Misunderstanding Progress

During a recent appearance on the All The Smoke Podcast, Vice President Kamala Harris met with two multimillionaire professional basketball players to lay out her sad vision for (and of) America. One clip from this meeting that caught the eye of conservative pundits was one of Ms. Harris reminding us that progress is almost impossible without people marching in the streets.

Specifically, she observed: “There is no significant progress we have made in our country without the people often taking to the streets.”

There is some small amount of truth to what she says. When tyrants oppress the people, sometimes certain public displays of frustration must take place. Sometimes, it is necessary for workers to band together and strike. Sometimes, the only cure to social ills is to starve the beast and remind them that there are more of us than them. In fact, by my estimates we are way overdue for demonstrations against our billions of tax dollars being sent arbitrarily to foreign nations (without accountability), confiscatory property, income, capital gains, gasoline, and estate taxes being imposed on the citizenry, members of Congress getting filthy rich by engaging in insider trading, and state governments permitting the willful murder of children while they reside inside the womb.

Of course, these issues aren’t the type that Ms. Harris is at all concerned about. Rather, she sits on her "equity” high horse and declares that unless and until there are equal outcomes for all people, progress will remain insufficient in her view of society.

There are five major flaws with this argument.

1. Defining “progress” in such a limited way is both insulting and dumb. It’s insulting to the millions of people who have anonymously contributed for centuries to all kinds of social progress. While their contributions may be completely taken for granted or ignored by some, they are nonetheless real. It’s dumb because it assumes the only worthwhile progress that has any degree of value is harmonious race relations.

While inharmonious race relations are not to be celebrated, it is true that the case can easily be made that America is currently the least racist nation on earth. Millions of people from all over the world of every color continue to pour into America. These immigrants obviously don’t stay away because America is a hopeless case; they want to be here!

But even if our race relations are not ideal – and appreciating the reality that they are not “ideal” anywhere else either – are there not other kinds of progress to seek?

- What about the automobile? Did it not represent progress over the horse and buggy (and an elimination of the waste and disease that went with them)?

- What about healthcare? Are we not better at curing disease, treating injuries, reducing cavities, amputating limbs, and much more? Even if I have my doubts about the current state of the pharmaceutical/health/government complex, surely Ms. Harris would say that the state of our health in America has never been better?

- What about engineering and the building of skyscrapers and energy-efficient homes? Wasn’t this specific progress made without any rioting?

-What about reasonably priced consumer goods (that you don’t have to wait in long lines to purchase)?

- What about technological progress? You know, the Internet, affordable phones/computers, social media…these all have their dark sides, but isn’t consumer-level technology an example of progress that didn’t require marching in the streets?

- I’m trying to remember…which street riot produced air conditioning?

- Which million-man march produced affordable energy?

- Which violent protest made cheap electricity possible?

- Which “civil rights leader” created America’s ability to produce enough food to feed our country, in addition to much of the rest of the world? (I do think that our food production models need some reform, but as she does not, surely there has been tremendous “progress” in the growing, harvesting, and distribution of food.)

But, now that I think about it, the largest annual march in this nation did actually lead to significant progress. The March for Life is a protest event that takes place every January in Washington, D.C. It ultimately led to ending the tyranny of the Roe decision once and for all.

And yet, it is Ms. Harris who now wishes to destroy a recent Supreme Court decision that reversed Roe by eliminating the filibuster in the Senate to essentially make the right to abortion the law of the land. I guess their taking to the streets didn’t achieve quite the level of progress that she was hoping for.

My other critiques are:

2. The interviewers, Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, while they may have been exceptionally good at putting a ball in a hoop, they are not exactly angels. Do you remember the Malice at the Palace? Stephen Jackson was in the middle of that. He also had his share of nightclub shenanigans, such as this (click the link for details). His partner, Matt Barnes has been engaged in multiple violent altercations, several with women. Shouldn’t the progress of which Harris speaks begin with these men of questionable character?

3. Given that Ms. Harris has supported bail for those who almost burned Minneapolis to the ground, is she calling for peaceful marches through Selma, or instead a re-creation of the George Floyd riots? Is her recent interview some type of a dog whistle to the left, a signal that if things don’t go our way, it’s time for their supporters to light some cities on fire again? Is that the kind of “taking [it] to the streets” activity which she believes is desired to achieve “progress?”

4. It is a bit rich that the entire interview was conducted by three millionaires. It is ironic that America is such a regressive place that one can become filthy rich by playing the game of basketball or by marrying a millionaire. What exactly is it that they are complaining about?

5. Finally, can we ask the hard question of exactly what “progress” has been achieved from the nonviolent marches? There was the Civil Rights Act, which we can all agree was a good thing (although we should also be able to agree that the LGBT appropriation of it is quite dangerous). But since the more recent wave of marching in the streets for progress, our situation, per the Left, has never been worse. We are constantly told that America remains a horrifically racist and sexist country. Meanwhile, children are born out of wedlock more now than ever, which by coincidence just happens to be the single-best predictor of future criminal behavior. And speaking of crime, it is up, no matter what the FBI says. Last but not least, our nation has never been in more debt. Basically, we are reminded over and over again that it has never been worse! So what did all the protests achieve?

I refuse to be lectured about social ills by those who have made millions of dollars, who have celebrated while our cities have been burned down, and who are too dumb to have the basic historical awareness that all we have known for generations in America is forward momentum. And very little of America's successes came as a result of marching in the streets. It was accomplished by nameless, faceless souls laboring in obscurity, serving to make the world a better place. Harmony is great; but true progress is not limited to harmony only. Especially if race relations have now deteriorated to a point where marchers in the streets feel compelled to burn our cities to the ground (for a purpose that is not altogether clear).

What the Marxists offer is not progress at all, but rather regress, regress to an old and tired concept that has been tried over and over again, and which has resulted in the deaths of millions of people across history and across the globe. Since their long march through our American institutions, our health is worse, our cities are more dangerous, our borders are open, the dollar is weaker, our debt is higher, our enemies now mock us, and race relations are at an all-time low. Maybe a little gratitude and/or appreciation for all the progress we have made would be a good step towards achieving the true harmony that we all seek.

Photo Credit: Awfulannouncing. com