And so it is that so many ideas, projects, and programs that have been created by the Progressives have ended up leaving people worse off than if they'd done nothing. Of course, all of the Progressives who pushed these aforementioned ideas, projects, and programs had the best of intentions. For them, that's what's important – their intent and not the results. That's why they're leading the rest of us down the Road to Hell.
Here's some news for those well-intentioned, yet clueless Progressives: Your good intentions mean virtually nothing.
Let's start with the example of Seattle.
Begin with a libertarian goal that should be agreeable to most Progressives -- people should be able to live the way they wish. Add a classic Progressive goal -- we need more low income housing. Throw in a favored Progressive lifestyle -- we want to live in high density urban settings without owning a car.Ironically, it is the Progressives who are easily led to their own doom by the first clever bureaucrat, community organizer, or rent-seeker that comes along. In the end, all of their good intentions are whittled away by the always increasing meddling of fellow Progressives and their cronies who try to 'protect' the very people they're supposed to be helping. Who's going to protect the people from the very Progressives whose good intentions are harming them?
From this is born the great idea of micro-housing, or one room apartments averaging less than 150 square feet. For young folks, they are nicer versions of the dorms they just left at college, with their own bathroom and kitchenette.
Ahh, but then throw in a number of other concerns of the Progressive Left, as administered by a city government in Seattle dominated by the Progressive Left. We don't want these poor people exploited! So we need to set minimum standards for the size and amenities of apartments. We need to make sure they are safe! So they must go through extensive design reviews. We need to respect the community! So existing residents are given the ability to comment or even veto projects. We can't trust these evil corporations building these things on their own! So all new construction is subject to planning and zoning. But we still need to keep rents low! So maximum rents are set at a number below what can be obtained, particularly given all these other new rules.
As a result, new micro-housing development has come to a halt. A Progressive lifestyle achieving Progressive goals is killed by Progressive regulatory concerns and fears of exploitation. How about those good intentions, where did they get you?
The moral of this story comes back to the very first item I listed, that people should be able to live the way they wish. Progressives feel like they believe this, but in practice they don't. They don't trust individuals to make decisions for themselves, because their core philosophy is dominated by the concept of exploitation of the powerless by the powerful, which in a free society means that they view individuals as idiotic, weak-willed suckers who are easily led to their own doom by the first clever corporation that comes along.
Progressives, by there very nature, can't leave well enough alone. It doesn't matter if things are working well. They can make it 'better' by applying their poorly thought out ideals, or so they tell everyone. But more often than not they take something that works, even though not perfectly, and turn it into something that neither works or helped any of the very people they intended to help. But at least they feel better about themselves, and that's what's really important in their lives.
Another example of this process: Obamacare.
Despite the crowing of the Progressives who say it's working, the evidence says otherwise. Between rapidly rising insurance rates, even more rapidly rising medical costs, and one exchange after another going belly up, only the truly deluded could say Obamacare has truly provide health care to anyone. Obamacare made health insurance available to those who didn't have it before, but a lot of others who did have health insurance prior to its implementation have lost their health insurance or seen its cost rise out of reach. Remember who it was that drove this godawful piece of legislation through Congress using a number of legislative sleights-of-hand (courtesy of Nancy Pelosi) and without a single Republican vote? The Progressives. They had good intentions, but the end result has been even less actual health care available at higher costs than if they'd left well enough alone.
But that's one lesson very few of them will ever learn. After all, it's all about feelz, not results.