Posted on 05/04/2010 5:29:11 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
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.
What would be considered progressive now would not be progressive in TR’s time. I doubt TR would be championing the Obama agenda. TR built up the military and despised the idea of hyphenated Americans. He’d far more identify with todays conservatives than he would with liberals. I think he’d find the current liberal agenda to be radical socialist.
The Philippine Insurrection and the Moro War were actually two different wars. Although nearly forgotten, the Moro War was, arguably, America’s longest war, lasting from 1902 until 1917.
NO. TR was a Progressive Republican. He was a statist who, like 0bama, thinks people "made too much money." TR was no friend of individual freedom.
Translation: BECK IS RUINING ALL OUR MEDIA TEMPLATES, that we have perpetuated lo these many years!
Heya, Bigun. Good to see ya around. Hope all is well with you and yours.
Heya self!
Everything is fine - well - as fine as it can be given the idiot in charge currently!
Howz about you? I thought you had fallen off the face of the earth!
Teddy Roosevelt and the so-called progressive Republicans lobbied hard for passage of the 16th and 17th amendments to the Constitution. Passing those amendments fundamentally altered the size, scope, and reach of our government. Either those men saw that change and naively believed it for the better, in which case they were short-sighted fools, or they knew the dangers and did it anyway, in which case they were little more than vain glory-seekers. In either case, TR deserves scorn, not praise, from conservatives.
And if we are so foolish as to make similar errors in judgment, then future generations have every right to judge us as harshly.
Nope. Still around and kicking. Like a lot of folks with brains in their heads, I’m just trying to ride out the shyte storm.
Take care down there and keep those boys in line, y’hear?
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