Why is someone who is a progressive interpreted as an advanced thinker while someone who is conservative labeled as backwards?

This question has been mulling in the back of my mind for sometime, and has recently resurfaced while reading the play Ideal by Ayn Rand. As a conservative, I have encountered several people who were taken back by my political and philosophical stances, particularly since I have chosen a quite liberal field to pursue my career in. The arts have always drawn people who have very leftist tendencies, and for a conservative like myself I have faced some backlash. For some reason, participating in the arts means you are progressive, and being progressive in this field means being a communist or a socialist, of which I am obviously neither. One thing that consistently crops up in the art community is the discussion that conservatives are backwards. They are for abortion so they are against women’s rights. They believe in capitalism and suddenly they are against the people. So I ask again: Why are progressives seen as forward and conservatives seen as backwards when in reality it is the exact opposite?

Despite the the obvious and well-known history of the failure of communism, it still manages to persist like cockroaches during the dinosaur extinction. What should be dead still ekes out a robust existence among the failures and envious of society. Artists are known for being impoverished people, but rather than striving for success they revel in their misery because somehow that makes them better. It is one thing to struggle in adversity with the goal of overcoming it but it is another to wassail in it with the goal of staying exactly where you are. Since most conservatives like myself think to get ahead in life rather settle for discontentment, wouldn’t that make us the forward thinkers and the progressives the backwards since they are stationary in their economic status?

In Ideal, Fanny, a young communist idealist, lives in squalor and has been evicted for the fifth time. In a fit of rage she cries out to her partner, Chuck Fink, that in college she was considered an “advance thinker,” and yet all she gets for this so-called gift is poverty. Everyone else is succeeding around her while she is scrambling for rent and protesting at rallies with no press coverage. Fanny represents the average stereotype for a progressive. She thinks she is smarter than she actually is because people have always hyped up her mediocrity, and she is insanely jealous of how much more successful other people are than her. She does nothing with her life except communist propaganda and activism, and she has nothing to show for it. Ironically, Fanny is living the communist lifestyle, but vehemently rejects it. Like most communists, she wants more than she has earned for herself and somebody else has to pay for it. Once again, isn’t that a backwards way of viewing things? You are such a leech on society that you depend on others rather than be independent and prosperous? As a child you depend on your parents because you have to, and now as an adult you depend on others because you want to. That is a completely backwards way of thinking.

As for the abortion argument, yes a majority of conservatives are against it. But most will not force their view point on other people. (If they do they are not true conservatives). I am against abortion myself, and I don’t think I could ever go through one. However, I am not going to tell someone else they can’t have an abortion should they seek one, but I would strongly recommend other options like adoption. Also like most conservatives I believe the federal government should not have a say in it–this is a state’s rights issue. And no, it is not a women’s health issue. Maybe in a few cases like ectopic pregnancies, but for the most part it is an avoidance to responsibility and culpability. Once again, conservatives are forward thinkers. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this holds true for having sex. As a conservative, I am prepared to take responsibilities for my actions. This is the forward, mature position. Only children don’t take responsibility for their actions, and that usually ends up turning into a life lesson involving a spanking or timeout. Blaming someone else for your mistake is backwards.

In conclusion, conservatives are not backwards at all. We learn from our mistakes, take notes from history, and don’t settle for mediocrity. We strive to be the best that we can, and yes mistakes are made along the way but we apologize and move on. This is a forward way of thinking, and to be content with anything less is backwards. To project and accept anything less is backwards. Being progressive, despite the dictionary meaning, it not advanced at all and those who call themselves that are more often than not the most backward people I have ever encountered as far as maturity, intelligence, and beliefs. It is time people started realizing this because I am sick of hearing it lambasted by the progressive media and activists who have bought into this assumption. The truth is conservatives are forward thinkers and progressives are backwards, and if anybody tells you differently, they really aren’t worth your time.

Apparently, we have not dispelled the last of the false narrative of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” Phelim McAleer, the same man who brought us FrackNation, is now bringing us “Ferguson,” a play to give the public the true testimony of what really happened between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson. 

What a load of bullock. We know what happened, and it doesn’t end well for Michael Brown who is the perpetrator. He got himself shot due to his poor life choices regarding charging an officer. Why can’t people accept that? Oh, because it doesn’t fit within the race-baiting narrative of Al Sharpton’s “police brutality against black youths.” 

Yeah, Ferguson was a tragedy. It’s sad that Darren Wilson was forced to shoot Michael Brown. It’s sad that Michael Brown wanted to throw his life away like that. And the worst thing is the town rioted and destroyed itself in the name of a FALSE NARRATIVE. Hands up, don’t shoot never happened, and it would be nice if people quite trying to shove a false narrative down the public’s throat.