“What are our values?” Warren asked the audience, some of whom held up “Run Liz Run” signs. “What does it mean to be a progressive?”

She went on to outline 11 tenets of progressivism:

My response is in italics:

1. “We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement, and we’re willing to fight for it.”

* Wall Street should be subject to tough free market forces the same as everybody else – corrections, not bailouts and crony favors, including selective regulations and enforcement funded and finagled by the government.

2. “We believe in science, and that means that we have a responsibility to protect this Earth.”

* Scientists are subject to the same faults and flaws as other human beings, and their theories must be subject to falsification, not glorified by government intervention. Government is a chief cause of environmental waste and pollution and so it should be greatly reduced. We have become polluted with government regulators who have worked many evils and abuses in the name of the environment.

3. “We believe that the Internet shouldn’t be rigged to benefit big corporations, and that means real net neutrality.”

* The Internet should be kept free to the benefit of everybody – get government regulation out of the way and allow market competition to regulate it.

4. “We believe that no one should work full-time and still live in poverty, and that means raising the minimum wage.”

* Government forced wage increases have proven to lead to unemployment and greater poverty. The free market which is the only proven way to raise general living standards, so get government out of the way and let prosperity raise wages for everyone.

5. “We believe that fast-food workers deserve a livable wage, and that means that when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them.”

* For fast-food workers to receive a “livable wage,” the employer must first make enough to pay them such, which means the worker must produce enough to deserve such. So get government out of the way by reducing taxes and regulations and allow the market for workers, for fast-food, and for small businesses to work out the balance within the ever increasing levels of prosperity within an environment of liberty.

6. “We believe that students are entitled to get an education without being crushed by debt.”

* Government involvement in education in every direction has caused tuition to sky-rocket. Get government out of the education business altogether, and allow market competition to improve quality while lowering costs.

7. “We believe that after a lifetime of work, people are entitled to retire with dignity, and that means protecting Social Security, Medicare, and pensions.”

* Give people back their dignity and self-respect by getting government out of the retirement, medical, and investment business and protecting them from irresponsible and ruinous government social engineering schemes which drain everyone’s resources while increasing government control over everyone’s life.

8. “We believe—I can’t believe I have to say this in 2014—we believe in equal pay for equal work.”

* By continually increasing prosperity, the free market does more for equal pay for equal work than any government intervention ever did or could do. By the way, the wage gap is largely a statistical fabrication.

9. “We believe that equal means equal, and that’s true in marriage, it’s true in the workplace, it’s true in all of America.”

* Equality does not come in the way of the government giving out special privileges.

10. “We believe that immigration has made this country strong and vibrant, and that means reform.”

* In the past, the assimilation of hardworking and motivated immigrants into our culture has enriched our culture, so we need reform in order to return to such policies. Immigrants who do not assimilate, and who take advantage of government hand outs, is destructive of our culture.

11. “And we believe that corporations are not people, that women have a right to their bodies. We will overturn Hobby Lobby and we will fight for it. We will fight for it!”

* Every person has a right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, which includes possessing his/her own body – which eliminates Obamacare altogether. A woman’s right to choose with regard to her own body ends where another person’s bodily life begins. It is wrong for government to force persons to choose against their will to pay for the care of other persons’ bodies or to fund other persons’ decisions about their bodies. Of course corporations are not technically persons, but they do involve contractual relationships of persons and so they can be treated as if they are persons within the terms of the contract.

And the main tenet of conservatives’ philosophy, according to Warren? “I got mine. The rest of you are on your own.”

One of the main tenets of conservative philosophy is to protect the rights of the individual from the theft of the collective. Genuine and general prosperity never comes except in the way of individual liberty. Progressivism means progressive growth of government. Human progress is not advanced by the growth of government, but by the maintenance of liberty. In terms of human progress, progressivism is actually regressivism – moving backwards into the darker times of government regulation and its necessary consequences of general impoverishment and elitist oppression.

Harvey Bluedorn