Portlandia Logic

http://m.nationalreview.com/article/397504/lifestyle-so-good-its-mandatory-kevin-d-williamson

An article worthy of reading if you want to get a little more coverage of a current rather specific "progressive" hypocrisy, the difference in the treatment of "Vaping" (the electronic cigarettes) and Pot. Vaping "looks like smoking" -- Pot may have all the carcinogens and more, but it is "in", so it is cool.

Vaping needs to be illegal -- Pot is probably soon to be covered under Food Stamps. Modern "progressive" means that supposed good ideas must be mandatory / subsidized, "bad" ideas must be illegal or at least taxed.

Progressivism, especially in its well-heeled coastal expressions, is not a philosophy — it’s a lifestyle. Specifically, it is a brand of conspicuous consumption, which in a land of plenty such as ours as often as not takes the form of conspicuous non-consumption: no gluten, no bleached flour, no Budweiser, no Walmart, no SUVs, no Toby Keith, etc. The people who set the cultural tone in places such as Berkeley, Seattle, or Austin would no more be caught vaping than they would slurping down a Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s — and they conclude without thinking that, therefore, neither should anybody else. The wise man understands that there’s a reason that Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors; the lifestyle progressive in Park Slope shudders in horror at the refined sugar in all of them, and seeks to have them restricted.

 For the bulk of the general left wing populace, the "life style" designation is a good one -- they pretty much just want to be "in with the in crowd" and just haven't thought about it much. Their leadership however finds these people as a "means to an end" -- the move to actual totalitarian control must be held off for right time. In the meantime, it is important to have a large group of people that are CERTAIN that they are in fact "free" -- they just like the things they like and think the things they do because they are "sophisticated".

Oh, and I'm certainly NOT saying that this does not exist in "Red State America" -- ALL of us want to be in SOME group, even the supposed "rebels" are as much defined by what they rebel against as what they are for. Such things are always true -- but it is the DOMINATE PARTY that one needs to constantly keep an eye on!