by Charles W. Kraut

In this article I conclude my discussion about the Narrative and the insidious Progressives assaults that have dramatically changed our nation, our government, our families, and even the way we think about things.  This article will highlight a primary policy position being forced upon us by the Progressives.  Though it is central to their overall plan, few Americans are even aware that this campaign is currently in progress.

This campaign deals with the nature – or, rather, the quality - of mortal life.  For most of its existence on earth mankind has been under the thumb of autocrats, dictators, strongmen, monarchs, and other persons who considered themselves part of the “elite” and thus above the law they imposed upon others.  Even those nations with a constitution and a “President” have frequently succumbed to the lust for power and wealth, which often sees the constitution shredded and the form of government altered to fit the personality cult of the “great leader.”

The United States was designed to be the exception.  In fact, at its inception in 1789 with a newly-ratified Constitution, the United States was the sole exception in human history of a people who became self-governing under a republican form of government.*

Our Declaration of Independence referenced natural rights in declaring that all men had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution said nothing about the economic system we would adopt, which in itself was unique.  Americans were free not only to speak, read, write, worship, and own property, but they were free to express their own initiative in creating the kind of life they wanted for themselves and their families. We didn’t have a monarch who stood ready to seize one person’s property to give to another as a reward.  We were not serfs, bound to land we did not own and condemned to sweat out a miserable existence under the overseer’s whip. We were not destined to a life of 12-14 hour days beginning in childhood in a textile mill, producing goods we could never afford and facing starvation because our wages were so low.

Our Constitution didn’t even bind us down to a government-sponsored educational system in which those who gained an education would be groomed for a lifetime of service to the reigning tyrant.  The Founding Fathers wisely left education out of the Constitution, though several of them commented on its importance.  Our earliest colleges were established as theological seminaries.  Though most of their graduates would not join the ordained clergy, it was widely recognized that a solid grounding in the classics and Christianity would best prepare a man for responsible citizenship in this unique society.

Public education developed across the land, with one-room schoolhouses and lone teachers teaching several grades simultaneously in that one small room.  McGuffey’s Readers were introduced in 1836 to bring the classics and Christianity into the lives of all of America’s children.  After all, what teaching could be more important than the doctrine that each of us held personal responsibility for what he would become?

America became a beacon to the world to all who were willing to work.  Millions came here seeking freedom from oppression and looking for a better life of their choosing.  Many, realizing that they would never achieve personal wealth,  focused on their children and did all in their power to enable them to have a better life in this free country.

This was true of my own family.  In 1855 my 2nd great grandfather Fritz Kraut left his home in Windesheim, Germany with two of his four siblings to come to America and settle in St. Louis, Missouri.  There was just not enough farmland in the family to divide among five children.

Fritz became a prominent citizen, and was elected to a 2-year term as a circuit judge in 1882.  He lived in a house that became a National Historic Landmark, the Six Mile House on St. Charles Road.  (At least, it was an historic landmark until eminent domain declared that it must be razed to make way for an expansion of the Lambert Field parking lot. )

One of Fritz’s brothers opened an underground beer garden in the limestone caverns close to the downtown area. 

In St. Louis Fritz met and married a young woman named  Juliana Christmann, who had

grown up just 17 kilometers away from Windesheim in Feilbingert, Germany, a town that in 1975 still had cobblestone streets and horse-drawn farm equipment, and houses that are centuries old.

America attracted the best and brightest from many nations, because in America you could do what you wanted to do instead of being subject to the rule of another.  As Henry Grady Weaver enthusiastically explains in  The Mainspring of Human Progress:

Also:

This is what equality of opportunity is all about. As Cleon Skousen details in his book The Five Thousand Year Leap, Americans achieved more through technological and economic advances in 200 years than the entire human race had accomplished in 5,000 years.

We must be careful not to confuse equality of opportunity with equality under the law. To me, the language of the Declaration is unsatisfying on this point.  Whenever I read  “that all men are created equal” I just want to break into Jefferson’s brilliant prose and add “under the law.”  However, Jefferson is correct as he continues “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . .” 

We are equal under the law if the law recognizes and respects our God-given unalienable rights.  We are obviously not equal in our intellectual capacity, the color of our skin, our religious beliefs, our level of education and its quality, and much more.  The point, one easily shoved into a corner by Progressives, is that each American is free to create his or her own life through utilizing the talents, resources, abilities, intelligence, and handicaps he or she possesses.  We may obtain property; we may hire employees; we may invent, create, and produce; we may write, and influence others; or we may work for an employer and advance in his service as we gain experience and knowledge.

The law is designed to protect us in our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.  In America, that is the only function of the law; to defend us against enemies within and without, and to maintain our freedoms so that we may pursue the way of life  we choose.

This is a marvelous and unique concept.  Sadly, it is a concept we have long taken for granted.  While we continue to boast of our freedom to choose, governments at all levels have laid upon us burdensome taxes and myriad regulations that destroy both profitability and initiative. Government has assumed the role of nanny, caretaker, and judge, infiltrating every aspect of our lives to stabilize and equalize our conduct.

In my earlier article Whose Victory?  I discussed how significant change had been brought about in the way we related to our government. These changes were deliberate.  Some came about through good intentions; some through good intentions where the unintended consequences had not been thought out; and some came about thanks to the influence of Karl Marx and those who came to this country to implement the evils of Progressivism.

Equality of Outcomes

If you have equality of opportunity you do your best to ensure that each person has the opportunity to fulfill his potential.  This is not a function of government; indeed, it is best achieved under a very limited government.  It comes about when children are properly raised and educated, and their potential is fully developed with the help of those who love them and have a responsibility toward them.  That, of course, presupposes parents and teachers who themselves are aware of and who exercise their own potential, having developed it at the feet of loving, educated parents. 

Even more important than the education itself is the moral responsibility each of us bears to our fellow man, to ourselves, and to our God.  If correct teachings are instilled in us we are less likely to allow liberty to become license.  We are more likely to seek our fortune through the employment of our own integrity initiative, and intelligence, and less likely to take advantage of others.  We are less likely to push others down so we can rise as they fall; instead, we will lift others as we lift ourselves.  This is the real promise of America, though it seems to be realized only rarely.

Now let’s compare equality of opportunity, for which America is so famous, with equality of outcomes.  Equality of outcomes is a recipe for slavery, misery, hunger, pain, and death.  Why, then, does it have such a tremendous appeal, particularly among the Millennials?  That question is easy to answer; our children are being indoctrinated with falsehoods about words whose meaning have been carefully altered.  We have George Orwell to thank for revealing that concept, though he was merely expanding upon what Lenin and others had instituted. His essential book 1984 introduces the slogans “War is Peace,” and “Love is Hate,” among others.

Here is what Equality of Outcomes looks like to me:

Or this:

What you see here is equality of outcomes.  Everyone lives in an identical apartment or row house. In theory, no one envies what anyone else has because everyone has the same things. However, equality of outcomes goes much farther than where we live . . .

 Agenda 21

If you are familiar with Agenda 21 you already know something about the Progressives’ plans for you.  Agenda 21 is a classic of a Progressive planned economy and a model for equality of outcomes.  In Agenda 21, for instance, everyone lives in an apartment complex like the ones on the previous page—which I saw everywhere in the northern sections of Hong Kong years ago and in England.  Every occupant is a tenant; no one owns real property.  Everyone lives “in town” so as to be close to their place of work.  No one owns a car; bicycles are the rule.  Either you ride your bicycle to work or you walk—or take mass transit, where it is
available.

Taxes are high under Progressivism because the economy is socialist rather than capitalist, and the government must make up for all the glaring deficiencies of a welfare state.  Your few possessions are in your apartment; no one owns a boat, or a plane, or any of the things we may currently enjoy like a summer home.  No, you can’t have equality of outcomes if anyone has more than anyone else—except, of course, the elite, who tell us how to live while they enjoy their own lavish lifestyles.

Under equality of outcomes the government tells you what education you will receive and what career you will undertake. Your life is not your own.  No matter how hard you work you will never “get ahead” unless you manage to become a Party faithful and join the elite.  That’s the whole point of “social justice” and “fairness,” as currently defined by the Progressives.  If one person has more of anything than another, that is unfair and must be rectified. 

To accomplish this, the Progressives have established the narratives of victimhood and the necessity of reparations in an effort to make everyone “equal.”  It is all a gross deception, but it has proven very successful.  Equality of outcomes enables the Progressive movement to attack the wealthy, except, of course, for wealthy Progressives like Bill Gates and George Soros.  It is almost certain that the next session of Congress will entertain a bill with a “wealth tax,” another means of leveling society and threatening the successful.

Bottom line, under equality of outcomes each of us would be paid the same amount, live paycheck to paycheck like millions of Americans already do, be deprived of almost all our entertainment and our “toys,” and work long hours regardless of our field of labor.  We would do this because our government is struggling to bring forth the “glorious revolution of the proletariat” that will “free all of us from our chains.”  Peace will be established because everyone will be the same and no one will covet what another possesses.

If this sounds like nonsense, be assured that it is.  Marx was dead wrong in his understanding of human nature.  However, if you read Marx with an eye to the elite, you understand things much better.  The elite, you see, get to play God.  They enjoy enormous wealth and exercise tremendous power.  Why? Simply because they are the elite, and only the elite are fit to rule.  It is their job to suppress human longings and desires, and to ensure that human suffering is shared by all in equal measure—except for themselves.  The elites will control the world’s population in ways we have yet to discover.  They will dumb us down by destroying books and prohibiting us from becoming educated except in our trade or specialty.

Marx knew that if the revolution ever came about he would make sure he became the top dog.  After all, he was the great thinker; a corrupt, dissolute, and evil man who changed the world with a fatally flawed idea.

Just look at the kind of people who avidly pursued and embraced Marxism.  Once you identify them you understand how all of this unfolds.  Of course, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, and so many other monsters were Progressives / Marxists.  Remember, though, that many Americans have also joined that camp, including Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama.  Some, like John Dewey, were so caught up in the foolish notions of Progressivism that they spent their lives undermining the American way of life in their efforts to install a fraud and a counterfeit.  They all knew what they were doing. They were deliberately subverting the greatest nation in history.

The quality of life under equality of outcomes

Equality of outcomes destroys incentive.  It destroys initiative. It destroys happiness, enthusiasm, diligence, satisfaction, and contentment.  Every day is the same in an equality of outcomes environment; standing in long lines to purchase essentials, being paid starvation wages no matter how hard we work, being prohibited from escaping even temporarily from our prison-like community, and being forced to endure the long-winded speeches of “Big Brother.”  Monotony, tedium, boredom, depression, hopelessness, anguish—these are the fruits of Progressivism, and they all are part of the Progressive goal, equality of outcomes.

“The shortages will be divided among the peasants.”

Is this the future you envision for your children?  If you do not fight against it, you had better prepare them for the worst.

The Progressive movement is a well-oiled and well-funded machine.  It gains adherents daily and has millions of hangers-on and sycophants. It gives people false hope that they may escape by joining the elite.  In the Soviet Union, for example, the “elite” Communist Party numbering about five million members controlled not only Russia but the entire USSR. 

Once the New Order is in place the book burnings and executions will begin. Many of the hopefuls will discover to their dismay that the promises were false, and that they had been deliberately misled into joining a project for which there would be no reward.

Progressivism is the iron fist in the velvet glove.  It is the bitter pill that has been sugar-coated to make it easier to take.  For example,  in one instance the sugar coating was civil rights; the bitter pill inside was gay rights. In another, the sugar coating was freedom from guilt in our sexual relations; the bitter pill was the decline of morality.  In a third, the sugar coating was the liberation of women to pursue careers and to be equal with men; the bitter pill was that women fought for and won the right to be abused.

In the case of Bill Gates and his foundation, the sugar coating was vaccinating hundreds of thousands in Africa and India; the bitter pill is that many of those vaccinations also sterilized women and/or had major negative side effects including death, demonstrating that the intent was population control rather than improved health.

Things are not always what they seem.  We should never underestimate the power of an idea put forward by powerful and moneyed interests. We should never have let Progressivism roll over us by telling ourselves “It won’t be bad if we only let them _______________ . “

It is the great lie of our time.  Progressivism denies and replaces God. It replaces truth with the Narrative, as I discussed in another aerticle on this website.  There can be no compromise with truth.

There is a way out

Let’s listen to Henry Grady Weaver once more:

Note: Emphasis above is the author’s.  These thoughts were penned in 1947.  They have never been truer or more important than they are today.

There is the answer.  If we live our lives in accordance with “Christian ethics,” and encourage others to do the same, we will begin to restore the eternal verities of moral truth. We will see through the false Narrative and reject it as individuals, as families, and, eventually, as a nation.

May God help us to accomplish this before it is too late.

Charles W. Kraut