Posted on 03/22/2016 7:12:03 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
The progressingamerica project exists primarily, for more than any other reason, to show just how dangerous progressivism is. The progressives own history is one of the best weapons we have against these people. Read this, this is Obama. He could have very well said this in our time.
Now, my ambition is that, in however small a way, the work I do shall be along the Washington and Lincoln lines. While President I have been President, emphatically; I have used every ounce of power there was in the office and I have not cared a rap for the criticisms of those who spoke of my 'usurpation of power'; for I know that the talk was all nonsense and that there was no usurpation. I believe that the efficiency of this Government depends upon its possessing a strong central executive, and wherever I could establish a precedent for strength in the executive, as I did for instance as regards the external affairs in the case of sending the fleet around the world, taking Panama, settling affairs of Santo Domingo and Cuba; or as I did in internal affairs in settling the anthracite coal strike, in keeping order in Nevada this year when the Federation of Miners threatened anarchy, or as I have done in bringing the big corporations to book—why, in all these cases I have felt not merely that my action was right in itself, but that in showing the strength of, or in giving strength to, the executive, I was establishing a precedent of value.
Theodore Roosevelt spat upon George Washington with his presidency. GW and the rest of the Founders tried to prevent the very thing TR let loose. Madison's notes are replete with discussions and warnings and worries that are very much the embodiment of progressivism in general, with Obama, FDR, Wilson, and TR in particular. The precedent TR set only has value to the Obamas and the Alinsky's of the world. It's our job to try to undo this damage.
Yes, I know, I'm going to get flamed for being "anti Theodore Roosevelt". Listen to this:
In the great days of the Roman Republic no harm whatever came from the dictatorship, because great though the power of the dictator was, after a comparatively short period he surrendered it back to those from whom he gained it.
To my knowledge, during the Republic the dictator was term limited. That's a far cry from "surrendering" it. But that's not really the point. I don't want to get stuck on Roman history here, because to do that would be to let the progressives get away with it, and I don't want to let progressives get away with it. Every progressive has some dictator that they love. That's a big problem for a free society. TR made clear that he loved the embodiment of a dictator, that much cannot be denied. And it's not just that he had dreams of being an American dictator, he tries to be an apologist for his usurpations. Dreaming of a day when there would be no constitution to stand in his way. That pesky constitution, Yes! Those Roman dictators, though, they were so lucky! They didn't have to worry about getting around such obstacles.
This comes from a letter Roosevelt wrote to Sir George Otto Trevelyan on June, 1908. (pages 92-95)
This is absolutely indefensible, what TR wrote and believed, and acted upon those beliefs. Obama's Che is TR's Caesar. I know I shouldn't get mad when I see progressives glorifying totalitarianism since the progressives are themselves totalitarians - but I'm an American. My promise is that of Liberty. Why shouldn't it upset me? The constant barrage and theft of our liberties from progressives makes me sick.
Indeed. Teddy set many precedents. He was a man of many accomplishments, but he did precisely what you say.
I think TR was perhaps the greatest president of all.
I could go on and on about monopolies, robber barons, horrible working conditions, adulterated food and drugs, etc.
I despise modern progressives more than anyone and have no doubt that TR would feel the same.
Just as Otto Bismarck started social security in Germany to hold off Communism, Roosevelt reformed America before it also exploded into a revolution.
He was the only man to earn the Nobel Peace prize and medal of honor. When I say earned, he really did. He single handedly brokered a peace treaty between Japan and Russia. He led a charge up San Juan Hill or whatever hill they say it was, miraculously escaping death while getting 9 bullet holes in his clothes.
He loved hunting and shooting. He was an expert on all kinds of subjects and wrote many books still considered authoritative.
He loved and was faithful to his first and second wives and was a great Father.
A truly great man.
What do you think TR would think of the modern gun grabbers?
Not by me you wouldn't. TR set the wrecking ball in motion.
The more I read about Teddy, the less I respect him.
TR and gun grabbers? Who was President when New York’s infamous Sullivan law was passed?
The Charge up San Juan hill ought to be condemned,not celebrated. The Spanish-American War should never have been fought;it was raw American imperialism and contrary to the American ideals.
Nor should TR be praised for setting the precebeing the maker of laws instead of the executor of laws.dent of the president unilaterally declaring or creating national monuments and parks thus maintaining federal control over vast tracts of the West.
TR usurped the powers of the legislature and like Lincoln before him pushed the presidency towards
I guess that would be William Howard Taft. It certainly was not TR.
Taft was a solid conservative and probably had nothing to do with New York City gun laws.
You are correct that Taft was President in 1911. I was wondering if you knew Teddy’s reaction to this law.
I have 3 biographies of TR. The more I learn about him the more in awe I am.
With the possible exception of Jefferson, he was the most intelligent president of them all.
He, like all men had his weaknesses. He personally picket Taft as the next president and Taft was a good one. Taft in fact busted more trusts than TR did.
Still Roosevelt felt that Taft had betrayed him but he had not. TR just had to be in charge of everything. As Alice his daughter described him, he had to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.
What is even worse, Taft absolutely loved Roosevelt. At TR’s funeral, Taft was the last person to leave the grave and was seen to be weeping.
Also TR was the first President since Grant who was a member of the NRA. The other members were Taft, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, and the older Bush but I don’t count him as he resigned at just the moment to harm the NRA. In fact I despise him for it.
I LIKE American Imperialism.
At least we were ruthless enough to carry it off with good form back then...
RULE OF THUMB
ALL POLITICIANS ARE SCUMBAGS
. . . and you can addIt is difficult to improve on that, a century on. The whole speech from which that is excerpted bears a reading.
- From Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech at the Sarbonne:
- There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Still and all, TR is definitely a problem. The term “conservative” is not specific enough; what is conservative in one country would be otherwise in another. TR was jingoistic. He did not truly understand the meaning of that until his own son fell in battle; understandably he was never the same after that.
Look, if you want to criticize Theodore Roosevelt and his progressive politics, be my guest. If you wish to state he did a lot to violate the country and its foundational origins, again, be my guest.
However, if you’re going to do that, I strongly suggest you tear Thomas Jefferson up even further than Theodore Roosevelt, since according to various sources including Liberty the God that Failed, he potentially rivaled even Barack Obama, much less Theodore Roosevelt, as a big government ogre/progressive. Let’s list some stuff he enacted when he became President under the promise of ending Federalism (as you can read here: http://distributistreview.com/review-liberty-the-god-that-failed-part-i/):
“1. His call for the shooting of Tory counter-revolutionaries who should have been treated as prisoners of war, pursuant to a bill of attainder he himself drafted and pushed through the Virginia legislature.
2. Jefferson’s support for the early Jacobin massacres as expressed in the “Adam and Eve” letter.
3. His lifelong ownership of slaves, some of whom he had flogged for attempting to escape, and his continued slave trading while President.
4. Endorsement of state law prosecutions for “seditious libel” against the President and Congress.
5. His approval of an expedient and quite illegal “amendment” of the Constitution by the Republican-controlled House to expand the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in order to facilitate the impeachment of his Federalist opponent, Judge Pickering, for drunkenness.
6. Jefferson’s declaration that ‘where the laws become inadequate even to their own preservation… the universal resource is a dictator, or martial law.’
7. His embargo of American shipping, including the federal seizure of ships and cargoes, without due process.
8. His instigation of “treason” trials and his demand for the death penalty for American citizens who had merely attempted to recover their own property from federal agents. (Christopher A. Ferra, Liberty, the God That Failed (Angelico Press, 2012), 237-239.)”
And that’s not even the half of it: Apparently, there was also this to consider:
“The Loyalty oath statute Jefferson drafted for the Virginia legislature is typical of these totalitarian measures. The purpose of the loyalty or test oath was, of course, to flush out suspected Tories whose hidden thoughts were threats to the revolutionary cause. Jefferson’s definition of a Tory, written in defense of the loyalty oath, is supremely illustrative of the manner in which he and his fellow radicals imposed what they called Liberty on those who would dissent even inwardly from their program: A Tory has been properly defined to be a traitor in thought, but not in deed. The only description, by which the laws have endeavored to come at them, was that of non-jurors, or persons refusing to take the oath of fidelity to the state.(Ibid. 160)”
And did I mention that Jefferson actually attempted to implement loyalty oaths to people as young as 16 years old? He declared that all 16 year olds are to, and I quote:
“[S]wear or affirm that I renounce and refuse all allegiance to George the third, king of Great Britain, his heirs and successors,, to profess absolute allegiance to Virginia as a free and independent state, and to turn over to the authorities anyone known to be involved in treasons or traitorous conspiracies which I now or hereafter shall know to be formed against this or any of the United States of America.”
And for those who fail to do so, well, Ferrara gives some details there, as well:
“Whoever refused to take the oath was disarmed, stripped of his voting rights and barred from holding public office, serving on juries, suing for money or acquiring property. Jefferson also participated in drafting a statute that subjected non-jurors to triple taxation.(Ibid., 160.)”
Oh, and he also pulled a Woodrow Wilson by promising to end Federalism, yet then proceeded to double down on John Adam’s policies by declaring that “we are all Federalists now” in his second term.
Honestly, taking all that into account, he makes Theodore Roosevelt seem like someone who actually CARED for the Constitution by comparison. And don’t get me started on his support for the Jacobin horrors despite Morris and even William Short’s exposure of just how horrific it was (and Jefferson actually liked Short), even doubling down on the support every single year up to 1793, and even there, he pretty much dropped support because it was politically inconvenient.
Heck, forget Jefferson, the entire premise of progressivism was present in even Locke’s writings, which inspired at the very least Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and possibly Ben Franklin. I’ll even quote the relevant sections:
“A few decades later, the “cautious Locke, standing in Hobbe’s shadow, announces the same new doctrine but with far more prudent language, adding a fundamental development regarding private property…Locke’s doctrine is essentially the Hobbesian state of nature with an emphasis on private property as the primary means of defending the right to self-preservation. His description of the state of nature pleasingly presents it as one of “Peace, Good Will, Mutual Assistance, and Preservation”, with ‘Men living together according to reason, without a common Superior on Earth, with authority to judge between them’ only to concede – literally one page and one section later – that it inevitably devolves into Hobbe’s “State of War” on account of the “want of positive Laws and judge with Authority to appeal to…’ Man is born, says Lock with “a title to perfect Freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the Rights and Privileges of uncertain and constantly exposed to the Invasion of others.’ The inevitable State of War ‘once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace’. No matter what Locke’s apologists in academia labor to find by way of distinctions, Hobbes and Locke are essentially at one in their teaching on a state of nature that is really a state of war, giving rise to a “natural law” that is really a natural right to self-preservation by any means necessary. Like Hobbes, Locke declares in the state of nature ‘every man hath a right to punish the Offender, and be Executioner of the Law of nature’ which is none other than the right to self-preservation.(Ibid. 58-59.)”
And here’s Hobbe’s original ideology, and you’ll notice there’s barely any difference between the two (and Hobbes is basically the guy who promotes tyranny to secure society, aka, Progressivism):
“For Hobbes, natural law in the state of nature is not God’s law written on man’s heart, but merely “a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and omit that by which he thinketh it may be best reserved.
According to Hobbes, while God has decreed the laws of nature, man has no innate understanding of them, as is shown by varying human opinions over what the natural law requires. Hence, man must be guided solely by the decisions of the civil authorities… Hobbes then, is a legal positivist and a voluntarist: right and wrong are determined solely by the will of the legislator upon emergence from the state of nature, for ‘Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.’ The doctrine seems shocking until we realize that it represents the juridical status quo of political modernity: the will of the majority trumps the objective moral order.(Ibid. 57.)”
So yeah, what both Hobbes AND Locke stated essentially said that humanity was essentially a brute where natural law has absolutely no effect on him and needs government overreach to restrain and grant rights.
Like I said, you want to trash on Theodore Roosevelt for his progressive views and how they tarnished America, go right on ahead, but I strongly suggest that you be consistent in your criticisms and also direct them to Thomas Jefferson, and maybe also all of the founding fathers if you must, and also direct them to John Locke and Hobbes as well, since they had the idea of progressivism as defined by Roosevelt and his ilk LONG before Roosevelt was even born. Roosevelt may have merely spat on the constitution, but Jefferson spat on, used as toilet paper, and outright burned the constitution.
And BTW, that’s not even the only sources I have on Jefferson’s progressive actions. I can also cite these ones as well:
*https://youtu.be/o1ZgmqPZB5k / http://the-american-catholic.com/2016/07/14/july-14-1789-first-bastille-day/
*http://catholicism.org/liberty-the-god-that-failed.html
*http://catholicism.org/enlightenment-not-over.html
Oh yeah, I forgot one other source:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/05/understanding-thomas-jeffersons-reactions-rise-jacobins/
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