Posted on 05/04/2010 5:29:11 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
It is remarkable that Theodore Roosevelt (TR to his friends), who has been beloved as an iconic patriot and president, would become a controversial figure today.
This unusual development is largely due to the rise of Glenn Beck.
Glenn has been right on many issues and his views are resonating with Main Street.
But he is wrong on one big issue: Theodore Roosevelt is not, as he claims, the root cause of President Obama’s intrusive, “big government” policies.
It is no accident that TR’s face is chiseled into Mount Rushmore along with those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, as he is rightly regarded by historians as one of the greatest presidents in American history.
He was raised to that height in the national consciousness by the weight of important achievements that significantly advanced the interests of the United States.
Strong in this belief, I have found Glenn Beck’s criticism of TR surprising.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I like to think that if TR were alive today, he would be right out front at a tea party event pounding his fist and railing against this current government.
Beck’s right on this one. Roosevelt was a progressive. He deeply distrusted business and worked hard to move the Republican party to the left. I’m not sure why Newsmax is ignoring his record.
Unfortunately, TR let the Tax genie out of the bottle with his lack of foresight and his childish, idealistic “progressivism.”. It doesn’t matter how much he might regret his mistake; we’re now condemned to pay the price.
If it were up to me, we’d erase his face from Rushmore and replace it with Ronald Reagan’s.
Did you read the article? Are you against child labor laws? Is that being socialist?
I agree, mostly, with Beck.
TR, far more than Lincoln, who is so often blamed, is responsible for the idea that the government is responsible for fixing our problems. While TR no doubt would be appalled by today’s intrusive government, once the idea has been accepted that “when people hurt, the government must move,” there is no logical stopping point short of full totalitarisnism.
After Lincoln, and especially after the end of Reconstruction, the federal government returned to a limited role not utterly dissimilar to what it was before the War.
Since TR the federal government has continually expanded in both size and mission. Even presidents like Coolidge and Reagan were able only to slow its growth, not reverse it.
I also have no idea why anyone at FR would care one way or another what any of these media billionaires has to say.
Right on buddy! Right on!
” I’m not sure why Newsmax is ignoring his record.”
Because most Republicans are not for small government.
“Theodore Rex” is another great read.
Hoist by his own petard.
If one always "acts according to the practical needs of the occasion," it seems pretty obvious that one will constantly be expanding the role of government, as that is in general the most obvious way of dealing with any problem. A true conservative recognizes that some problems are the price we must pay for limited government, thereby avoiding the problems caused by unlimited government. This analysis leaves out the obvious issue that expanding the government to deal with "the practical needs of the occasion" seldom is all that effective at actually solving those needs.
"Making America strong and No. 1 on the world stage" is a defensible goal, but it also quite obviously requires a government that in size and scope is far beyond that envisioned by the Founders.
I expect to be dead in 100 years. However, if policies I supported while living turned out to have bad consequences, those suffering the consequences could legitimately "blame" me.
Yes, you do. There is enough human history to know that government expands as much as possible and abuses any powers given. That's why the founders didn't allow for a national sales tax or a national income tax.
I think a lot of freepers would like to see either a flat tax or national sales tax implemented with the elimination of the income tax.
Some of us want to see the 16th amendment repealed and the income tax replaced with nothing. Return to having the government doing what was given to it to do in article 1, secion 8 of the US constitution and they don't need much money at all. What they need they can get off constitutional funds sources.
Well, yes it is.
It's a type of socialism, as with Social Security and many other policies, that has been accepted by most Americans, including myself, as the article says.
But that doesn't make these policies of government intervention into private businesses and lives any less socialistic, it just means we have grown used to many socialistic policies.
I have no idea why this loud mouth would earn 42 million dollars annually.
Oh, so you feel like he's earned enough money already?
TR was correct about big business. If you do not keep an eye on them they will corrupt officials and cheat the people. Look what happen in Wall Street. Selling mortgage backed securities to investors as AAA investments and at the same time betting against them with options (indicating they knew the MBS were financially unsound). Then go overseas and help the Greek government hide their deficit spending. Do you know how many pro US former East European bloc nations are financially underminded by Wall Street who sold them shaky mortgage backed securities to their banks and pension funds??!!!! Russia loves it, and the former Communist opposition parties chumping at the bit for an election loves it also.
Bingo! The winner! Most Republicans are all for liberty when it comes to themselves, but they don't want liberty for their neighbors. In fact, they often want the government to regulate, sometimes literally at the point of a gun, their neighbors actions. Thus, they grow government because they don't like what some people are doing. Just like leftists in the Democrat party.
“However, if 100 years from now, that were distorted into something we never intended it to be, do we take the blame? “
If you support something that supports the monstrous leviathan that is the federal government, you are very much to blame. These tax schemes are meant to maintain current levels of revenue and current level of government. The income tax was just as wrong in 1913 as it is today. Those who instituted it are much worse than those who now go along with it. The first had to take much initiative to get the job done.
Thx. Imperial Cruise really shocked me w/ regard to planting the seeds of WWII (in 1905!).
Theodore Roosevelt started the Progressive Party in 1912 and ran with this new party, as a 3rd party candidate when he did not get the GOP Nomination. That assured that Woodrow Wilson, the most leftist President in the 1900’s got elected.
T. Roosevelt reminds me of McCain. Had lots of money, was against Big Business, and sided with the Environmental Wackos.
From Wikipeadia:
“After two weeks, Roosevelt, realizing he would not be able to win the nomination outright, asked his followers to leave the convention hall. They moved to the Auditorium Theatre, and then Roosevelt, along with key allies such as Pinchot and Albert Beveridge created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level. It was popularly known as the “Bull Moose Party,” which got its name after Roosevelt told reporters, “I’m as fit as a bull moose.”[63] At the convention Roosevelt cried out, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.” Roosevelt’s platform echoed his 1907–08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests.[64]
“ To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” - 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to him[65] and quoted again in his autobiography[66] where he continues “’This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.’ This assertion is explicit. ... Mr. Wilson must know that every monopoly in the United States opposes the Progressive party. ... I challenge him ... to name the monopoly that did support the Progressive party, whether ... the Sugar Trust, the Steel Trust, the Harvester Trust, the Standard Oil Trust, the Tobacco Trust, or any other. ... Ours was the only programme to which they objected, and they supported either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Taft... “
“He (Roosevelt) did win 4.1 million votes (27%), compared to Taft’s 3.5 million (23%). However, Wilson’s 6.3 million votes (42%)”
So thank you Theodore Roosevelt for giving us 2 terms (8 years), of Woodrow Wilson, one of the worst Presidents in History.
“...it just means we have grown used to many socialistic policies.”
EXACTLY! What should have happened, is that the parents and loved ones of the children who were being used and abused should have worked to better their lot in life - not force their kids into the same doldrums of their own adult lives!
Almost ALL government corrections of a “capitalistic” problem are TOO MUCH and become WRONG HEADED in short order!
Your rant against wall street is amusing. You left out the part about how those banksters would have had to have faced the downside of their bad decisions had it not been for government protecting them with money stolen from the people.
The banksters own Congress. If the federal government were following the US Constituion, there would be no bailouts, no SEC, no Federal Reserve, no fiat currency, no FDIC (which has been insolvent for years), no federal regulations on banking.
Banks that did risky things would be punished through failure and possibly fraud prosecution in their state if there was fraud involved.
The Federal Reserve and the fiat currency and the fractional reserve banking allow all these financial games to happen.
The federal government is unconstitutionally meddling in the market with financial regulations.
They are restricting freedom and created the boom and bust cycle hand-in-hand with the Federal Reserve, they enable banksters to defraud the world when they bail them out and mandate risky schemes like lending to lots of people who are credit risks.
Who wants global government now to cover up their failings? The international banksters.
Wow, so having a law that says kids 10 years old can’t work 12 hours a day in coal mines is socialism. News to me. I go by the Websters dictionary version of socialism which says that the government controls the means of production and distribution of services and goods. I don’t see where having child labor laws deals with that.
You see, I’m in favor of free markets, not crony capitalism. Which by the way we are dealing with today. The same type of stuff TR had to deal with back in his day. Back then, his crony capitalists was Rockefeller. Today, ours is Shifty Paulsen’s Goldman Sachs. Isn’t it funny that Rockefeller’s kin are Democrats....
You should. And then read this one
While serving as a Sunday School teacher, Teddy Roosevelt noticed one of his students sported a black eye. Roosevelt asked him if he had been fighting. The child reported that he had defended his sister against an older boy who had been bullying her. Roosevelt rewarded him with a dollar and praised his behavior.
The church elders dismissed Roosevelt shortly after this event.
Remember that TR’s generation was dominated by ruthless “robber barons” who did not hesitate to use devious means to eliminate competition.
Yeah. those 'evil' “robber barons” -- gag me. Without those "robber barons", America wouldn't have become America.
Like with those evil 'robber barons' who owned the Railroads and connected East with West. Or that other evil 'robber baron', John D Rockefeller who made gasoline available to everyone (by cutting prices) with his Standard Oil Company, which iirc kind of boosted the fledging Auto Industry. Or that Andrew Carnegie 'robber baron' fellow who made Steel and created the US Steel Company.
So yeah, shame on them. Those rich 'robber baron' bast##ds! Off with their heads.
When I was in grade school and taught about those 'robber barons' you got the impression they ate puppies for breakfast.
“Look what happen in Wall Street.”
You fail to notice that once again, it was government intrusion into the home buyer market (trying to force/encourage home ownership) that foisted these “shaky mortgages” on the market in the first place.
Look, if you were forced to buy 1000 lemons a day at your tea stand, there is a good chance, you will start selling lemonade before too long. Now, when we find out that the lemons were old and starting to go bad - don’t yell at me for trying to make a profit off of something that was FORCED UPON MY BUSINESS!
“Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
William Pitt
Huh? 60% of the budget or more is used for social security and medicare/medicaid. Maybe we could then cut back on policing the world. Are they our children? Are they not adults who can run their own lives?
Because if we didn't have the worlds strongest military, I guarantee you we would be invaded before long.
Really? What was that quote from Yamamoto? something about not wanting to invade the US because their was a rifle behind every blade of grass. Repeal every federal weapons law, tell the people to arm up, and you won't have a problem with invasion. Do you believe what you wrote? You need to stop living life out of fear.
Lets work on getting rid of the illegitimate reasons for government while leaving the legitimate reasons intact.
Like I said. Article 1, section 8 lists those legitimate reasons. Funding a military is one of them. Hve you read the US Constitution recently? Have you seen what the budget is used for recently? If they can't raise the money through means that don't involve making us all slaves, then they shouldn't buy it.
Your fear campaign will not work on me.
Your’s is a lame ‘for the children’ defense; typical of the Left.
Child labor laws had been a social issue well before TR and would have become law with or without TR.
TR was the first president to spend taxpayer dollars on a grand peacetime Navy. This was but one symptom of his global vision for America, but it all cost much more than the nation had been accustomed to spending, hence leading to progressive tendencies of power grab and calling for taxation of income without apportionment.
TR was not popular at the end of his presidency because of his overreach tendencies, his resorting to certain tactics to denigrate his opposition, his acts of self-embellishment.
You have one point that is accurate, TR had regrets later in life. He was capable of looking back and seeing the error of his ways. But he was not steeped enough in Christian philosophy to see the nature of mankind and its government to take precedent from seemingly innocent things and grow them into horrors. That’s why Beck calls TR out on his history, because TR could not ‘see’ the dangers behind the doors he opened with good intentions.
But TR is not completely to blame. In his time there were many people behind a plethora of populist causes; “Child Labor Laws”, the beginnings of “income taxation” and socialist Marxist philsophy. Marx was not yet a discredited economic philsophy, rather a popular egalitarian subject of political philosophy.
In short, the era of TR and especially the years that followed were awful for America. From a slate of populist issues, laws that were short-sighted were passed and even amendments to the Constitution were made that forever changed the character of freedom in America. Child labor laws were one of many laws that shifted power from states to the federal government. In the years following, it was used as one of the precedents for minimum wage laws, forced retirement savings such as Social Security and a number of socialist trophy issues that are now bankrupt and have culminated in the ultimate theft of American freedom in Health Care reform, the governance of our health.
It’s time to shift power back to states, to reverse the century of overreaching influence starting from the time of TR, repealing the 16th and 17th, and replacing the US Tax code with a growth inspiring and freedom preserving new tax code:
In many ways TR was a great man. However, it was he who popped the cork on Big Gubmint while President and it was he who opened the door to the loons forever by enabling Wilson. The greats often make mistakes. Too bad TR’s were so colossal.
If you read the book “The myth of the Robber Barons”, you see that some of them worked to provide customers with innovative products. Others worked with government to get government protection.
The first is capitalism, the other is an illegitimate use of government.
Which is exactly what child labor laws do. They rule out one method of producing and distributing goods and services by making it illegal.
By your definition no government has ever been socialistic, as no government has ever been able to fully "control the means of production and distribution of services and goods."
But it is entirely accurate to call policies, such as prohibiting child labor, that move society in a socialist direction socialistic in tendency if not in nature.
We quite obviously live in a mixed economy. We are probably at present roughly equidistant between true capitalism and true socialism. This has benefits as well as drawbacks. Arguably it's the most free system compatible with a fully modern society.
But that a policy with socialist tendencies is beneficial and possibly even necessary does not cause it to cease being socialist.
The State governments may be regarded as constituent and essential parts of the federal government; whilst the latter is nowise essential to the operation or organization of the former. Without the intervention of the State legislatures, the President of the United States cannot be elected at all. They must in all cases have a great share in his appointment, and will, perhaps, in most cases, of themselves determine it. The Senate will be elected absolutely and exclusively by the State legislatures. Even the House of Representatives, though drawn immediately from the people, will be chosen very much under the influence of that class of men, whose influence over the people obtains for themselves an election into the State legislatures. Thus, each of the principal branches of the federal government will owe its existence more or less to the favor of the State governments, and must consequently feel a dependence, which is much more likely to beget a disposition too obsequious than too overbearing towards them. On the other side, the component parts of the State governments will in no instance be indebted for their appointment to the direct agency of the federal government, and very little, if at all, to the local influence of its members.
THIS my friend is what has been lost and until we restore it we will never again be what our founders intended!
Great post, MichiganConservative.
I’m all for repealing the 17th amendment.
Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive who thinks business profits should be reinvested in the community.
B.S.
Theodore Roosevelt was a progressive and a statist.
He did not start the trend towards big government, but he certainly accelerated it, and brought it into the GOP.
He should be denounced by any conservative.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That’s what progressives of every stripe specialize in: good intentions.
Conservatives have always had trouble with some of TR's domestic policies.
TR’s ego wrote checks that we are still having a hard time cashing.
I’d like to begin by noting that H.L. Mencken wrote a vanity press book, simple in composition, of the speeches of TR on one page, and the near identical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche on the opposite page. So when you think of the philosophy of TR, keep this in mind.
Next, TR was in many ways responsible for the overburdening federal government we have today. He had no use for the individual States at all, and saw them as just obstructing absolute federal power.
Likewise, in his “Imperial Presidency”, he had disdain for congress, to the point of sending the US navy halfway around the world, to force them to pay for its return.
His idea of taking State lands for federal parks and conservation areas, purely by proclamation, has become a nightmare for the western United States, the federal government now claiming the majority of the land West of the Mississippi, and seizing more and more land with each president.
TR also laid the groundwork for his fellow progressive Woodrow Wilson, and his nightmare image of America. So convinced of his own grandeur, he was willing to tear apart the Republican party to prevent its candidate from being elected.
More than anything else, TR is regarded as a great president solely because of his progressivism. The progressive movement made sure of that, with the help of the Hearst newspapers, especially.
Though I am loathe to even suggest it, for similar reasons today, if you can imagine the MSM demanding the face of Obama on Mount Rushmore, you can see the parallel.
As pointed out in the books above, the press was equally complicit in molding the image of TR, as they are with Obama, and it is entirely because he was a progressive.
The Philippine Insurrection was indecisive and long drawn out, until two subordinates of General Pershing decided to execute some Moro pirates and have them buried in pits with dead pigs, to send a message.
As such, credit for the successful conclusion goes not to the White House, or to conventional military tactics, but a willingness to use unconventional means, though the final decisive battle was won after Roosevelt had left office.
The war itself, and the duplicitous nature of the US annexation which caused the war, resulted in the formation of the anti-imperialism league, founded by Mark Twain, which did much to persuade the American public of the vile nature of the European model of colonization, and that while the US should keep the Monroe Doctrine, it should not engage in such behavior itself.
We’ve always had trouble with most of TR’s domestic policies. I know the issues of his day aren’t really homologous to the issues we face in the present, but on all of them, Roosevelt was on the side of expanding the power and reach of the federal government.
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