Progressive versus Regressive Politics - Expressive Names Describe Political Divisions

Americans, indeed, most of the world's citizens, are familiar with the polarizing divide between our United States political parties. Democrats are perceived as being "liberal" (whatever that means) and as being different from Republicans, who are perceived as being conservative (whatever that means).  Same old same old.

A newly oriented political observer would need a dictionary and thesaurus to figure out what each party label means.

That's why I'm suggesting we modify the names of political affiliations to either Progressive or Regressive, rather than Democrat or Republican.  One way moves us forward, while the other is a retrofit to policies that have been tried before.

But, nevertheless, a person can be progressive about taxation, for example, while regressive about funding women's access to contraception, for example. These and other unrelated political topics (why women's health is political is beyond me, but, for many, this is the case) could then be sorted out by individuals, rather than party affiliations. 

In fact, the Pro-Reg labels might even have the value added of being educational for people who might be conflicted about where they fall on the political "left" (liberal) to "right" (conservative) spectrum. At the end of this exercise, we can each evaluate where we want to fall on this spectrum.

Let's make two columns:

Progressive 
favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are,especially in political matters: a progressive mayor

Regressive
 obtained from or characterized by backward reasoning

Progressive                                         Regressive                    
Taxation

Supports revenue sharing                       Supports tax cuts for rich
Supports graduated tax system               Hall-Rabushka flat tax   

Women's Health

Supports women's access to health         Contraception should not
care including right to contraception       be government funded

Access to Health Care

Supports universal coverage for              Supports free market
preventative and illness care                   who  pays gets the care

Immigration

Supports path to citizenship                     Severely restricts path to 
for all immigrants                                     citizenship for illegal
                                                                 immigrants

Second Amendment Rights- a Constitutional amendment ratified in 1789

Supports some regulations for the right    Supports everyone
to own military assault multiple                including immigrants
ammunition clip weapons                         owning any guns, of any
                                                                  kind for any purpose

Voting Rights

Every American citizens must                   American citizens
have the right to vote,                                must prove they
one person : one vote                                 have the right to vote
and the opportunity to                                based upon 
execute this                                                inconsistent state
inalienable right in                                      promulgated criteria
an efficient and timely
manner

This is an abbreviated list of the Progressive-Regressive spectrum issues, but you can easily get the gist.

In summary, it will be difficult for people of intellect to submit to being Regressive when the Progressive point of view is clearly the position of enlightenment.  

If America is to progress in the enlightenment set forth by our esteemed Founding Fathers, we must block the Regressive movement.  A two party system needs Progressives on both sides of the political spectrum, especially when the Regressives are clearly obstructing our advancement as a civilized nation.

So, let's now describe Democrats and Republicans as both being progressives if we can focus on:

•  a future where equal opportunity is available to everyone, regardless of citizenship status; 
• where voting rights are respected for all American citizens ages 18 and older; 
• where the tax policy is benevolent to the poor and fair to the middle class; 
• where quality and affordable health care is available to all;
• and the Second Amendment is amended to protect innocent people from preventable gun violence.

Let's remove party labels and, instead, subscribe to all of the above.

That's progress!