REMEMBERING G. K. CHESTERTON: The Apostle of Common Sense.

Progress, Chesterton pointed out, isn’t anything. You can’t be for progress unless you’ve defined the thing towards which you are progressing. Otherwise progress is simply a comparative for which we have not established the superlative. The Progressives, according to Chesterton, were only interested in “going on towards going on.” Their notion of progress was based on a rejection of the past, a hatred of history, and a breaking of the commandment that tells us to honor our father and mother. Tradition means giving a vote to our ancestors. It is, Chesterton said, “the democracy of the dead.” Letting our ancestors have a vote is only common sense, whereas voting on behalf of our ancestors is election fraud.

For those who would measure progress by technological innovation, Chesterton responded that, in spite of our faster cars and communication, “the mere strain of modern life is unbearable.” The world has become abnormal. We no longer desire normal things: normal marriage, normal ownership, normal worship, or even life itself.

Chesterton is considered a conservative these days, but in his own day he called himself a liberal. He felt that a liberal was someone who believed in freedom. But, just as Ronald Reagan said that he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it left him; Chesterton said, “I am the last liberal.” He was alienated from Britain’s Liberal Party when he discovered its stealth and corruption, but also when he realized that the Liberals were not interested in liberty or justice; they were only interested in getting reelected.

Chesterton also lived during the period that one of the greatest stolen bases by the American left occurred: embarrassed by the disastrous presidency of Woodrow Wilson, they swapped out the word “liberal” for “Progressive.”