Flag Day… June 14th - FDR’s Progressive Flag Day Address

This is a clip of the National Anthem played when networks signed off for the night. This was played on WITI Fox 6 when it signed off for transmitter maintenance only once in 2004. After that it never signed off for the night again.

Video:  National Anthem on TV - “Flag Evolution

Grand Ol' Flag

If you are still the owner of a paper calendar, you will find Flag Day noted on June 14. The date commemorates the day in 1777 when the Second Constitutional Congress adopted the 13-stars and 13-stripes flag for the new nation. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation establishing June 14 as the official date to honor the flag.

Betsy Ross…

Franklin D. Roosevelt Progressive Flag Day Address

The Spirit of man has awakened
The Soul of man has gone forth

Grant us the wisdom and the vision
to comprehend the greatness of man's Spirit
that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal
beyond his own brief span

We are all of us children of Earth
Grant us that simple knowledge

If our brothers are oppressed,
then we are oppressed

If they hunger, we hunger

If their freedom is taken away,
our freedom is not secure

Grant us a common faith,
that man shall know bread and peace
That he shall know justice and righteousness,
Freedom and security, an equal opportunity,
and an equal chance to do his best,
not only in our own lands, but throughout the world.

And in that faith, let us march, march toward the clean world,
our hands can make. Amen

-Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 14, 1942  -  Some things just keep coming back around!

And what a difference an election and 4-years make…

On Monday Our Present Progressive President  called for U.S. citizens to observe Flag Day and National Flag week “with pride”

In a proclamation as mandated by Congress in 1949, Obama declared June 14 Flag Day and the week in which it lands as National Flag Week.

"This week, we mark nearly one century since that historic proclamation, and more than two centuries since the Second Continental Congress brought 13 United States under a single standard," Obama said.

"Though our flag has changed to reflect the growth of our republic, it will forever remain an emblem of the ideals that inspired our great nation: liberty, democracy, and the enduring freedom to make of our lives what we will."

Obama called on "the appropriate officials to display the flag on all federal government buildings during that week," and for "the people of the United States to observe with pride."

"As we reflect on our heritage, let us remember that our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars and 13 stripes," Obama said.

Wow… Remember this guy?:

h/t to MJ

Technorati Tags: American flag,FDR,holidays,Progressives,watch the other hand,Old Glory,Flag Day,national anthem

UNBELIEVABLE?! Newt loves FDR, models himself after Woodrow Wilson and admires SEIU’s Andy Stern

Yet with Progressive role models like these, the only Speaker ever to be sanction by the House, recent questionable connections to lobbying for Freddie and Fannie… yesterday in the  South Carolina primary, supposedly a conservative state, Washington insider Newt Gingrich pulled off a major victory over Mitt Romney #2, Rick Santorum #3 and Ron Paul #4… and that after his second wife resurrected her story of Newt’s philandering with a supposed request for an open marriage.

AP  -  Is New t really the most electable, best representative of conservative values, or less moderate than Mitt Romney ?

Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011 at 3:52 PM EST

Beck Show on Gingrich

It’s not as if Newt couldn’t have known his past comments were going to eventually be called into question. He’s capably navigated his way through his big government tendencies so far and miraculously still has solid support in the Tea Party. Will the latest damaging clip have any impact? Gingrich is caught praising his favorite president of the 20th century: FDR. Yup, he picked the mother of all progressives ahead of Ronald Reagan.

Watch this video montage:

Cue sound of heads exploding across the country…NOW!

Seriously?! This is unbelievable.

“This goes back to what Newt Gingrich said on this program. You got to get things done. That’s akin to saying we all love the Constitution but there are things we got to do,” Glenn warned.

“FDR did get things done, and then they were ruled unconstitutional,” Stu joked.

But that’s not the worst thing – on the clip at the top of the page Glenn reads a story where Gingrich praised SEIU’s Andy Stern in one of his books.

In his book “Real Chance: From the World That Fails to the World That Works,” Gingrich praises the SEIU head, who remains a close adviser of the President Obama. Pitching the need for conservatives to respect organized labor, while simultaneously pushing back against some of
Labor’s more cherished legislative goals, he wrote the following:

” Conservatives cannot cheer unions overseas and then be blindly anti-union here at home. There are legitimate historic reasons for workers to organize together, and there is a strong need for a healthy, competitive, union, movement that helps improve the lives of its members and the competitiveness of our country.

Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the
world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition. Sadly, he is a distinct minority among
union leaders. “

“So he loves Andy Stern,” Glenn said. “If he can’t figure it of Stern is a Socialist communist dirt bag then he shouldn’t be the leader of the free world.”

And he admits to be a fan of Woodrow Wilson!

Watch Newt claim to be a “realpolitik Wilsonian” Here:

Nobody that loves, emulates, or admires FDR, Woodrow Wilson and Andy Stern is a true conservative… for those 2-men are all Progressives… Progressive heroes. (These men are the heroes and friends of Obama and his czars).  And someone with 3-wives, two divorces, a long history of affairs and a tendency for grandiosity (Newt has also compared himself or Pericles, Abraham Lincoln, Moses, and  a Viking) even if he has changed, beats Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney as social conservatives.  Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have been model husbands and fathers.

One must ask… what happened to value voters and the tea party?  Is it all really only talk?

Regardless of what they told you in school, FDR sucked

By: Best Selling Author and History Geek Larry Correia
Monster Hunter Nation – Source – the NoisyRoom

Newt Gingrich once said that FDR was his favorite president of the twentieth century, and perhaps of all American history. Newt says he is conservative, so that would be like somebody saying they are Christian, but their favorite angel is Lucifer.

Even if I didn’t know anything else about his history that alone tells me everything I need to know about Newt. Newt is a historian. He’s not stupid. He knows better.

EDIT: This was just pointed out to me, that the soundbyte I heard was Newt talking about “Most Effective Leader” as opposed to “Best”. Fair enough. That said, FDR still sucked and the post stays. Looking online for actual clip now.

Bingo. http://tv.breitbart.com/newt-fdr-was-the-greatest-president-of-the-20th-century/

Yep. Post stays.

However most people don’t know any better. I hate when people who know jack squat about history tell me how awesome FDR was. I can see why though. Any high school history textbook has FDR down as Super President. All students know was that FDR was that nice old man in a wheelchair that had fireside chats, who then kicked Hitler’s ass. Of course, academics are usually on the left, so why would they malign one of their folk heroes with pesky things like reality?

FDR was not a great president. The legacy he left behind was one of bloated nonsense that we are still suffering from today. Like our current president (FDX), he moved in on a crisis, and used it as an excuse to have the country take a massive left turn.

The Great part of the Great Depression was a result of his policies. Everyone else in the world came out of the depression before we did. The Weimar friggin’ Republic came out of it faster than we did. Remember the place with the wheelbarrows of Retenmarks to buy a loaf of bread? Yeah, that place pulled up faster than us. America’s government meddled too much in industry and finance to let a natural recovery happen. We were too busy fixing prices, burning crops, and spending money on make-work projects. (you should have heard my grandpa go off on the W.P.A. It was many years before I learned that it didn’t actually stand for We Poke Along).

FDR was so in favor of freedom, justice, and the American way, that when the Supreme Court began striking his socialist policies down as unconstitutional, he attempted to destroy the separation of powers by stacking the Supreme Court with more of his handpicked justices. The whole purpose of three branches of government was to keep one from becoming tyrannical. Think about that. FDR tried to destroy one of the fundamental elements of our constitutional government.

His foreign policy sucked. Period. FDR personally thought Mussolini was a swell guy. He handled Japan about as well as Obama is handling Iran.

On a personal level, FDR was such a loathsome human being that he couldn’t even keep a running mate, but he was fairly loyal to his mistresses. But on that count, I can’ t really blame him, because from all accounts his wife was a frigid ice queen that was “disgusted by the touch of a man”.

He was known for giving good speeches. Keep in mind that this was at the dawn of radio and he was the first president to ever take advantage of that medium. Americans were so excited by radio that FDR could have read out of a phone book for ten minutes and everyone still would have tuned in to listen.

I’ve written two books set in an alternative 1930s, so I’ve had to do a lot of research into that time period. The worst, most soul sucking, obnoxious part of that research has been listening to or reading anything by FDR. Knowing what we know now, and the results of his experiments in social engineering, make me grind my teeth.

When I mentioned my opinion of Newt’s pick for favorite president on a web forum earlier, someone pointed out that Newt specified that he liked FDR more in some periods than in others… What, the early parts where his big government programs ruined the economy, or the middle part where his foreign policy didn’t do crap to prevent the biggest war in history, or the later part where he threw over a hundred thousand Americans into concentration camps?

Concentration camps.

But remember kids, it is Republicans that are racist and don’t care about civil liberties. Sure, the Democrat’s greatest hero took something like a hundred and forty thousand men, women, and children, ripped them from their homes with no due process or evidence of guilt, confiscated all their homes, property, and businesses, and then interred them in desolate camps in the desert for several years.

The same media that has an absolute come apart over civil liberties because the Bush administration water boarded a couple of terrorists, picks FDR as their Man of The Century.

I used to live next to Topaz Mountain. The site of the old concentration camp is nothing but a barren patch of scrub desert now. It is cold there. Nasty, horrible biting cold. In the winter the wind rips right through you. I can’t even imagine living in a government supplied shack during a winter there. You stand in the middle of this barren patch of sand, and the realization hits you that our government imprisoned innocent Americans here, it punches you in the gut. We did this thing, and it was evil.

If Newt was really a conservative, and he’s as educated and intelligent as he says he is, then there is no way that he would say FDR was a great, let alone the greatest, president.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt’s cousin) was a product of the philosophy of his time. The traditional American idea was that people own the government. FDR believed that the government owns the people. FDR’s fundamental beliefs are the antithesis of what made America great.

Screw FDR.

Related:

A Square Deal in a Round Hole

Did Obama Give Anti-Free Market Speech at Osawatomie for Communist Connection?

The Newt World Order

Newt Gingrich and “the vision thing”

Gingrich Unveils 21st Century Contract With America

Michael Savage Offers Newt $1M to Drop Out of Race

The DNC’s Christmas Gift to Newt Gingrich

American Progressivism – Egghead Review

(A little more depth into American Progressivism)

Video 1 of 6 – Woodrow Wilson, Prohibition, WWI and the League of Nations… that evolved into the United Nations

Video 2 of 6 – How Progressivism is destroying our Constitution

Video 3 0f 6 - Rewriting History

Video 4 of 6 - Maintaining the Focus and patiently reshaping society…

David Axelrod, “Obama is the same as he always was… focused on his progressive goal(s)”

Walter Lippman (founder of modern journalism) and the Phantom Public – a progressive book that talks about people with contempt. It talks about eugenics. It is Mein Kampf “light”

Treaty of Versailles, Founding of the CFR, Progressivism, Historicism… reshaping history as you go.

Video 5 of 6 - The Modern Progressives

There are progressives in both parties, but the have virtually taken over the Democratic Party.

Then and Now

Then… Teddy Roosevelt – Now… John McCain

Then Woodrow Wilson – Now… Clinton/Obama/Bush Combo

Then… FDR – Now… Obama

Composer George Bernard Shaw, a very scary man… He favored a humane gas to get rid of people they (the elitists) didn’t want.

Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) was in favor of eugenics. Planned Parenthood has a very dark progressive background

Video 6 0f 6 – Self-Education and Awareness Will Set Us Free

Please take some time to educate yourself and then share what you have learned. Every college and law school needs to require a class on the Constitution and we must go back and demand that our history lessons and textbooks are restored to the real history, not rewritten progressive propaganda.

Books about American Progressivism and the Progressive Movement

American Progressivism

Liberal Fascism

Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism...

A Conflict of Visions – Thomas Sowell

The Federalist Papers

New Deal or Raw Deal?

A Patriot’s History

Rules for Radicals (the progressive’s action manual)

Progressives Lurk Everywhere!!

Billionaires Peter Lewis and George Soros have each pledged $10 million to America Coming Together...

A billionaire, Joe Lewis (Bill Clinton’s best friend) is the chairman and chief executive officer of Progressive Corporation, the fourth-largest U.S. personal auto insurer, A leading U. S. business reference manual, Hoover's Handbook of American Business l999, actually described Lewis in print as "a functioning pot-head."... His house features an elaborate series of paintings of Chinese communist Mao Tse-tung by Andy Warhol. Lewis has contributed $5 million to the ACLU.

For us to win this battle, we must all educate ourselves in the history we weren’t taught!

Time to Watch Again: The Obama Deception HQ Full Length Movie

The Progressive Movement

The Progressive Movement

The Progressive Movement emerging almost as a cancer cell in the United States in late 19th century and into the 20th century in response to the vast changes brought on by industrialization. In some ways it appeared to be a sprinkle of good and bad spices for an economic recipe for some unethical industrialization issues. It became an alternative to the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues of the times. An ideology that changed directions several times as it became a more radical stream of socialism opposing the conservative views.

The ‘Progressive Party’ (American Progressivism) quickly organized at the start of the 20th century when it insisted that clearing city governments of corruption and freeing state governments from control by big business. Middle-class Americans became reformers from fear of wealth and power of the great financiers. The Progressive Movement grew in part under the leadership of Robert M. La Follette when elected Republican governor of Wisconsin in 1900. He pushed for laws that regulated railroads and public utilities, developed a fair tax system, conserved the state’s natural resources, and gave some protection to industrial workers. By 1918 the Progressives helped the adoption of the secret ballot and bad corruption at the polls. The Progressive movement helped set up commissions designed to strictly regulate corporations, and were active in the political influence for support of women’s suffrage laws (Scott, Forman, United States History).

The Progressive movement made great strides in electing Presidents Theodore Roosevelt a Republican. Who endorsed a progressive income tax, and called for national health insurance. Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech titled “The Nationalism”, in talking about personal property, “subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.” In February, 1902 he had the attorney general file suit against Northern Securities Company for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which appeared to attack Wall Street bankers and the financial empire. In 1904, the Supreme Court ruled that the Northern Securities Company had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The U.S. Senate’s passed a resolution on Article X of League of Nations Covenant. The U.S. House of Representatives moves to curtail immigration.

During Roosevelt second term he pushed for passed the Hepburn Act, regulating the railroads broadening the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission giving authority over express companies, and pipeline companies that set maximum rates. He also promoted passing the ‘Pure Food and Drug Act’ and ‘Meat-Inspection Act’ which empowered inspectors from Department of Agriculture to go into packinghouses. President Theodore Roosevelt served from 1901-1909, as a ‘Progressive Republican’ who increased governments influence over the economy, known later to be against big corporations, and a crusader for conservation creating national parks, and wildlife refuges (McGerr, Michael 2003).

From 1909-1913, William H. Taft a Progressive Republican took office and turned conservative. This caused a split of the Republican Party into ‘Conservative Republicans’, and ‘Progressive Republicans’, when he refused to support Progressive Republican and Democrat congressman on a bill that would limit the power of a conservative Speaker of the House of Representatives Joseph Cannon to merely a presiding officer. This is the turning point in history when the Progressive Republicans sided with the Democrat Party (Scott, Forman, United States History, 1974).

The Democrats too, had battled with moving toward the Progressive reform when they nominated Woodrow Wilson a ‘Progressive Democrat’ who won 42 percent of the Republican Progressive vote. Wilson believed government had no restriction on power. “For it is very clear,” he said, “that in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same.” Wilson in 1913 passed the ‘Underwood Tariff Act’ that called for lower tariff’s to bring European goods into competition with American products. To offset the expected government revenue loss from the tariff, Wilson put in a graduated federal income tax bill that marked the beginning of the countries complex tax system. Wilson created the Federal Reserve Act, supervised by a Board of Governors appointed by the President to serve a fourteen year term. In 1914, he signed the Federal Trade Commission Act setting a commission that could investigate industries suspected of violating antitrust laws along with the Clayton Antitrust Act. He also passed the Adamson Act giving railroad workers an eight-hour day at the rate of a ten-hour day (Scott, Forman, United States History, 1974). Probably one of the best books on American Progressivism is Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liveralism...

In 1913-1921 Woodrow Wilson became the 28th President of the United States. The Progressivism seemed to have drifted away after Wilson’s presidential term because of World War I. It later reorganized under a new Progressive party with Robert M. La Follette in 1924. He was supported by western farmers, organized labor, and socialists. Henry A. Wallace who became the head figure for the new Progressive Party attracted left-wingers bringing it into the Democrat Party.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States from March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the Republican Party vote, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912.

In his first term, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and America's first-ever federal progressive income tax in the Revenue Act of 1913. Wilson brought many white Southerners into his administration, and tolerated their expansion of segregation in many federal agencies.

Narrowly re-elected in 1916, Wilson's second term centered on World War I. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan "he kept us out of the war," but U.S. neutrality was challenged in early 1917 when the German government proposed to Mexico a military alliance in a war against the U.S., and began unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking without warning every American merchant ship its submarines could find. Wilson in April 1917 asked Congress to declare war.

He focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving the waging of the war primarily in the hands of the Army. On the home front in 1917, he began the United States' first draft since the US civil war, raised billions in war funding through Liberty Bonds, set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union growth, supervised agriculture and food production through the Lever Act, took over control of the railroads, enacted the first federal drug prohibition, and suppressed anti-war movements. National women's suffrage was also achieved under Wilson's presidency.

In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. He issued his Fourteen Points, his view of a post-war world that could avoid another terrible conflict. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires. Largely for his efforts to form the League, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1919, during the bitter fight with the Republican-controlled Senate over the U.S. joining the League of Nations, Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke. He refused to compromise, effectively destroying any chance for ratification. In 1920 the 19th Amendment gives American women the right to vote.

The League of Nations was established anyway, but the United States never joined. A Presbyterian of deep religious faith, he appealed to a gospel of service and infused a profound sense of moralism into Wilsonianism. Wilson's idealistic internationalism, now referred to as "Wilsonianism", which calls for the United States to enter the world arena to fight for democracy, has been a contentious position in American foreign policy, serving as a model for "idealists" to emulate and "realists" to reject ever since (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson).

Warren G Harding (1865-1923) elected 29th President of the United States, and was inaugurated in 1921. In 1922 the U.S. Congressional election reduced Republican majority. In 1923, U.S. President W.G. Harding succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge (The Timetable of History, Grun, 1975).

Later President Franklin Delano Roosevelt a Democrat 1933-1945, picked up the Progressive movement, and included Wallace as Vice president. Harry Truman became another Progressive Democrat President in 1945-1953.

FDR was the only American president elected to more than two terms, he was often referred to by his initials, FDR. Roosevelt won his first of four presidential elections in 1932, while the United States was in the depths of the Great Depression. FDR's combination of optimism and economic activism is often credited with keeping the country's economic crisis from developing into a political crisis. He led the United States through most of World War II, and died in office of a cerebral hemorrhage, shortly before the war ended.

Roosevelt named his approach to the economic situation the New Deal; it consisted of legislation pushed through Congress as well as executive orders. Executive orders included the bank holiday declared when he first came to office; legislation created new government agencies, such as the Works Progress Administration and the National Recovery Administration, with the intent of creating new jobs for the unemployed. Other legislation provided direct assistance to individuals, such as the Social Security Act.
As World War II began in 1939, with Japanese occupation of countries on the western Pacific rim and the rise of Hitler in Germany, FDR kept the US on an ostensibly neutral course. In March 1941, Roosevelt provided Lend-Lease aid to the countries fighting against Nazi Germany, with Great Britain the recipient of the most assistance. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt immediately asked for and received a declaration of war against Japan. Germany subsequently declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941. The nearly total mobilization of the US economy to support the war effort caused a rapid economic recovery.

Roosevelt dominated the American political scene, not only during the twelve years of his presidency, but for decades afterwards. FDR's coalition melded together such disparate elements as Southern whites and African Americans in the cities of the North. Roosevelt's political impact also resonated on the world stage long after his death, with the United Nations and Bretton Woods as examples of his administration's wide ranging impact. Roosevelt is rated by historians as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.

Latter Lyndon Baines Johnson a Democrat followed in the Progressive movement after the death of JFK with social ideologies in 1963-1969. Each of these presidents grew the government, adding more regulations, and taxes.

The progressive movement under Franklin D. Roosevelt took root under the ‘New Deal’ which falsely became the solution for the ‘Great Depression’ when in fact all it did was slow down the natural course of the free market recovery caused by the Great Depression. An economic depression as a result of World War II, brought about by a global economy with a slowdown in trading and barrowing (Schiff, Peter 2009).

By definition, “Progressivism is a political and social term that refers to ideologies and movements favoring or advocating changes or reform, usually in a statist or egalitarian direction for economic policies (government management) and liberal direction for social policies (personal choice). Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative ideologies.”

(www.wikapedia.com). The definition of ‘progressive tax’, “A type of graduated tax which applies higher tax rates as the income of the taxpayer increases.” (Blacks Law Dictionary).

The early Progressive movement under Wilson, and Roosevelt were Socialist. However the new Progressive movement has been taken over by Communist under President Obama. Many members of the new Progressives are products of the SDS (Students for Democratic Society) of 1963-1969 were and are Communist. There seems to be a split between Socialist progressives, and Communist Progressives. Many of the Democrats in the House, and Senate are products of the Socialist. They are being used as a vehicle of Communist agenda under President Obama, Pelosi, and Reed. These three are the product of the SDS movement who are supports of Mao, and the Communist (Little red Book of Mao) supporters. They are followers of the writings of Cloward and Piven and Saul Alinsky, which include the belief in the practice of eugenics (eugenics light: death panels as part of healthcare and harvesting organs without your permission) and the belief that anything is fair as long as you get to the end you desire.

The free market creates more wealth and opportunities for more people than any other economic model. A Capitalist system developed by Adam Smith, studied by the founding fathers of the US constitution now destined to be forgotten by both political parties because of greed, or political influence. Yet the greatest economic challenges that face the free market economy today stems at the beginning of the ‘Progressive Movement’ now considered a slippery slope towards authoritarian tyranny that influences both political parties like a cancer. The free market economy in the United States is presently at risk from an out-of-control government that is quickly adapting a socialist system or nationalization. President George Washington warned against the political parties during his farewell address in 1796.

Since January, 2009 the US House of representative and the US Senate both controlled by the Democrat Party including the President of the United States. The Democratic Party has based its foundation on the format of higher taxes, excessive spending, and bigger government. Under the ‘Liberal Democrat Party now calling themselves ‘Progressives’, will result in the high cost of doing business, which tends to be passed along to the general public for its products and services. Investment is down because of too many unknowns in today’s market, and economy.

The present economic depression is the result of over spending, corruption, energy cost, and bad bank loans because of radicals, ACORN, and the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act). The ‘Great Depression’ started in a different way from today’s depression, and the results are similar. Like most cancers the Progressive Movement begins to spread left under now President Obama when he re-energized the Democratic Party. In this case it becomes a rapid spread of larger government, more regulations, and higher taxes, as it eats away the healthily tissue, the heart of the free market economy and the capitalist system through nationalization. The ever increasing cost of minimum wage, unemployment security taxes, city and state taxes regulations, job loss, stock market downfall, less spending, and nationalization of banks are some of the leading causes of a poor US economy found today.

On February 13, 2009, the debt was raised to $12.104 trillion, by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5 (section 1604). The annual interest payment on the national debt is estimated over $350 billion a year. By 2019, an annual interest payment on the national debt is projected to hit $810 billion (CBO, 2009). This is based on President Obama not passing the proposed congressional plan for a second stimulus package plus nationalized health care that could clap the US economy.

President Ronald Reagan on his first inaugural address said, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Be sure to watch Glenn's special tomorrow because that is where Progressivism leads - Live Free or Die - The Revolutionary Holocaust: Don't Miss This Special

Why Common Sense Died

Recently Glenn Beck has rightly been lamenting the death of "common sense" in American government and law--a phenomenon which must be evident to many Americans over forty and manifest to every Bible-believing Christian. Philip K. Howard had complained against massive, hyper-detailed laws generated by regulatory bureaucracies to tell us what we must do in every situation--and leaving nothing to the common sense of the individual--in The Death of Common Sense; How Law Is Suffocating America (1995). Glenn's guest Lori Borgman (www.loriborgman.com) lamented the death of "Common Sense" in a great, now much-circulated satirical obituary in the March 15, 1998 Indianapolis Star.

Bureaucratic law, Howard noted, replaced humanity in the replacement of the system of common law which we inherited from England. Bureaucratic rules and regulations seek to predetermine results based on rationalistically conceived principles; the common law applies the law on the basis of the circumstances as evaluated by the common sense of the individual person. The "Progressive Era" at the beginning of the twentieth century saw statutory law begin to replace the common law for purposes of economic regulation; this increased with the economic regulations of the "New Deal" and continued with the increase of federal government bureaucracies added under subsequent administrations. The idea that every situation must be covered by the law has produced an explosion of the size and detail of laws--including those which Congress votes on but never reads, those which our bureaucrats produce but cannot explain, and those which cannot be known because the regulations are too massive and numerous.

The fact that no matter how learned, intelligent, and numerous are the bureaucrats who grind out these legal monstrosities they cannot know or anticipate every situation produces not only oppressive regulations but also the frequently asinine details of many regulations. Centrally-dictated, self-exercising rules, Howard notes, admit "no judgment or discretion," allow for no adjustment to the virtually infinite "range of future circumstances," and give us the opposite of what our "founding fathers" wanted: coercive government, "a government of laws against men." Such a legal system stifles individual initiative, produces time-consuming wrangles over bureaucratic processes, involved lawyers in virtually every human interaction, makes us a society of legal enemies, and reduces our freedom.

Borgman traces the death of "Common Sense" to the prior deaths of his family members, Discretion, Responsibility, and Reason. And to his declining health, caused by the notion that a law should be passed or a regulation mandated even if it only helps one person, well-intentioned but overbearing regulations, self-seeking lawyers, and schools' zero-tolerance policies. And to his loss of the will to live--caused by the proscription of the Ten Commandments, churches becoming businesses, criminals getting better treatment than their victims, judges interfering in everything, idiotic decisions by juries, and nonsensical OSHA (Occupation Safety and Health Administration)-type regulations. Howard traces it to 17th and 18th century "Enlightenment" rationalism's notion that man's unaided reason can predetermine, and create laws governing, all relations between citizens.

The death of "Common Sense" was and is caused by modern men's rejection of God, the Bible, and a Christian view of the world and of life. "Enlightenment" rationalism sought to effectively exclude God from His universe and world (rationalistic Deism which denied God's divine providence) was but one way of doing this), to replace God's word with man's unaided reason, to replace God's divine providence with man's control of all things through the all-powerful state, and God's law with man's laws. "Common Sense" is not a universal thing. As R. J. Rushdoony pointed out, different religious-philosophies teach diverse views of the world and of life, and what is considered commonsensical in one society is not considered to be so in another. What we in Western Civilization considered to be common sense was a product of the prior influence of Christianity on the peoples of Western Civilization.

When Western and American law were based mainly on biblical teachings men could know what the law required--and figure out what the law required in a given new situation--because God's law is not a monstrous, complex, self-contradictory conglomeration of regulations. The common law is a great mass of judicial decisions, but the ethics on which those decisions were based, the ethics which allowed for individual initiative and judgment in novel situations, is derived from biblical law and Christian theories of "natural law."

God's law revealed in the Bible contains few laws which men, using their God-given reason as He intended us to use it, can discern. Christ's yoke is easy and His burden is light. Faith in Him and obedience to His law is the way of national prosperity and freedom (as Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26 and many other Bible passages make clear).

Though modern man-centered thought, because of its inherent problems, has gone from rationalism to irrationality, the irrationalists who currently dominate our culture and civil governments are just as opposed to common sense and freedom as were their rationalistic parents.

Their continued rule will make sure that "Common Sense" stays dead. And it will certainly kill Freedom.

Americans used to have the freedom to use common sense because the church--following the Great Commission--had sought to influence, and did decisively influence the peoples of Western Civilization including these United States of America: their ethical, social, legal, and political thought, institutions, and culture. Americans no longer have that freedom to use common sense because the church has long abandoned the wholeness of the Great Commission. The church in this country as well as throughout Western Civilization still has virtually abandoned preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God; education; ethical, social, legal, and political thought; and the influencing legal and political institutions. As a result "Common Sense" is dead and Freedom is nearly so.

Americans used to be free to exercise "Common Sense"--and to have the Freedom to do so--because the church had (albeit imperfectly!) obeyed the Great Commission. "Common Sense" will not be resurrected, and Freedom will soon die--or be strangled--if the church does not return to the whole counsel of God and obedience to His Great Commission.

By Archie Jones – The Patriot Update

Posted: The Daily Thought Pad

Related Resources:

• Glenn Beck's Common Sense – Available Now
• The Letter – Sent to Glenn Beck
• An Open Letter to President Obama From Lou Pritchett, a former Vice President of Proctor & Gamble...
• Liberty and Tyranny
• American Progressivism
• Liberal Fascism

"Don't Tell Me It Can't Be Done"

Last week, I had the pleasure of addressing the Senate-House Annual Republican Dinner. The MC for the evening was actor Jon Voight. Before he spoke, a video tribute for Voight was shown, including clips of him playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a movie.

In one scene, Roosevelt is being told by his generals and advisors all the reasons why achieving victory in World War II was too hard.

In response, Voight - playing Roosevelt, who, remember, was confined to a wheelchair due to polio - dramatically lifts himself up using the table and stabilizes himself on his non-functioning legs. He then stares down every shocked person in the room and says:

"Don't tell me it can't be done."

It occurred to me, sitting in the audience preparing to speak, that those seven words - "Don't tell me it can't be done" - should be the rallying cry for all Republicans (not to mention all Independents and Democrats who want a better future for America - more on this idea later).

I decided to make it the theme of my speech that night. Why? Because history shows us that it can be done.

America has been here before.

1964, 1977 and 1993 - in each of these years Republicans were gleefully pronounced dead by the news media. But in each case, they came back.

On Inauguration Day 1977, Carter's Popularity Was Higher Than Obama's

1964 was followed by 1965, in which Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California. Two years later we began a 40-year period in which no overt liberal won the presidency.
In 1977, Jimmy Carter's popularity on inauguration day was higher than Barack Obama's. But in 1980, Ronald Reagan won a decisive victory and changed the course of America.
In 1993, they said Bill Clinton was creating a new, stronger Democratic Party.

In 1994, the Democratic Party suffered its worst defeat in 40 years.
So don't tell me it can't be done.

"My Fellow Republicans... and Independents and Democrats Looking for a Better Future"

History also shows us this: Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980 and 1984 by appealing, not just to Republicans, but to independents and unhappy Democrats as well. In fact, it's hard to find a Reagan speech in which he doesn't speak to "my fellow Republicans, and those independents and Democrats who are looking for a better future."

Like Reagan, we have to be inclusive, not exclusive. I'm happy Dick Cheney is a Republican. And I'm happy Colin Powell is a Republican
But here's the key: Being inclusive doesn't mean going wobbly. It doesn't mean abandoning our principles.

Key to Winning the Majority? Returning to First Principles

Reagan called them "first principles." They are our bedrock beliefs. And in a center-right nation, they are the touchstones that will guide us back into the majority.

Today I'm going to discuss some of these first principles and how they should guide us in the years ahead.

We Must Strengthen Our Unique American Civilization

If you go to the National Archives, you will find the words that are fundamental to America written in the Declaration of Independence: "We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

These words make us unique. We are the only country in history that says, "your personal rights come from God directly to you, the individual, and you loan the government sovereignty."

That means if we truly believe that each of us is endowed by our creator with rights, then we have a deep moral obligation to save the unborn. It also means we have a deep moral obligation to care for them after they have been born.

That means that when judges like Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor judge Americans by their ethnicity or their gender, it's wrong.

It also means that rationing health care is wrong. No government bureaucrat has the right to take from you the rights that God gave you. Rationing health care is inevitably limiting your life at the whim of a bureaucrat and at the manipulation of a politician.

Individual Rights and Individual Responsibilities Are At the Heart of the American System

This commitment to the principle of the sovereignty of the individual can guide us in profound ways in the coming months and years.

It means that we must have judges who understand that an America that has driven God from the public square will no longer be the America that has extended freedom and prosperity for 400 years.

It means understanding that individual rights and responsibilities are at the heart of our system, that there are no quotas and no group identities in the American system.

And it means understanding that at Jamestown, our first permanent settlement, they established the principle "if you will not work you will not eat" - not for the poor but for the aristocrats who thought they could buy their way out of work. The work ethic was at the heart of our welfare reform in 1996. It is the most successful conservative reform in modern times.

We Must Defend America Against Our Enemies

More than any other of its responsibilities, government's highest priority must be to defend America against those who would do us harm.

Tragically, under the Obama Administration, we have fallen back into the utopian fantasies and self deception of the 1977 Carter Administration and the 1993 Clinton Administration. Again and again the legalisms and self deceptions of treating enemies as criminals under these administrations led to more and more disastrous results.

Today, many of the same civil libertarians who believe terrorists deserve Miranda warnings and civilian trials are in the Obama Justice Department. It's amazing how many of them come from law firms which were eagerly giving pro bono representation to alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

By 3-to-1, Americans Believe We Are Safer with Terrorists at Guantanamo Bay

But Americans know better than to accept utopianism and self-deception in our national security policy. Nowhere was this more clear than in the contrast between President Obama's and former Vice President Cheney's back-to-back speeches on Guantanamo Bay a few weeks ago.

Vice President Cheney had a fairly simple message: The reason we have Guantanamo Bay is that we have people there who want to kill us. They are called terrorists. It's good not to have terrorists anywhere near us because it makes it harder for them to kill us.

President Obama, on the other hand, used his considerable oratorical gifts to hide from these fundamental facts. He spoke a lot of words that meant very little and managed to convey the impression that he didn't understand the nature of the men being detained at Guantanamo.

The average American listened to Vice President Cheney and President Obama and understood that one speaker got it and the other one didn't. By 3-to-1, the American people believe that we are safer with prisoners in Guantanamo Bay than in America.

Economic Freedom Leads to Jobs and Prosperity

Another first principle we must keep in mind while building a center-right majority is that economic freedom is necessary to building a productive America with the best jobs and greatest prosperity in the world.

Here our first principles are particularly clear about the disastrous path our country is on:
We will not have new jobs when bureaucrats micromanage companies.

We will not have prosperity when politicians dominate the economy.
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are not substitutes for a sound market economy. And Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are not replacements for Warren Buffet and Bill Gates

We Will Not Have Prosperity When Politicians Dominate the Economy

So how do we get back to economic growth? Here, as well, our first principles lead the way: High taxes kill jobs and growth. Low taxes encourage jobs and growth Instead of spending $787 billion to reward Democratic interest groups, an effective economic stimulus would get the money to the people that work and the businesses that hire them in the form of lower taxes.

• If we had a two-year, 50% reduction in the Social Security and Medicare tax for both the employee and the employer, we would have an extraordinary explosion of small business.
• If we want to compete with China for jobs, we should match the Chinese on capital gains. Their rate is zero.
• If we want to compete for profitable businesses creating good jobs, we should adopt the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent for corporations.
• If we want to build up capital for investments permanently, we should abolish the death tax.

For American Jobs and Prosperity We Need an American Energy Policy

Beyond tax policy, for American jobs and prosperity we need an American energy policy.

We need a policy that emphasizes the energy we have in America - from coal and natural gas to wind and solar - and recognizes that the problem isn't a lack of resources or innovation. The problem is government.

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal and the global leader in technical and scientific innovation. But both these advantages are weakened by government policies that favor imports over American energy.

If We Are Endowed by Our Creator with Rights, Then Every Child Deserves to Learn

We also need to educate our children in order to have future jobs and prosperity.

Now is a time to be bold. If we truly believe that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, then every child deserves to learn.

We should take President Obama up on his commitment to unlimited charter schools. And we should go much further.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander supports giving low income kids the chance to go to a better school through a proposal called Pell Grants for Kids. We should welcome the debate about why Pell Grants are good for after 12, but not good for K-12.

"We Carry the Message They Are Waiting For"

At the 1976 Republican convention, having lost the nomination for president, Ronald Reagan was invited by President Ford to say a few words.

This is how he closed:

"Better than we have ever done before, we have got to quit talking to each other and about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry the message they are waiting for."

Reagan's advice is as good today as it was in 1976.

We believe in individual human freedom.
We believe in protecting American civilization.
We believe that the future of America is one of prosperity for our children and grandchildren.

Millions of Americans share these beliefs. They're ready to hear our message.

Don't tell me it can't be done.

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Related Articles:

• Notes From Dr. Charles Krauthammer’s Speech to the Center for the American Experiment
• Actor Jon Voight: Obama is a disaster
• Jon Voight Speaks
• Newt Gingrich on How the GOP Can Rise Back to the Top

Progressives dream to 'remake' America – Glenn Beck (Part II)

We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future
by Matthew Spalding

- Available from Amazon

GLENN: Well, I decided Fusion magazine is my monthly magazine and we decided to do a double issue. And we're doing it on progressivism. So it's a primer. So you will be able to understand what it is, that way you don't have to go out and, you know, do all the work. If you get Fusion magazine this coming month will be a whole issue with extra pages just on the progressive movement. And I have some of the best minds on the progressive movement involved. We've asked some of the best people to write on it. Matthew Spalding is one of those guys. We asked him to write on the remaking of America, which is one of my favorite phrases from Barack Obama. We're not restoring. We're not rebuilding. We're remaking America. He is author of We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future. Matthew Spalding is with us. Matthew, how are you, sir?

SPALDING: I'm fine, Glenn, how are you?

GLENN: I'm very good. Would you say that I how far off the marker do you agree with what I just said about, that is the cancer in America is the progressive movement?
SPALDING: You are absolutely right, and I think the key is if you want to there are a lot of things going on right now. It's very confusing, where are we going. If you want a framework for thinking this through, in the shorthand it's basically we live in a world where we have a battle. We're outnumbered and it's basically the founders and self evident truth and the Constitution against this idea of progressivism and liberalism, which is a complete rejection of those ideas. And what we're talking about right now is who's going to win out, what's our future, where are we going. And you've got to understand that. If you don't understand that, we're just going to go float along the river and you know what we're going to do? We're going to become Europe. We're going to be a dead culture. That's our future: Look over at Europe. That's where we're going.

GLENN: Now, the progressive movement, this is so insidious, Matthew, because it is the only ones who have ever written anything about our history, I mean, for instance, and I don't want to get into this, but Woodrow Wilson nobody knows anything about. One evil son of a bitch. And nobody knows it. Nobody really knows what the progressive movement is because they've controlled history.

SPALDING: They've written the history, that's right.

GLENN: Yeah. And so you don't see what's coming. But once you start to go in for instance, I don't know if you're familiar. Are you familiar with Philip Dru: Administrator, the novel?

SPALDING: Yes, it's written by Colonel House anonymously about a dictator.

GLENN: Look at how excited he gets, such geeks, Matthew, such geeks.

SPALDING: It's great stuff, but you are absolutely right. Once you kind of see their vision, these guys wanted to fundamentally remake America and they set about doing it, and the beauty of reading these old books from these old guys is that back in those days they were very clear about what they were doing. Today progressive thinkers are very

July/Aug 2009 Issue

The Founders vs. The Progressives

GLENN: Shady.

SPALDING: Cagey, right? So you go back and see what they said. When they are clear, kind of tells you what's going on here because Barack Obama studied this stuff. He says so in one of his two autobiographies. He studied the progressive and Herbert Croley. He called himself a progressive. He knows what he's doing.

GLENN: Yeah. It's amazing because, Matthew, back around the turn of the century they I mean, this is the time when they were saying, you know, Mussolini, he's a good guy! This is the new wave of government.

SPALDING: That's right.

GLENN: And so there was no shame. But as soon as the idea of a dictator went awry, they went underground and then they hid it. But isn't this, Matthew, when you Philip Dru: Administrator is a novel from Wilson's time, one of Wilson's advisors. This guy played a huge role in the making of America, or the remaking of America.

SPALDING: Right.

GLENN: And it is the czar system. It's what Obama's doing with the car industry right now.

SPALDING: That's right. That particular novel suggests that this guy becomes dictator and he essentially imposes what was the 1912 platform of the Republican Party which was the progressive party at the time. There's amazing parallels today. As a matter of fact, if you look at all the things we're talking about today, healthcare reform, national service, taking over car companies and banks, all of these things have amazingly deep parallels back to the progressive movement. It's as if their agenda was written for them back in the 1920s.

GLENN: I contend, Matthew, I contend that it was. I contend that everything that is happening now, this is that there is no and I don't know anybody who has done this. Maybe you do. I contend that if you go back and you start with Barack Obama and you look at who's influenced him and who influenced them and who influenced them, you will go back to these authors, the same people. It's the same group of people. They've been educating each other and moving it along little by little, bit by bit.

SPALDING: Well, just to fill in the blanks very quickly, you had the progressive movement at the beginning. They kind of get pushed back from World War I. They come back again the New Deal. Very clearly they understood that the New Dealers understood themselves as progressives. That Peters out, but it comes back in spades in the Great Society. The roots of the Great Society are clearly in the progressives. They talk about creating a great society. That kind of falls back. You get Reagan coming into kind of get us back on track. Obama clearly sees himself, he always talks about himself as carrying on tradition of the Great Society but especially FDR. But behind that intellectually is the progressive movement. Liberalism comes into America in waves, one, two, three, and now we're in a fourth wave. This is an agenda over time to fundamentally remake America and we've got to understand that.

GLENN: So Matthew, the president says we are going to remake America. I have been ringing the bell since his inauguration when he said those words, and listen to what he is saying! He again is I think not as cagey as others are. He will use the language of the progressive movement from the early 20th century. He says them which, to me if you understand, it's code language. If you know what he's talking about, you know, "Oh, dear God, I know what's coming."

SPALDING: Well, it's also the fact that I see Obama as he's very intelligent, he knows what he's doing. I think he's the most serious liberal progressive political figure in America since FDR, and he means to seriously change American politics is a serious fundamentally realigned way which will determine a large segment of our future.
GLENN: I tell you I think FDR had some restraint. I don't know if it was personal restraint, but he had the opportunity to become dictator and he didn't. And I think he was a bad dude. Don't get me wrong. But I think Wilson I think Obama does not have that restraint. I think this administration is

SPALDING: He doesn't need to because he can know build on the successes of the past, right? It's completely open to him. No longer is there a court to check him. No longer is there Republican opposition which is willing to stand up to him, seriously in an intellectual and political way. And no longer do we have the kind of self governing spirited population that sees what it is. I mean, we've got a lot of work here. He's got an open playing field right now.

GLENN: So Matthew, I mean, this is why I did the Fusion issue and had people like you and Jonah Goldberg and everybody else write about the progressives in a historic sort of way and tie it to today. What is if you could get one message out to America, and they're like, "I don't know anything about progressives. I mean, they do auto insurance and I guess a few candidates." What is it that you would say, "You must understand this one thing"?

SPALDING: If I can I would say it's two things. One is a complete and utter intellectual and moral rejection of the principles of the founding, complete relativism. There is no truth. That's one thing. The second thing

GLENN: Wait, wait. Before you move on from that.

SPALDING: Yeah.

GLENN: Explain that a little bit because I've heard that before but until I read the words of the progressive movement where they dismantle, where they said forget about the Declaration of Independence, forget about parts of the Constitution, the preamble of the Constitution and forget about the, you know, that it's a living document. Until I actually read what they said, I didn't really understand that. Can you give an example here?

SPALDING: The whole notion of limited government depends upon us having rights granted to us by God that we each possess. If there is no moral truth behind that, there is nothing that limits government. That's what progressivism means. What they said very clearly because they went over and studied with these really bad German philosophers and they came back and they had discovered the new truth that there was no permanent enduring timeless truth, no self evident truths as it says in the declaration. Carl Becker, one of the great historians wrote to ask whether the declaration is true or not is a meaningless question. They are relativists at their core. All truths are merely relative to one another. You like ice cream, I like eating small children, all right? It doesn't matter. Once you've accepted that philosophical assumption, there are no limits on government, the Constitution is living, the president can do whatever he wants. None of this matters.

GLENN: So it's really not

SPALDING: All for the sake of progress: Progress will save us.

GLENN: It's not that they hate God or they, you know, they love pedophiles. It's that if they can destroy the concept of God or if they can destroy the self evident truth that you're endowed by rights, then they grab control.

SPALDING: Because there's nothing left to prevent them from doing so.
GLENN: Right.

SPALDING: It's not that they want to do these things but they are impelled to do them because there's no other truth out there.

GLENN: Right.

SPALDING: And if there's no truth, we must be completely tolerant, we must be completely equal. The only way we can do it is we must have government to make us do it.

GLENN: So in other words, again when you say this, I'm hoping that a lot of people will remember the words of the president where he said, "I don't want to take over these car companies. I don't want to do this."

SPALDING: Right.

GLENN: I was left with this job. Now I have to do it, and the only way, the only entity that can save these things is the government.

SPALDING: Is the government, that's right. And when he says remake America, you have to understand that what he means is he wants to get rid of, put back on the history books the always old notions of self evident truths and limited government to the Constitution. That's old school. He wants to get rid of that. In its place we have this new administrative government, and a lot of this culminates, and this is a key aspect of this, a lot of it culminates in Barack Obama himself. His narcissism, the notion that he is kind of the culmination of history, right? That itself is a very progressive concept. That's what Woodrow Wilson thought, right? These great historical figures are absolutely key. And that's what Barack Obama sees himself as. He is leading us into the future.

GLENN: If I'm not mistaken, Woodrow Wilson went so far as saying that God cannot be stopped and that America, when they voted down progressivism and they voted down the League of Nations, et cetera, et cetera, that these all, all these things came from God and he knew it, and God would not be stopped.

SPALDING: That's right. The early progressives were actually, interestingly enough very much influenced by a religious concept. But their religious concept is not God in the (inaudible) sense in any way, it really means history, kind of in a, God takes on this notion of the invisible forces of history taking us into the future. And you need somebody to lead us there. And so Woodrow Wilson was the great leader, the same way that Barack Obama being perfectly progressive is the one who, he has the vision to see where we're going. And so only he can lead us there. That's the beauty of it.

GLENN: Okay. Hold on just a second, Matthew. I appreciate it. Matthew Spalding. In Fusion magazine Matthew writes a great article on the remaking of America, keyword "Remaking" of America. Jonah Goldberg is also writing for it. R. J. Pestritto who is this really smart dude, professor. Where is he a professor of?

SPALDING: Hillsdale college.

GLENN: Hillsdale. Really smart guy. You can get an expanded edition of Fusion magazine by call 888 Glenn Beck or go to GlennBeck.com. It is next month's issue.

Related Resources:

• Progressivism – The Progressive Movement Is A Cancer That Has Slowly Infested Both Major U.S. Parties Over the Past 100 Years – (Part 1)
• American Progressivism – Part One
• American Progressivism – Part Two
• American Progressivism – Part Three
• American Progressivism – Parts Four and Five
• How Obama’s Socialism Works
• California is Liberalism's "Canary in the Coal Mine"
• Progressive Taxation Was Never About Fairness
• American capitalism gone with a whimper - Pravda
• The Weimar Solution
• American Progressivism – Book
• Liberal Fascism - Book
• One-Party Classroom - Book
• Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism... – Book
• Expelled – DVD

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

The Death of Israel

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news.  An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu's government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta, who recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel "read the riot act" to the government warning against an attack on Iran.

More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons.  She writes, "...we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the US will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy."

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that "as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself."  She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel's doing, not Iran's.
In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.

Obama's end-of-the-year deadline for Iranian talks aimed at stopping its progress toward nuclear weapons is just window dressing without the threat of military action.  As Metternich wrote "diplomacy without force is like music without instruments."  By warning only of possible strengthening of economic sanctions if the talks do not progress, Obama is making an empty threat.  The sanctions will likely have no effect because Russia and China will not let the United Nations act as it must if it is to deter Iranian nuclear weapons.

All this means is that Israel's life is in danger.  If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews.  No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference.  One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death.  Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence.  Iran would probably not launch the bomb itself, anyway, but would give it to its puppet terrorists to send to Israel so it could deny responsibility.  Obama, bent on appeasement, would likely not retaliate with nuclear weapons.  And Israel will be dead and gone.

Those sunshine Jewish patriots who voted for Obama must realize that we, as Jews, are witnessing the possible end of Israel.  We are in the same moral position as our ancestors were as they watched Hitler rise but did nothing to pressure their favorite liberal Democratic president, FDR, to take any real action to save them or even to let Jewish refugees into the country.  If we remain complacent, we will have the same anguish at watching the destruction of Israel that our forebears had in witnessing the Holocaust.

Because one thing is increasingly clear: Barack Obama is not about to lift a finger to stop Iran from developing the bomb.  And neither is Hillary Clinton.

Obama may have held the first White House cedar, but he's not planning to spend next year in Jerusalem.

Source: Dick Morris.com

American Progressivism – Parts Four and Five

Who were the Progressives, and why are they important?

R.J. Pestritto  -  Shipley Professor of the American Constitution at Hillsdale College

American Progressivism

Progressivism and Socialism

Since the Progressives had such a limitless view of state power, and since they wanted to downplay the founders’ emphasis on individual rights, it is only natural to ask if they subscribed to socialism.  There are several things to consider in answering this question. 

First, when considering the relationship of progressivism to socialism, we must be clear that we are talking about the similarity in the philosophy of government; we are not suggesting that America’s progressives were the kind of moral monsters that we see in the history of some socialist or fascist regimes (although it is the case that their racial views – particularly those of Woodrow Wilson – were indeed morally reprehensible).

Second, we must also bear in mind that there was an actual socialist movement during the Progressive Era, and prominent progressives such as Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt were critics of it.  In fact, Wilson and Roosevelt both ran against a socialist candidate in the 1912 election (Eugene Debs).  The progressives were ambivalent about the socialist movement of their day not so much because they disagreed with it in principle, but because the American socialist movement was a movement of the lower classes.  The progressives were elitists; they looked down their noses at the socialists, considering them a kind of rabble.

Keeping these points in mind, it is, nonetheless, the case that the progressive conception of government closely coincided with the socialist conception.  Both progressivism and socialism champion the prerogatives of the state over the prerogatives of the individual.  Wilson himself made this connection very plain in a revealing essay he wrote in 1887 called “Socialism and Democracy.”  Wilson’s begins this essay by defining socialism, explaining that it stands for unfettered state power, which trumps any notion of individual rights. It “proposes that all idea of a limitation of public authority by individual rights be put out of view,” Wilson wrote, and “that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will.” After laying out this definition of socialism, Wilson explains that he finds nothing wrong with it in principle, since it was merely the logical extension of genuine democratic theory. It gives all power to the people, in their collective capacity, to carry out their will through the exercise of governmental power, unlimited by any undemocratic idea like individual rights. He elaborated:

“In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none.”

Roosevelt, too, argued for a new conception of government, where individual natural rights would no longer serve as a principled boundary that the state was prohibited from crossing.  He called in his New Nationalism program for the state to take an active role in effecting economic equality by way of superintending the use of private property. Private property rights, which had been serving as a brake on the more aggressive progressive policy proposals, were to be respected, Roosevelt argued, only insofar as the government approved of the property’s social usefulness.  He wrote:

“We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.”

In the next and final piece, we will consider the some of the most important connections between the original progressives and the resurgence of progressivism today.

Progressivism and the Current Crisis

There are important connections between America’s original Progressive Era and the crisis we are facing today, and it is useful to consider these connections on two levels.

The first connection is at a general level, and concerns our abandonment of the Constitution.  The present crisis did not appear out of nowhere, and didn’t simply begin with the election of Barack Obama.  Politicians of both parties spent the better part of the 20^thcentury disregarding the Constitution, as they looked to have government step up to solve every conceivable human problem.  Thus it ought to be no surprise that the Constitution’s limits on government aren’t even part of the conversation today as our politicians debate the new interventions in our economy and society that seem to come daily.  

Such a state of things would have greatly pleased America’s original progressives.  As I’ve endeavored to explain in these pieces for the newsletter, progressives believed that the role of government should be determined not by our Constitution, but by whatever the needs of the day happened to be.  This is why they sought to eradicate talk of the Constitution from our political discourse; today, that goal seems to have been realized.

The second connection between the original Progressive Era and our situation today has to do with policy.  The progressives knew that our original system of government was not capable of handling all of the new tasks that they had in mind for it.  So they envisioned creating a vast set of bureaucratic agencies.  They argued that Congress should enact very broad and vague laws for supervising more and more facets of the American economy and society, and then delegate to the bureaucratic agencies the power and discretion to enact specific policies.  Both Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt conceived of government in this way.

The New Deal certainly went a long way toward implementing this progressive vision, and what we have seen in our own situation with TARP and the various other interventions is simply greater steps toward the progressive plan.  Our Congress has simply said to the Treasury agencies: here’s a trillion dollars, here’s all the legal authority you need, now go out, determine what is in the public interest, and spend and regulate accordingly.  That is the progressive vision of government, in a nutshell.

For more on the Progressives, two of my books may be of interest:

1) American Progressivism, which I co-edited with American historian William Atto, contains a basic introduction to progressive ideas written by Professor Atto and me, and then several selections from the actual writings of Progressives like Wilson, TR, Dewey, Croly, and others.

2) Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism...  which is a much more in-depth look at Woodrow Wilson and how he was central to originating the liberalism that dominates America today.  This is for those who are really interested in history and political theory.

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

Related Articles:

• American Progressivism – Part One
• American Progressivism – Part Two 
  
• American Progressivism – Part Three
  
• Conservatism 101