Posted on 07/12/2008 12:24:50 PM PDT by flyfree
Yeah, yeah, Wikipedia is not authorative, etc., etc. ... but these two articles accord well with the facts.
This is the crux of the issue here... I will concede that the progressives did start the ball rolling, but TR and company as stated before did not have absolute control over the populous nor did they instill the draconian laws that the Fascist of Europe did...
Was TR what we would consider a model conservative today... By no means.... but his actions and they way he ruled did not rise to the level of fascism...
I think the other point that needs to be mention here too..
is really around and after WW2 the political parties both Repub and democrat did it flip-flop in their policies and plat forms... so our political parties of today... hold only a minimal amount of similarity to those of the past....
Who is elected President of the United States is definitely your problem! You remind me of an idealistic but naive pacifist.
I am not disputing how the article accords w/ the facts here... I just cringe everytime someone uses it as the only resource to back up their arguments...
I'll second that.
I know.. look what voting for the lesser of two evils has gotten us.
Well, he could do worse...
Teddy Roosevelt as a model is not bad and it’s certainly far superior to Stalin, Lenin, Castro, and Chavez, who are Obama’s role models.
Also — here is the transcript of McCain’s inteview with the NY Times, but they state that the questions are paraphrased in the transcript. Why don’t they want to show us the ACTUAL questions that they asked McCain, so we know exactly what he was responding to — but what else can we expect from the NYT? The NYT’s purpose is to try to make McCain look bad and trip him up, just read the questions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/us/politics/13text-mccain.html?pagewanted=all
TR is my favorite President. If McCain comes anywhere close, kudos. Glad he chose this man of enormous integrity, courage, vigor and vision as his inspiration.
“A man’s usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can. It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, make for a finer, nobler type of manhood. Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life.”
- another great TR quote
“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 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 and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
anudder fine TR quote
TR set the stage for the arrogant RINO that put himself ahead of all else. His great gift to the nation was splitting the vote between himself and President Taft (a FAR better President) and handing us the great racist liberal liar Woodrow Wilson.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
““I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” Mr. McCain said,”
BS. McCain is the opposite of Teddy when it comes to sovereignty.
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer “Present” or “Not guilty.” - Theodore Roosevelt
“The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.” - Teddy Roosevelt
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
“The foreign-born population of this country must be an Americanized population - no other kind can fight the battles of America either in war or peace. It must talk the language of its native-born fellow-citizens, it must possess American citizenship and American ideals. It must stand firm by its oath of allegiance in word and deed and must show that in very fact it has renounced allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign government. It must be maintained on an American standard of living so as to prevent labor disturbances in important plants and at critical times. None of these objects can be secured as long as we have immigrant colonies, ghettos, and immigrant sections, and above all they cannot be assured so long as we consider the immigrant only as an industrial asset. The immigrant must not be allowed to drift or to be put at the mercy of the exploiter. Our object is to not to imitate one of the older racial types, but to maintain a new American type and then to secure loyalty to this type. We cannot secure such loyalty unless we make this a country where men shall feel that they have justice and also where they shall feel that they are required to perform the duties imposed upon them. The policy of “Let alone” which we have hitherto pursued is thoroughly vicious from two stand-points. By this policy we have permitted the immigrants, and too often the native-born laborers as well, to suffer injustice. Moreover, by this policy we have failed to impress upon the immigrant and upon the native-born as well that they are expected to do justice as well as to receive justice, that they are expected to be heartily and actively and single-mindedly loyal to the flag no less than to benefit by living under it.
We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being.” Teddy Roosevelt
One thing about McCain: very little pandering. If you like something he says he’s going to do, he’ll probably do it (or try). If you don’t like something he says he’s going to do, you know what to gear up to fight on...
TR was wildly popular and could easily have won a third term in ‘08, but he had promised to step down after two, and he honored that promise. He was disappointed in Taft, so he ran again in ‘12.
Hey, I didn’t say he was perfect!
Another thing that was nice about TR is that he refused to have anything to do with anyone contributing money to his campaigns. Wouldn’t even meet them. Of course, fundraising was very different a hundred years ago, but still, he was a man of uncommon integrity.
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.