No. of Recommendations: 10
"The difference between the factions is that progressives fundamentally trust whatever the government is saying whereas the conservative fundamentally is skeptical of whatever the government is saying."
Oh, I don't think that's true at all. Progressives deeply distrust the government in lots of ways. That explains a whole lot of their policy proposals.
For example, progressives generally assume that nearly every governmental regulatory and permitting agency is far too deferential to business interests. That's why they bitterly oppose any changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) - because it gives them leverage to "correct" all the things that government is going to get wrong about projects that involve governmental funds.
FOIA, the Civil Service Act, private attorneys general clauses....there's a huge strain of liberal/progressive mechanisms that reflect mistrust of government that dates back to the Vietnam/Unsafe at Any Speed era. That's just the formal mechanisms - progressives constantly push to have government be "responsive" to non-governmental organizations (like unions) before taking action, so that they can make sure that government doesn't go too far in the wrong direction. And head down to local government, and "blue state" regulation is a patchwork of citizen's advisory boards, community outreach panels, neighborhood planning councils, and a plethora of other mechanisms designed to keep government at heel.
The most powerful, most intrusive aspect of the government - at any level - is criminal justice. The power to lock people up, the (near) monopoly on violence. You think progressives "fundamentally trust" what the nation's police departments say? Or the military - the largest single government agency in the country?
