One might wonder whether these sorts of authors find themselves involuntarily compelled to write these sorts of things. No amount of actually asking people what they believe would support it.
“We are fond of talking about 'liberty'; but the way we end up actually talking of it is an attempt to avoid discussing what is 'good.' We are fond of talking about 'progress'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'education'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good." - G.K. Chesterton
I’m not interested in an argument about “Whig history,” because this isn’t a house party. It’s a comment chain on a tech forum where the originating post doesn’t even do us the dignity of substantiating itself: it just proudly assumes that we all know these things, and that we’re all going to agree with the author if we can just pay attention for long enough and get over the “ick” factor.
That isn’t moral reasoning, of the kind you’re talking about with the Good. It’s just a sneaky way to say “we all know I’m right.”
As a generality, we all want "progress". Nothing controversial about that.
That "cutting red tape" is progress, is not a controversial viewpoint. Bad regulations impede better results, and decrease the freedom of some people.
But "adding accountability" is also generally considered progress. Critical regulations avoid serious harms, and increase the level of trust in society, which increases people's freedom.
As generalities they can both be "true".
But in every specific instance, they are contradictory. You can't conflate "removing a regulation" with "progress by cutting red tape" and "adding a regulation" to "progress by adding accountability", because in specific cases these are contradictory actions.
So general arguments for progress are beside the point. The question is, in specific cases, does having regulation X result in a better situation than not having regulation X.
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Likewise, "reactionary" is a general term. Reactionary things as a generality are considered extreme and poorly thought out.
But in specific cases, labeling something X "reactionary", and therefore "bad", isn't helpful. Arguments for whether X is good or bad need to be specific to X. Not based on a generality.
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Of course, in normal discourse we often use over-generalized talk as short hand for viewpoints, and expect others to fill in the specifics in their minds. Which is valid, but sacrifices clarity for brevity, and often contributes to poor individual thinking and raises barriers of confused communication to resolving conflicts.
But saying something specific is bad, by labelling it reactionary is an empty argument! It reverses the condition -> implication relationship. It is circular, or at best, charged but unsupported reasoning.
To show something is bad, and possibly reactionary, you have to be specific about what is bad about the specific thing.
No one is saying you owe somersaulting reactionary drivelers better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.