Posted on 11/08/2011 5:32:43 PM PST by Starman417
I just finished reading An American Life, the autobiography of Ronald Reagan. The book was given to me by my oldest daughter, and I enjoyed it very much.
What do Ronald Reagan's autobiography and FDR have in common? After reading this, see if you agree with me.
At the end of page 66 and on page 67 of the (hardcover) book, Ronald Reagan is remembering FDR's 1932 presidential campaign. Reagan says,
"With his alphabet soup of federal agencies, FDR in many ways set in motion the forces that later sought to create big government and bring a form of veiled socialism to America. But I think that many people forgot Roosevelt ran for president on a platform dedicated to reducing waste and fat in government. He called for cutting federal spending by twenty-five percent, eliminating useless boards and commissions and returning to state and communities powers that had been wrongfully seized by the federal government. If he had not been distracted by war, I think he would have resisted the relentless expansion of the federal government that followed him. One of his sons, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., often told me that his father had said many times his welfare and relief programs during the Depression were meant only as emergency, stopgap measures to cope with a crisis, not the seeds of what others later tried to turn into a permanent welfare state. Government giveaway programs, FDR said, 'destroy the human spirit,' and he was right. As smart as he was, though, I suspect even FDR didn't realize that once you created a bureaucracy, it look on a life of its own. It was almost impossible to close down a bureaucracy once it has been created." [emphasis mine]
Based on what Ronald Reagan (who voted for FDR four times) said, it sounds to me like FDR is just the opposite of what Democrats say or remember. And Democrats like to cite FDR's policies even today. So what follows can be considered a very brief fiscal history of the FDR administration.
When Roosevelt took office in March, 1933, the breadlines, bankruptcies, and bank failures of the Great Depression mandated unconventional politics. He responded immediately. The dominant faction in Roosevelt's first Administration traced the origins of the Depression to basic structural flaws in the nation's economy. According to "Brains-Truster" Rexford Guy Tugwell, an economist from Columbia University, a laissez-faire regime of "competition and conflict" was responsible for the crisis and only "coordination and control," meaning centralized planning, could correct matters. FDR's central planning economy was imposed on the United States, with almost every part of the market under the supervision, control, and regulation of the federal government. An increasing number of Americans became directly and indirectly dependent upon the Washington for their employment and income. The era of big government had arrived in the United States.
Sound familiar? Central planning is just what President Barack Obama is currently trying to ram down our throats.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
FDR = ‘RAT bastard....
commie loving POS.
Third worst president in history.
Liberal scumbag.
FDR was a political opportunist who surrounded himself with commie advisors.
Anyone who thinks FDR was a conservative is insane.
Roosevelt was the worst president of my lifetime (and I'm old enough to recall the tail end of his time in office). And, yes, I'm including both Carter and Obama. The reason why FDR is worse than those other vile men is that he had four terms in office to push his Communist, pro-Soviet agenda. Obama will be toast in one year when we take America back!
Apparently he talked like a conservative for the 1932 election, but anyone who believes what FDR said is insane.
Sure he caused more damage than the one term losers, but as you pointed out, he had four terms to do it in. If he had been thrown out of office after his first term, he would barely make the worst ten of the twentieth century.
One very likely possibility is that FDR was a conservative before he became corrupted by Washington politics. In our day, we see this happening again and again.
This explanation would reconcile Reagan’s view of FDR’s campaign promises with what we know of his political actions.
FDR had to destroy the Constitution to make this happen. The classic case of this is Wickard v. Filburn, which is a turning point in this country. Farmer Filburn produced wheat in excess of his government allotment for his own consumption, and he was fined. The government claimed it had the right due to its power to regulate interstate commerce. The Court agreed holding that by using this grain for himself, Filburn affected interstate commerce. The FDR-frightened court did the president's bidding.
What you see with FDR was massive government aimed at wrong ideas and frightening police-state tactics to enforce these ideas. You might think he was a conservative because of how he campaigned, but guess what? He lied! Wilson lied too. He ran as a dove and from Day One worked to get us into WW I. Socialists lie because it gets them in power.
Not insane but ignorant of history. To cure this, I recommend this book: The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal. It's short and does a great job of cutting out the fat and getting to the point.
An old thread with a 1939 conservative booklet (”The Revolution Was”) about FDR and the New Deal. It’s all happening again, almost down to the same wording that Obama uses (”now is not the time for profits”, “rebuild America on a new foundation”). It is a long booklet, but here is an excerpt from his first inaugural address - doesn’t sound too conservative to me (pertains to the “evil bankers” and “obscene profits”.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts
In his first inaugural address, March 4, 1933, the President said: “Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay. has fallen;... the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side..... Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance.... Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed,... have admitted their failure and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money-changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.... They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.... Yes, the money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”
There was the pattern and it never changed. The one enemy, blameable for all human distress, for unemployment, for low wages, for the depression of agriculture,.... for want in the midst of potential plenty — who was he? The money-changer in the temple. This was a Biblical symbol and one of the most hateful. With what modern symbol did this old and hateful one associate? With the Wall Street banker, of course; and the Wall Street banker was the most familiar and the least attractive symbol of capitalism.
..... “We cannot go back to the old order,” said the President. And this was a very hateful counter symbol, because the old order, never really defined, did in fact associate in the popular mind with the worst debacle in the history of capitalism.....
Large profit as such becomes therefore a symbol of social injury, merely because it is large; moreover, it is asserted that large profit had long been so regarded by the government and penalized for that reason.
Of all the counter symbols this was the one most damaging to the capitalistic system. Indeed, if it were accepted, it would be fatal, because capitalism is a profit and loss system and if profits, even very large profits, are socially wrong, there is nothing more to be said for it. But it was a false symbol, and false for these three reasons, namely: first, there is no measure of large profit; second, large profits are of many kinds and to say simply that large profits are “of course made at the expense of the neighbors” is either nonsense or propaganda, as you like; and; in the third place, the history is wrong....
So, what the New Deal really intended to do, what it meant to do within the Constitution if possible, with the collaboration of Congress if Congress did not fail, but with war powers if necessary, was to REORGANIZE AND CONTROL THE WHOLE ECONOMIC AND THEREFORE THE WHOLE SOCIAL NETWORK OF THE COUNTRY.
And therein lay the meaning — the only consistent meaning — of a series of acts touching money, banking and credit which, debated as monetary policy, made no sense whatever.
I read “Target Patton” last year. Although it is about the
theory that Patton was assassinated it has a huge amount of
peripheral information about the Communist infiltration of
the FDR administration, including FDR bypassing the FBI and
letting Stalin place people in high places. I have not read
any of this elsewhere. The book is well researched and has
many very credible sources.
I’ll put that one on my list.
This doesn’t even factor in Yalta, which all by itself makes him a killer. He asked for, and got, the Cold War.
I loved Reagan but he was wrong about FDR. For God’s sake he was a progressive socialist through and through from the 1910’s. He always had designs on transforming Americans to rely on the Government.
Obama ran on a plaform of transparecy, accountability and not pandering to special interests.
Eff what kind of platform they campaigned on. Once they're in office it doesn't mean a damned thing to them, why should it matter to me?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.