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History: Political Predestination
History is a natural part of any discussion of policy.
But in regular policy talk, no one is allowed to talk about alternative history.
What is ridiculous about this is that alternative history is exactly what you are talking about. If you accept predetermination, it is ridiculous to talk about alternative policies.
You ARE discussing alternatives histories, the alternative history that will be if one or the other policy is adopted.
This assumption is not new. It was I the Confessions of St. Augustine. You know it from John Calvin: It is called Predestination.
In the 1930s W.E. Woodward, a master of common sense, referred to Marxists as “economic Calvinists.”
Once again, what I am talking about is a pure Whitakerism:
I am pointing out a reality that is so obvious and so BASIC that no one else would NOTICE it.
Using a term like social progress means you believe in predestination. Predestination can be biblical or it can claimed as Scientific History like that of Marx which is based on the early Victorian version of the past.
If the future can be different, then the past could have been different. Which means it is not only wrong to use a term like “political progressive,” it is insane. But, like Political Correctness, this terminology has become so much a part of our daily discussion, via Mommy Professor, that we cannot think of talk without it.
No progressive would hesitate to discuss how much Greener the world might have been had the ballots in Florida been less confusing in 2000.
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