No Limits
The progressive revolution promises unlimited liberation but also requires unlimited power.
When Princeton University asked its employees to declare their sexual orientation in a recent Staff Engagement Survey, it conveniently provided 13 options, from “Aromantic” to “Two-spirit,” with “Demisexual” and “Pansexual” in-between. In case that proved too restrictive, the survey added a separate write-in box for “An identity not listed.” Had it aimed to probe gender identity instead, it could have borrowed a list of 20 items from Women’sHealth, ranging from “Agender” and “Bigender” via “Gendervoid” and “Graygender” to “Transgender” and the ubiquitous “Two-spirit.” Conspicuously missing were “Seasogender” and “Genderseason” for those whose gender identities fluctuate with the seasons. But as the magazine helpfully assured anxious readers, the list was not complete, for “Gender is a spectrum, and there is no finite number of gender identities.”
“No finite number”: when it comes to identity, this age of transformation knows no limits. Biology, tradition, and social construction set none. I am what I claim to be at any time, for any reason or no reason, and I may change that claim at will. My gender is the boundless declaration of an untrammeled self.
So it goes with abortion. When a senator asked HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra recently if a healthy mother with a healthy baby boy should be able to have an abortion a week before he's due because she'd prefer a baby girl, Becerra answered, "A woman should have the right to make decisions about her body." On its home page, Planned Parenthood explains that, “The ability to control your own personal medical decisions, including whether to end a pregnancy, is a fundamental human right. Restricting abortion access is dangerous and inhumane” and “No one is free unless they control their own body.” For abortion advocates, Minnesota offers a model, since according to Planned Parenthood, “There is no limit on abortion in Minnesota based on how far along in pregnancy you are”—nor does the state have an age limit.
“No limit”: an expecting mother should expect to preserve full control, sans infringement from within or without. In the interest of complete autonomy, any growing human baby in the womb may be aborted at any stage, for any reason or no reason. Roe is just a quaint relic: mere viability sets no bounds.
Limits also disappear at the border. Pushing back against the label “illegal alien,” progressives have declared that “No human being is illegal,” motto of the Drop-the-I-Word campaign and art exhibits. Pleading for general amnesty in The Nation in 2013, Jessie Myerson said, “No penalties, no electric fences, no drone surveillance, no papers, no fear.” In The Case for Open Borders, John Washington is even more emphatic: open the gates. Or as undocumented lawyer Isabel Johnston put it, “There is no “right way” to come to the US . . . there is no “good immigrant” and there is no “bad immigrant.””
No one illegal, no penalties, no gates, no right way: borders set no limits. As a human being, I should not be bound by my place of origin or the community in which I grew up. I should be able to move and settle anywhere I please, at my discretion and without interference. I can be whatever I want to be, wherever. Don’t bother me about “documents.” We are all Dreamers.
Identity, autonomy, rights: they are the crowbars of the progressive revolution.
But who will wield the crowbars, and how?
The revolution needs power, a lot power.
It needs power to impose trans recognition: misgendering becomes a civil offense, and women must open their spaces to transwomen or face sanctions. Once abortion is an unfettered right, providers must be forced to respect it, and opposition suppressed. To erase borders, legalization by executive fiat must overcome ancient statutes, and sanctuary cities shelter newcomers at unlimited taxpayer expense.
Of course, the progressive vanguard encounters opposition and failure; it is also inconsistent at times, as in the case of body-infringing Covid mask and vaccine mandates. But it proceeds undeterred.
Since the progressive moral revolution knows no limits, neither can its political wing. Absolute freedom requires absolute power.