Chesterton and the progressive technocracy

The Left most assuredly does not believe in "minding your own business"

G.K. Chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy (available for free online here), in the chapter about the paradoxes of Christianity, has the following text:

It is very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is that bookcase . . . and the coals in the coal-scuttle . . . and pianos . . . and policemen." The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible.

I have to say I had that sort of reaction watching a clip from the new Democratic vice presidential candidate speaking what seems to be a new favorite line of his, that the Democrats are the party that believes in minding your own business. Some of you might have trouble watching a video on Twitter, so I’ll give you the text below.

He said:

Look, you and I, especially the gray hairs in the crowd, we know our relatives. Republicans used to be the people talking about freedom. Not this group. When they talk about freedom, it means that the government should be free to invade your exam room with your doctor. Look, in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make. We maybe wouldn't make the same choices, but we respect them. And I know that in Minnesota and in Arizona and in places across this country, you know what makes society work best, is when you learn a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.

And the crowd does cheer, and it has two million views. Now I probably don’t have to tell you, the whole difficulty of writing a response to that is… what the heck are you even talking about man? That is the very opposite of the truth. The whole progressive project, from 1930 to 2024 at least, is about the state telling you what you may and may not do, and how you must do what you are allowed to do, in increasingly fine detail, and with no indications anywhere that it intends to take a lighter hand about anything. What are you talking about?

And now we could point around like the wild man trying to defend civilization. The party that tried to use OSHA and twisted administrative law to force unwanted vaccination upon millions is not minding its own business. The party (in California) that threatened doctors for spreading “COVID misinformation” actually, yeah, does want an officer of the state in the exam room with you. The party that, from a thousand miles away in DC, wants to remove federal aid money from your neighborhood elementary school if it won’t promote gender confusion to its students isn’t minding its own business. The party that is threatening your gas stove, after it has already regulated every other appliance in your home and tightens those regulations every year, isn’t minding its own business.

We could point to ten thousand more examples, which is the whole difficulty. Claims like Walz is making there wouldn’t survive five seconds under an intelligent and adversarial press - fortunate for him that corporate journalism is dead now.¹ The progressive technocracy wants to control every aspect of your existence. And because progressivism believes in progressing via state action, it can literally never stop making up new rules to control your life. If it did, it would cease to be progressivism. It is the very opposite of a “mind your own business” philosophy.

That’s about all I have to say because I’m not sure what else to say, trying to defend civilization here. I would love your comments on this one. I’ve said before, part of the point in getting before a camera and saying opposite-of-truth stuff is that it freezes the brains of rational people, and so weakens the opposition. We don’t know how to handle that. We don’t expect a guy to show up in our green front lawn, make a passionate comment about how wonderfully neon pink the grass is, a crowd cheers, and the media writes stories about his excellent understanding of grass. Maybe there is a case here (from their perspective) for, if you’re going to tell a lie, make it an absolute whopper.

But that isn’t everything going on here because the crowd also seems to believe, absurdly, astounding, amazingly, that the Democrats are the party of minding your own business. How do you address a people who seem to be living in a completely different and fake reality?

So your comments especially welcome on this one.

1. Because it is sometimes said that “the media has always been biased”, I think we could make a distinction between “we clearly prefer this candidate, but still act with rigor, intelligence, and professionalism where he is concerned”, which I think characterizes my writing sometimes, and “we are totally in the tank, nothing but a propaganda agency for the Party anymore, we create false realities everyday just to get him elected”. Our corporate media is the latter, not the former.