Progressive in the historical sense of the word

p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"This is one of several guest columns that were submitted in response to this question: How do you identify yourself politically (liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, independent, something else or none of the above) and what does that mean to you?/p p class="MsoNormal"a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQ_NPF7bHeoZRlEiBpkIvJ2lkHmEB4CntuHsDOhHdJJH7PC3uZ7eAhd-AK77nKpraG4vLkJhrxJXf4kopA3DBKYyy-LYzqfzmFDAjjylWsqDyYEExIM4-ZGskbRKV_yqvBxGm-uuLs2A/s1600-h/Guest+column.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 60px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQ_NPF7bHeoZRlEiBpkIvJ2lkHmEB4CntuHsDOhHdJJH7PC3uZ7eAhd-AK77nKpraG4vLkJhrxJXf4kopA3DBKYyy-LYzqfzmFDAjjylWsqDyYEExIM4-ZGskbRKV_yqvBxGm-uuLs2A/s200/Guest+column.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360665270908372274" border="0" //aspan style="font-weight: bold;"By Stephen Jones/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Let me respond to your call for political (or is it philosophical) self-identification with the term progressive. I am a progressive. I identify most closely with the ideal of progressivism and notbr /necessarily with a political party, though in recent years I have voted, not surprisingly, increasingly Democratic./p p class="MsoNormal"By progressivism I mean to say I believe in a democratic worldview that champions direct participation and action in citizenship. Progressivism is a political movement that supports the interests of ordinary people in their roles as taxpayers, consumers, employees, citizens and parents and sees a role in which government is a responsive partner./p p class="MsoNormal"In recent times, the term ‘progressive’ is often used as either interchangeable with or instead of the term liberal, but this, I suggest, is a misuse of the term. Rather, I think, progressives have alwaysbr /sought to champion the rights of ordinary Americans against both liberals and conservatives./p p class="MsoNormal"Historically, progressive reformers sought to eliminate corruption in government, regulate business practices, address health hazards, improve working conditions and give the public more direct control over government./p p class="MsoNormal"As a progressive I identify closely with the progressive movements of American history and in continuing to pursue those ideals -- an American democratic ideal -- into the future./p p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"Jones lives in Las Cruces./pdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23370090-4451113931823711393?l=haussamen.blogspot.com'//div

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