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?

TOP VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: BECK LAUNCHES NEW GBTV PROGRAM

Glenn Beck launched his new two-hour nightly program on Tuesday night on GBTV.com.

Here are a few of the highlights from the first broadcast.

The Truth on Islamic Extremism (See Video)

Where We Were on 9/12 (See Video)

Terrorist Attack on Lady Liberty (See Video)

Glenn Welcomes First Responders (See Video)

You can check out the new show during a free two-week trial.  For more information click here.

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

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

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
  

American Progressivism – Part Three

How the Progressives Originated the Modern Presidency

Who were the Progressives, and why are they important?

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

 

American Progressivism 

As I explained in my last piece, the Progressives wanted to disregard the Constitution in order to enlarge vastly the scope of government.  As a practical matter, how was this to be done?  It happened in a variety of ways, but principal among them was a fundamental change in the American presidency.

Under the system of our founders, government was to have sufficient strength and energy to accomplish its ends, but those ends were strictly limited by the Constitution.  The principal way in which the Constitution keeps the government within its boundaries is through the separation of powers.  As readers of The Federalist and of Thomas Jefferson know, the point of separation of powers is to keep any one set of hands from wielding all of the power in national government.

The Progressives, especially Woodrow Wilson, hated the separation of powers for precisely this reason: it made government inefficient, and made it difficult, if not impossible, to expand the power of government so that it could take on all of the new tasks that Progressives had in mind.  So they looked to the presidency as a way of getting around this obstacle.

Under the original system, the president was merely leader of a single branch, or part, of the government, and thus could not provide leadership of the government as a whole.  In his book Constitutional Government, Wilson urged that “leadership and control must be lodged somewhere.” The president, Wilson pointed out, was the only politician who could claim to speak for the people as a whole, and thus he called upon the president to rise above the separation of powers – to consider himself not merely as chief of a single branch of government, but as the popular leader of the whole of national politics. Wilson even contrasted the “constitutional aspect” of the presidency – its constitutionally defined role as chief of one of the three co-equal branches of government – to the “political” function of the president, where he could use his connection to public opinion as a tool for moving all of the branches of government in the direction called for by the people. 

It was in this way that Wilson believed the original intention of the separation of powers system could be circumvented, and the enhanced presidency could be a means energizing the kind of active national government that the progressive agenda required. 

In the next piece, we’ll consider whether the principles of the Progressives made them socialists.

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.

Related Articles: 

• American Progressivism – Part One
• American Progressivism – Part Two

Source:  The Glenn Beck Show

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad