PROGRESS IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT

That used to be General Electric's slogan.

Every time I saw or heard it, I responded, "Gee, I remember when it was light bulbs."

Most of us would agree that progress is a good thing, as long as the progress is in the right direction; that is: making things better.

Very often, however, certain groups take a word and change or adapt it to mean what they want it to mean, quite apart from its true meaning.

"Marriage" is one of those words.

Since its beginning, "marriage" has meant the union of a man and a woman. In recent years the homosexual community has usurped the word to include the partnership of two men or two women.

So the moral of the story is: When you don't like the meaning of a word, just ignore or change it. If enough people do so, the word comes to mean what the user(s) want it to mean.

One who believes in progress toward a better product, in the way General Electric meant the term in their advertising, might be called "progressive." That term would indicate that the person believes in improving the product.

In 1912, politicians, specifically Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" Party, stole the word to make it define a movement "...to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics."

The Bull Moose Party was a split off from (are you ready for this?) the Republican Party!

The term "progressive" has gone through several etymological alterations, and today it is often viewed in opposition to conservative ideologies.

We are at a point where "progressive" and "liberal" are almost synonymous.

Still, there are some differences between pure liberalism and pure progressivism.

Progressivism has evolved into a philosophy of governmental control and oversight of almost every aspect of citizens' lives.

The progressive movement in America has more in common politically with extreme socialism and/or communism than it does with traditional liberalism. It has really become a logical, natural adaptation of liberalism.

President BO, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charlie Rangel and other Democrats are examples of modern progressive thinking.

Progressives believe that no matter the problem, the federal government should have a hand in its solution, even to the point of assimilating the very problem itself.

If an automobile company runs into trouble, insert the government into it.

This applies not only to the government takeover of Chrysler and General Motors, but now in "solving" the problems that have beset Toyota.

When financial institutions ran into problems that were brought on by the very "progressive" regulations instituted by government, requiring banks, for instance, to make loans to people who had no means of repaying them, the solution seen by progressives was to increase the involvement of government, including dictating to them what they should be paying their people.

The mind set of the progressive arm of the liberal philosophy is that the more government is involved in the corporate and private lives of citizens, the more secure those citizens will be.

Those of us who disagree with that premise, believe that the evolution of progressivism from its beginning as the Bull Moose Party into a form of "democratic communism," is a danger to the existence of the United States of America as we have known it.

From progressivism will come an extreme degradation of individual freedoms, until true freedom will become a faint memory in the minds of those who survive into the future.

It is not too late...yet.

If Americans can get the dangers of progressivism through their thick skulls, if Americans can educate themselves as to the real meaning and direction of progressivism, if Americans can begin to see that they each share in the responsibility for reversing this insidious menace, they can reverse it by loudly protesting it and by voting for traditionalists in November and in 2012.

When we re-establish the principles upon which this country was formed: independence from the control of a central, mis-responsive government, individual freedom coupled with responsibility, and local control of most issues, we will discover that progress, civil and industrial, will once again enable us to be the world's leader in virtually every aspect of life.

Freedom's progress will become our most important product.