Progressives

Political "progressives" have several traits that do not translate well into the practice of governing a free society:

1.) They tend to think that what is importat to them should be important to everyone, and worse, seem to think that their priorities should be everyone else's priorities.

2.) They fall for the "novelist's fallacy." Progressives understand that a novelist has complete control over the fictional events of his works. He can make things up, defy logic and reality, create the impossible. What the progressive exptrapolates from this is human laws are made more or less the same way; one can draft a law to say pretty much anything. Thus, just as the navelist can make whatever he wishes happen in his novel, the progressive thinks he can make whatever he wishes happen in society by passing laws, but the consequences of laws often elude the intent of the legislator. There are forces in the world much more powerful than legislative enactments that affect the destinies of societies.

3.) When confronted with the unintended consequences of overly ambitious laws, the progressive's instinct is not to recognize those greater forces that drive such consequences, it is to tweak those laws, advancing them farther down the the path of futility. The practical progressive begins tweaking by declaring exceptions in the law's application, which exceptions apply first and foremost to the progressives who created the law. Laws are for other people; the progressive is guided by his own unshakeable sense that he is special.