Masterfully written.

If was wearing a hat I'd tip it to you, but you'll have to settle for metaphorically. Well done. Please continue.

There is one of the 7 that "progressive" politicals definitely do not have a lock on. The odd one out is avarice. That one is reserved for bankers. And probably always will be, until one of two things happens; either proper regulation of said organisations (and breaking up into much smaller ones) or City and Wall Street spivs start becoming decorations on lamp posts.

And in the end, in the darkness, the orgy when they turn on one another for that last crumb...

Well, Fletch, just who are the bankers, now? It's Fannie and Freddie and Sallie and your Uncle Sam. It's the Poverty Pimps and Madames of HHS, it's the Extortionists of Higher Education. You need to be imaginative. Bankers is all you could come up with?

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that Savage is a trust fund brat?

I haven't read anything so intuitively insightful or so accurate, in a very long tim! It makes my heart ache at the truth that's laid bare in this article, but thankful that I'm not alone in what I'm seeing. I have no doubt that the radical left have mental, moral, and spiritual deficits, which is the breeding ground for evil. Well done!

It's like they've put Dante on his head and written an unDivine Farce.

There's a (sex) advice columnist in one of the (two!) Philly free alt-weeklies by the name of Dan Savage. Is it the same guy?

So far there's only one, but he has a lotta wannabes in his dungeon.

I feel sorta bad for you, Gerard, having to do all this nasty research on our behalf. Is there a masochistic side to you that likes living among the Savage?

Actually, I came up with the acronym "Peg lags" several years ago for a talk in church (with up-front apologies for the two Peggys in the congregation). Pride-envy-greed lust-anger-gluttony-sloth. I find it pretty easy to remember. ..bruce..

As usual, amazing... I bang my head on the keyboard when I read your stuff wondering why, oh why, cannot I write like this... You continue to move up the Left's List of those who must have their thinking re-adjusted in the Utopian Paradise just over the next electoral hill.

I am fully prepared to discuss my need for readjustment with them on any level they may choose short of a predator strike.

Outstanding, Gerard.

Fletcher: I define avarice or greed as the desire for wealth one hasn't earned. The really greedy ones are the politicians and welfare bums who think they have a right to my money. Yes, there are crooked bankers, but not all of them are, and I don't believe banking is inherently evil.

The malfeasant miscreant malcontents are not going to worry about our readjustment as long as they have captive souls in the government run "education" system. Time will work to their benefit. On the bright side, it doesn't take much dirt to ruin an otherwise smoothly-turning bearing. The pen truly is mightier than the sword. Press on.

I can only hope that the prophetic words of Scripture come true for the Progressive Left--"pride goeth before a fall." All I hope is that they don't take us with them when they go.

An excellent post, sir. Very well thought out and presented. Thank you very much for your insight!

Dan Savage the doorknob licker?

Well, Fletch, if we're going to start talking about lampposts then it's only fair to observe that the best decoration for a lamppost is a progressive.

Today's food fastidiousness reminds me of C.S. Lewis on gluttony:
"This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess... But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern? ...
Men are best turned into gluttons with the help of their vanity. They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are really "properly" cooked. What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence - it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes - "puts him out," for them his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy."

A fine post. It seems PEWSLAG is also be a descriptive term. Turn on MTV, and witness the Slag in the Pew of the church of modern proregressivism... or if you're in no hurry, just wait for the next Super Bowl halftime show, and it'll come to you.

The secret desire of the left has been limed before:

Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around tall idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

"The Call of Cthulhu" by H. P. Lovecraft, 1926
II. The Tale of Inspector Legrasse
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm

Hello, I read (and comment) here from time to time, but just saw this yesterday linked from One Cosmos! I've picked it up as an opener for a post about the absence of a future in progressive thinking, and the place confession holds in an optimistic future. So, wanted to let you know I've linked to this from my own little blog & added a link to American Digest to my sidebar. :-)

Thank you Tina. That's very flattering.

An excellent post, and a good bookend to Dr. Sanity's post, (as you note).

Now I can add another favorite site.

Timeless as always. Since you first posted this, it feels like evil has increased. It is weighing like a wet blanket on me right now. You can feel the increased heaviness. I'd give anything to hide from it, but where to run? Time to face reality. I guess we'll know what to do when the time comes if we cling to the good.

It is the complete absence of shame which is the surest mark of someone who is not just passing through a bad phase, but embraces it. All professional progressives have it, Jim Jones had it, my ex-wife had it. It is something we do not believe the first times we see it, because it is so unnatural. But Goethe corrected me. The unnatural, that too is natural.

They find joy in stirring a weak pot.

It is good that the angels threw you back, VDL, locked and loaded.

Well said - indeed profound. "The right to eat the founding documents", in that, we have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness. The progressive (liberal - in case one is confused) agenda overstates the first, limits the second, and tries to guarantee the third. Even for the "alleged 1%, life is not a utopia." It is futile in the extreme to believe we can make it so.

Incisive!
I know you re-run pieces from time to time and had to check the date on this for a "before or after" ... seems like the essential you stayed on task while your heart opted for snooze mode ... Reads like your are absolutely rocking the recovery! Thank you for a piece I'll look at again and pass along. ~ D

Simply excellent.

You don't actually know any Progressives, do you? Progressives today largely take their cues from conservative and great American Teddy Roosevelt. This man was a hero of the Right up until the last 10 years or so until Glenn Beck suddenly told everyone he was actually bad and, of course, everyone on the right believed him.

If you want to complain about the gay rights crowd and the feminist crowd then go ahead but don't for a second think that they represent Progressives. They are Liberals with their own sub-interest groups like the Log Cabin Republicans. They aren't the whole shebang and their protests are, ultimately, purely incidental.

Happy to see the decadence festival held in New Orleans, Louisiana has been moved. Where? To Democratic National Convention, Charlotte, North Carolina. Thank you Hurricane Isaac.

I do like a good rant. Of which, this was one.

(Churchill: "Not ending a sentence with a preposition is a bit of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.")