On Bosses and Daddies

So, you may recall a few weeks back that Chris Rock said that President Obama was like the country's boss and daddy.  Setting aside the colossal irony (think about who said it) and stupidity of such a statement, his word choice actually deserves a bit more analysis than its shallowness suggests.

That statement reveals one of the big differences between how conservatives and progressives think.

Julius Caesar.

Something everyone should understand is that throughout most of history, governments have owned their people.  Not in the strictest sense, as a master would a slave, but close to it.  Governments had expectations and required duties of their people without any reciprocal expectations from those people.  Kings could tax their populations into poverty and levy them for war without the people's consent recourse.  More recently, the regimes of facists and communists curbed freedoms, demanded work and often pointless fighting for the state.  This has held true throughout history and continues in most nations today.

This is a major reason why America has been different from nearly every nation that has existed on the Earth.  For in America, we are not lorded over by nobles, senators, councilmen, kings or ayatollahs.  We are in charge of them.  We are responsible for electing them and keeping them in check (whether or not this is true in practice is another matter).  Our government is there, with our consent, to keep an orderly, lawful society, for no one denies that laws, diplomats and militaries must exist.

However, no one rules over us nor do we need anyone to do so.  We accept that we are free peoples who can make decisions for ourselves, for good or for ill.

Napoleon Bonaparte.

For the progressive, it is the exact opposite.  They think collectively, as most people around the world have and continue to do.  They see people (besides themselves, naturally) as requiring, if not demanding, someone to rule over them.  They see the country and its people as needing a boss to control it and direct it.  They believe that without the guidance of some "benevolent" ruler, society would collapse, a victim to its own "excesses."

Though Chris Rock never said those words, he and millions of other leftists imply this belief with the value and importance they place on government.  They (unwittingly) become proponents of subservience to men.

This way of thinking is dangerous.  When we see men in positions of power as our "bosses" and our "daddies," as opposed to mere men, we raise them to a position in our hearts where they do not belong.  This eventually translates to elevating them to those same places in reality.  We end up conceding that we are incapable of governing ourselves without the help of some external force.

Unfortunately, the progressive looks to men to give them direction and make them better people.

Men who are flawed and prone to error.

Adolf Hitler. 

Men whose egos lead them to overestimate their value and abilities.  Many, if not most, leaders of history form cults of personality around themselves, leading up to and including actual worship.  Many become so enamored with themselves and what they believe they represent, they place themselves on pedestals over God Himself (or any god, for that matter).  In their own minds and in the minds of those who follow them closest, they become infallible and gods unto themselves.

Progressivism's fundamental weakness is its dependence on men to lead and solve problems, rather than each individual.  Their ethos leaves no room for God or individual choices.  By accepting other men as their "bosses," they leave themselves vulnerable to being controlled and destroyed by the men they look up to.



Quick footnote: My point (especially with the pictures), if you have not picked up on it, is that this mentality creates tyrants.  It creates men who control the people, people who, because they think this way, allow these things to happen.  This has nothing to do with Barack Obama, either.  This applies to any man or woman, historical or in the future, who is treated as a boss or father figure when they are merely the leader of an organization or country, no less mortal or flawed.