For the record: Modern progressives do not want to take what "rightfully belongs" to the haves and give it to the have-nots. That is what plantation owners did during the several hundred years of American chattel slavery. That is what payday and title loan sharks do to financially unstable people today. That is what funds and banks who gamble their constituents funds in markets and inscrutable financial instruments do. That is what purveyors of cheap "non-insurance" insurance plans do.

Progressives want structural changes in a system designed to keep the rich filthy and the rest of the pyramid clean as vulture-picked bone. Progressives want to create an environment of opportunity and egalitarianism under tax policy and enforcement of the law.

Nobody (read reasonable and intelligent person) believes government can solve ALL problems, just as nobody believes government cannot solve ANY problems.

I worry about spending (we spend too much, let's invade less), government overreach (thank you for your service to the private citizenry of the world, Edward Snowden, damn these so-called-liberal-media shills who take every opportunity to defend Big Brother aka the NSA), and inefficient bureaucracy as much as the next guy. Probably more, actually.

However, I am a fan of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. I am a fan of the Civil Rights Act, and of federal intervention into states that had every intention of making Jim Crow into a new slave code for the nation. It took Federal power to make things happen on that level.

So please, stop using "progressive" and "liberal" as if they are inherently pejorative terms. In return, I will stop praying to your Big Kahuna (read The God of Abraham, Yahweh, J. Hova - whatever he calls himself on his next album) to remove you from this earth before you complete the damage your political and social forerunners began.