Hillary the Instrument Confesses to her Socialist Beliefs

During Monday's CNN/YouTube Debacle, Hillary Clinton made a startling confession of something I have believed true for many years.

This was the question:

Hi. My name is Rob Porter, and I’m from Irvine, California. I have a question for Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, how would you define the word "liberal"? And would you use this word to describe yourself? Thank you.

Senator Clinton's Response was:

You know, Rob -- (laughter) -- you know, it is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual. Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head, and it’s been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.

I prefer the word "progressive," which has a real American meaning, going back to the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century. I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we’re working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their families. So I consider myself a proud modern American progressive, and I think that’s the kind of philosophy and practice that we need to bring back to American politics. (Applause.)

See the entire transcript here.

So the junior senator from NY associates herself with early 20th century progressives? I encourage interested readers to investigate the progressive movement a good place to start is Wikipedia.

One interesting thing in the Wikipedia file is this passage:

Socialism (in the strict or radical sense) aims to establish a fundamentally different society from the one that currently exists in most countries. While there are different schools of socialism, which often tend to have differing views of the ideal socialist society, some general examples of socialist concepts are: The desire to abolish capitalism, to place the means of production under the collective ownership of the people, and to achieve a very high degree of economic and political equality. Socialists argue that capitalism exploits the working class, and they desire for workers to play a vital role in moving society from capitalism to socialism (either by rising up in a revolution [ citation needed ] or general strike, or by voting en masse for socialist political parties).
In contrast, by definition progressivism aims to achieve gradual social change, and most progressives are outright opposed to any form of radical revolution. Nevertheless, the end goals are the same; the only difference is the pace at which the change occurs.

Progressive ideology was responsible for some interesting, some might argue critical, reforms in the U.S. political system. None-the-less, Wikipedia is correct, it was and still is an ideology based in marxist socialism.

Another disturbing element in progressive ideology finds an outlet through Senator Clinton - the belief that science can produce a "correct" solution and those with knowledge have a duty to impose those "correct" solutions on society. Back to Wikipedia:

The reformers of the Progressive Era advocated the Efficiency Movement. Progressives assumed that anything old was encrusted with inefficient and useless practices. A scientific study of the problem would enable experts to discover the "one best solution." ...Progressives shared a common belief in the ability of science, technology and disinterested expertise to identify all problems and come up with the one best solution. ...Many progressives argued that governments would function better if they were placed under the direction of trained, professional administrators. ...Many progressives sought to make government more rational through centralized decision-making. ...The progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with the progressives' quest for democracy. Taking power out of the hands of elected officials and placing that power in the hands of professional administrators reduced the voice of the people in government.

This world view permeates the Clinton agenda. See for example her desire to appoint a government office for "Sorting out the competing claims and to the best of the scientists' abilities, telling us what to believe." See also her desire to create a service academy of higher education, modeled on the military academies, to produce a new breed of professional administrator/bureaucrat. This should disturb all Americans. For one example see her speech here.

Finally, there is this on Wikipedia:

American progressives tend to support interventionist economics: they advocate income redistribution, and they oppose the growing influence of corporations.

enough said.