I am (1) a progressive, (2) a Democrat, (3) an administration supporter, (4) thoughtful enough to know the preceding three positions are not generally in conflict, and (5) capable enough as a citizen to know that when they are in conflict, my duty lies in making the Democratic Party better and the administration more like we all know from experience it's capable of being. It is not in setting myself up as the Inquisitor of ideological purity who is more concerned with subjecting my own team to trials by fire in search of witches, heretics, and enemy infiltrators than having ideas and exploring alternatives.
I have no patience for arsonists and berserkers, and no time for people with no moral compass who think progressive ideals are measured by the size of someone's Enemies List. Anyone who wants to be a miserable bastard like that is welcome to wallow in their private, self-important hell, living in a world they consider unworthy of themselves and populated by people they regard as villainous obstacles to their agenda. But attitudes like that don't put food on people's tables, roofs over their heads, hope in their hearts, or ideas in their minds - all it does is feed on suffering and fear, like a horrific taxidermy mockery of progressive values.
Sincere people who are angry about something take actions to change what angers them, or they become philosophical and learn to do what they can in an imperfect world without becoming unhinged. They don't deliberately perpetuate what angers them and look for excuses to continue feeling that way, and they don't resent and fear being deprived of that feeling. They don't trawl through information filtering out everything that might mitigate their anger, and furiously condemn anyone who tries to show them facts that would suggest things aren't as bad as they think. People who want a better world don't start from a premise that despair is noble, do not measure their morality by the scale of their fears and enmities, do not crave the worst of all possible worlds, and do not see demons or fools in those who don't think that's the world we live in.
I'm a progressive because I believe in humanity. I believe we can and will achieve better than we have, and that it begins with the willingness to accept that our future is a choice. And that's not a mantra or an article of faith - it's a plain, present fact that every person can prove at every moment of their lives, if they're willing. You're dealt a hand, but it's you who plays it - not the people around you, not your God, not your boss, not your family, not some invisible omnipotent conspiracy to pollute your precious bodily fluids. If you can understand and accept that, you're halfway to being a progressive.
The next thing you have to accept is harder and takes some real moral reflection: If you yourself can't solve a problem, maybe you should have some humility about other people's perceived failures to do so. Maybe if you can't even grasp elementary school civics concepts like a three-branch government, separation of powers, and the difference between a President and a King or a Prime Minister, you should have some humility and thoughtfulness in how you weigh the successes and failures of people (emphasis on people, not Platonic abstractions) you yourself elected to manage the real-world complexities of government. That said, once you do reach a thoughtful conclusion that something is amiss and that a decision was wrong, what is a progressive's next move? Multiple-choice pop quiz - your response is:
(a) Declare that the End is Nigh, drink only distilled water, and play Conspiracy Theory Madlibs with Alex Jones like some recently Rec Listed diaries.
(b) Immediately default to the most unhinged, media-generated scenario conceivable by the human imagination, violently resist all attempts to talk you down with facts and rational thoughts, and promiscuously promote memes without question or thought while using frenzied denouncement of Democrats as a shibboleth distinguishing the Faithful from the Impure.
(c) Both (a) and (b).
(d) Seek information, weigh ideas in context, discuss issues rationally and in an in informed fashion, and consider possible remedies. You know, "Unholy Heretic Betrayal Corporatist Plutocracy GMO-(spasm spasm)".
If your answer is anything other than (d), do not pass Go, do not collect $200, go directly to kindergarten. If you're not going to add some kind of value to the information spectrum, you're just free-riding on the credibility of a site brought to prominence by real ideas and thoughtful discussion. Your passive absorption and reflection of fear-based memes has zero value to anyone but you, and you're just entertaining yourself at the expense of people who want to actually create a better world.
The hard truth is that people who act like this are not the voices of progressive conscience, or of anything - they are the deluded, defenseless baggage that progressivism is forced to carry out of moral obligation, and yet so delusional about their role in society and liberal politics that they consider themselves our spiritual leaders or something. Well, sorry, but you're not. You're the annoying tag-alongs carrying paper swords who piss themselves while the adults fight and then run in to pose over the bodies of dragons slain by others. If everyone slandered as impure, faithless, and perfidious by this pathological subculture were to disappear from politics, the Republican Party would hunt these weak buffoons like game animals, and what's more, they know it and it burns their asses.
Some people on the left have been calling the Democratic Party names from the sidelines since little girls were screaming at the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, and they haven't done a goddamn thing about the things they say are wrong other than enjoy preening in the mirror at their own delusional sense of perfection. No one other than them admires that. If they had any special knowledge of what was going on, they could change it - but they don't, and what's more, don't appear to care anyway. Maybe some day they'll start caring about other people more than they care about feeling superior, but I'm not holding my breath. Until then, I'm happy we have the Democratic Party in politics, and happy we have Barack Obama in the Oval Office, because real people doing real work to achieve real results is what progressivism is about, and Daily Kos has been a superb engine for pursuing that kind of change.
PS, this element seems to have hit on a great strategy for defeating NSA spying: Write such fatuous and idiotic things that a government supercomputer that tried to process them would commit suicide.