Posted on 09/28/2011 7:19:50 PM PDT by MontaniSemperLiberi
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation," Franklin Roosevelt declared as he campaigned for the presidency in the spring of 1932. "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
Most of the experiments Roosevelt tried to rebuild the economy once he took office encountered fierce opposition. But his closing admonition -- try something -- transcends our political particularities. It's an affirmation of a specifically American common sense, a statement of our national inclination to action, an affirmation of the pragmatism that remains the country's signal contribution to philosophy. In times of trouble, try something. Who could be against that?
Yet, three years into the worst recession since Roosevelt's time, a countercurrent, every bit as American as our bias for action, has swept over us. Twenty-five million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed, and the average duration of joblessness stands at record highs. Consumers are too deep in debt to consume; our producers produce and our investors invest abroad. To remedy all this, the federal government today tries ... nothing.
(Excerpt) Read more at prospect.org ...
“But his closing admonition try something transcends our political particularities.”
When every effort is aimed at expansion of government’s role, that isn’t experimentation, that’s an agenda being pressed.
It was liberalism under FDR,
It’s liberalism under OBummer!
What is amazing to me, considering that there has been much discussion about what constitutes a line in the sand for most people, and the fact that there is so little agreement concerning one that any particular person’s stand is liable to be viewed as that of an isolated fanatic, is the fact that we are being handed one on a platter, which most everyone can agree upon.
That was a long and convoluted way of saying that I think that most people would agree that taking away the ballot box is a definite NO, and would lead to serious repercussions. So why float it, unless that is where you want to go? And if so, why?
From the quotes, even FDR knew trying the same thing over again is futile and you need to try something new.
The four terms of FDR radically transformed America. There's very few who remember the America before his rule. For nearly 80 years since he started his presidency, we've all grown up in a society with the idea that the federal government is the source of all good. That it should be the center of everything. It pervades even the party of "smaller government."
According to the website of The American Prospect, “at the dawn of a new progressive era and a time of economic transformation for the United States and the world, the magazine’s founding purpose was to demonstrate that progressive ideas could animate a majority politics; to restore to intellectual and political respectability the case for social investment; to energize civic democracy and give voice to the disenfranchised; and to counteract the growing influence of conservative media.”
I”m lost what value you think there is in posting their tripe here.
Read the comments and you might get it. That’s okay if you don’t. The rest of us will lead you.
You know, that’s a very good point.
Establishment Republicans make this more effective. By slowing down but not stopping the Progressives, Progressives isolate fewer people but those people are more effectively isolated.
Harold Meyerson is a self described socialist. He is in this articular advocating for more direct and pure democracy at the expense of the rights of the individual(the minority).
He is utterly blind to the unmitigated tyranny that’s has resulted in thou-out human history including our own history.
Indeed his “call to action” sites the “Civil War” as an example where the Federal goverment was paralyzed by action unable to accomplish his own tyrannical goal of forcing submission to a lawless majority, and suppressing the formally inalienable right of revolution.
This was sadly untrue then as it was untrue in the 1930’s where FDR DID NOT abandon his failed “experiments” with goverment force, Instead FDR left us with an insurmountable legacy of debt and goverment largesse & dependents we to this day can’t afford to support.
If you ask me this man should get what he wants, he should be voted into slavery by a majority. Maybe then he will stop and think before he advocates other people having the right to vote away your rights in an essentially lawless(limitless) goverment.
FDR knew full well what his policies would do. That is why he did them. He was surrounded by Communist in his administration and his wife was also a Communist. All those disclaimers of his were pure lies to get the legislation passed. LBJ, and Obama borrow tactics from FDR frequently.
The danger of men like him is the use of his material by high school and college “educators.” When millions of young people are taught to despise the principles of our republic, the consequences will be terrible.
The danger of men like him is the use of his material by high school and college educators.
Great point.
I suspect/believe the evolution of thought goes something like this. Once God was taken out of the discussion natural law could no longer be taught. Economics and other social sciences had to be explained on a secular basis. The secular explanation for economics is an amoral “survival of the fittest”. Meyerson’s arguments revolve around human thought being superior to what happens naturally. Young people accept this basis and become lost.
Love the comments.
Our founders never dreamed America would send its jobs and factories, to America’s largest competitor.
They never dreamed anyone at any future date would do such a stupid thing, because to them, that was treason.
They would never even consider any Americans would.
That is true. But it must also be recognized that the image and likeness has been marred by sin and that unregenerate man tends to evil. That tendency was recognized by the Founders and the solution was to disperse political power as widely as practical. Hence, a Republic - NOT a Democracy. Hence, greater power originally given to the states - NOT to the Federal Government. The Tenth Amendment makes that as clear as crystal.
I'll divert from Roosevelt and bring up Lincoln as an earlier wrecker of the basics of the Constitution. "Saving the Union" at the expense of the States' natural rights was the turning point. The philosophical basis of the American System, so wondrously crafted by the Founders, fell to raw power - military might - and a "New Vision" of America resulted. Since then, the several states are mere appendages, existing only as administrative units to enforce the will of Holy Mother, THE State.
The value is the discussion that refutes the article - best discussion I have seen in many moons on this board. Conservatives need some depth in our understanding of WHY we are in the mess we are in and historically, HOW we got into it. The comments posted so far help us with that.
Thanks, I’ve been trained by Mark Levin. Ha ha.
Early on, he says he always chuckles when a Leftist goes on and on about evolution, i.e. Natural Selection, spontaneous order, and in the next breath contradicts himself by demanding total central planning and control of human behavior.
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