The more I get involved in Daily Kos the less sleep I get. No, it's not because I'm up all night adding zings to various flame wars. In fact, I only spend a limited amount of time on the site.
The problem is that all of the real life political issues that are raised by my exposure to dkos' rich stew of ideas and advocacy percolates around in my subconscious all day and then explodes around 1 or 2 a.m., waking me up.
I'm then forced to get up and start scribbling down all the ideas that come rushing out of my overstimulated brain. Tonight what came out is this: Progressivism is Reality Based Liberalism.
Let me explain . . .
"Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal" - Phil Ochs
I recently had a disagreement with a blogger about the issue of charter schools here in Florida (a pet project of former Governor Jeb Bush). This person was correctly complaining about the lack of oversight for these schools. But, to me, the argument went too far in that it seemed to attack charter schools and defend public education.
Now, I came of age in the 60's reading John Holt, whose classic How Children Fail was an indictment of the public school system and its bureaucratic crushing of the human spirit.
So when this other blogger defended the public school system I wanted to shout "You're arguing like a liberal." I defended charter schools because I thought they championed innovation. Here in Tallahasse we have one run by some very nice people.
If we are truly reality based we have to admit that accountability of public schools is a major problem. We can't run away from the point just because conservatives use it to attack liberals.
Now, you can legitimately argue about the best way to measure success, but we mustn't gloss over the past failure of ignoring accountability.
And, you know what's cool? Progressivism is also reality based conservatism. Conservatism is all about limited government and individual rights and responsibilities.
Just as misguided liberalism leads to what John Holt criticized, misguided conservatism leads to the lack of accountability for charter schools. Neither of these extremes is based on the reality of doing what is best for the children.
That is the purpose of all of us gathered here under the Daily Kos banner, to advocate reality based public policy for the good of all.