Coerced for My Own Good

H. W. Brands, in his biography of F.D.R., Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, writes,

Many of the progressives, judging themselves lovers of peace, had assumed that they would be the wrong sorts of people to run a war. …. But to their surprise, and in some cases to their dismay, the progressives discovered they were the ideal war administrators. The reformist temperament in American life has always hidden a coercive streak: if people won’t shape up voluntarily, they should be encouraged, even compelled, to do so. [emphasis mine] (p. 111)

This captures exactly my disagreement with progressive thought.

I prefer to let people suffer the consequences of their actions.