybe this time, it might work.
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Sounds a lot like the contemporary supporters of communism.
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This habit of willful blindness doesn't stop at rent control, of course.
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Let's look at addiction enablement activists, for example, as they continue to push their ideology of deadly, unintended consequences,
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despite the catastrophic failure of their policies in every city on the west coast of North America.
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Supervised consumption sites, decriminalization of hard drugs,
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and a permissive environment for open drug consumption has caused overdoses to explode in cities.
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Portland, Oregon saw overdoses more than double under their progressive approach.
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Not to be outdone, Vancouver legalized hard drugs and is handing out safe supply.
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The fruit of that effort has led Vancouver to break records in daily recorded overdoses.
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Still, progressives insist if we just enabled the addicts a little more,
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they'd somehow kick that habit and become functional members of society.
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Look, addicts need treatment, and they need mental health supports.
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But they don't need free drugs, and there's no such thing as a safe supply of meth.
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The addiction epidemic is complicated, and there's many factors attached to it.
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One factor is the progressive trend of deinstitutionalization over the last few decades.
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Well-meaning but misguided governments closed down mental health facilities
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and moved towards community living initiatives.
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Unfortunately, that initiative has led to people with mental health challenges
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finding themselves either on the streets, in jail, or dead.
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We don't like the idea of incarcerating people due to their having a mental health issue
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But it doesn't matter what you like or don't like.
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A reality has to be faced that some people simply have to be kept in a secure environment
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for their own protection and for the protection of others.
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That's what they like, saying, we've got to allow their dignity.
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When they're passed out and having lost bowel control in a bus stop,
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A growing addiction problem, of course, also leads to the growing gang problem
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as criminals compete to supply the drugs to these addicts.
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Now, those gangs often go to war and we see spikes in shootings in city centers
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and progressives love to demand simple solutions to complex problems as usual.
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Rather than dealing with the complicated and sticky issues of often ethnic-based gangs
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they demand the illegalization and seizure of firearms from law-abiding citizens, hunters, such.
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There's no evidence such seizures will make anybody feel safer.
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But progressives aren't bound by evidence, only impulses and knee-jerk reactions.
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Likewise, as we see the cost of living skyrocketing,
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progressives are accusing food producers and retailers of greed and gouging,
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despite readily available data indicating narrow profit margins in those industries.
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Meanwhile, progressives refuse to accept the impact government actions
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such as carbon taxes or chemical fertilizer bans might have on food production costs.
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The protests and even eco-terrorism against petrochemical production in Canada
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continue to expand as progressives continue with an ongoing tantrum against petrochemicals.
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They refuse to accept the reality that we don't have a feasible alternative to it yet.
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but can't explain what we'll be transitioning into.
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Germany learned this lesson the hard way rather recently,
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but our local progressives have planted their fingers in their ears whenever that's mentioned.
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progressives scream loudest when their demands are blunted.
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Just listen to them if somebody dares to point out that
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no matter how hard you screw your eyes shut and scream it,
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you can't change a boy into a girl or a girl into a boy.
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and I have no problem with respecting how they want to identify.
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I refuse to indulge in claims contrary to biological reality, though,
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and that's what progressives are asking us to do now.
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Conservatives aren't heartless, though that's what we're often accused of.
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We're bound by reality, even when the reality stinks.
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and it doesn't matter how good the intentions are behind it.
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If a policy doesn't work, it needs to be abandoned.
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Conservatives aren't this way because we don't care.
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in order to find solutions to problems that actually work.
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we just let ourselves sink into the fuzzy world of delusion
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our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.
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helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms,
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about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.