Wednesday, after an attempt to impose stricter gun control laws
failed 54-46, the president stated that
the voting down of the bill yesterday stood in the way of progress.
After hearing that word, it reminded me of other times
throughout history the word has been used. The word marches through our history
like a family ghost, always there, always at our elbow, edging us ever onward.
It seems that in modern America, progress is the byword. The
“march of progress” must not be stopped for any reason. The New Deal? Progress.
The New Society? Progress. The atomic bomb? Progress.
The word progress does not seem very well defined. The Space
Program and the Civil Rights act were both labeled progress, yet I fail to see
how they are alike.
For many, it seems, progress means progressing forward with the
American dream, the ideals that America was built on.
If those ideals are not known then progress cannot be
defined. I doubt the founding fathers would have called the recent gun bill
“progress” they would have called lost ground-lost ground after everything they
had fought for.
Real progress is building a better and freer market economy,
building a better and freer society built on the ideas of the constitution.
Real progress is marching forward in the right direction, not turning around
and marching in the wrong one and saying “we are moving forward.” The American
Dream should not progress into the American Nightmare.
If we want to progress, we need to look the right way first,
and then we can really have some progress.
Andrew C. Abbott
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