The 'Progressive' Legacy (Thomas Sowell)

Although Barack Obama is the first black President of the United States, he is by no means unique, except for his complexion. He follows in the footsteps of other presidents with a similar vision, the vision at the heart of the Progressive movement that flourished a hundred years ago.

Many of the trends, problems and disasters of our time are a legacy of that era. We can only imagine how many future generations will be paying the price — and not just in money — for the bright ideas and clever rhetoric of our current administration.

The two giants of the Progressive era — Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson — clashed a century ago, in the three-way election of 1912. With the Republican vote split between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt's newly created Progressive Party, Woodrow Wilson was elected president, so that the Democrats' version of Progressivism became dominant for eight years.

What Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had in common, and what attracts some of today's Republicans and Democrats, respectively, who claim to be following in their footsteps, was a vision of an expanded role of the federal government in the economy and a reduced role for the Constitution of the United States.

Like other Progressives, Theodore Roosevelt was a critic and foe of big business. In this he was not inhibited by any knowledge of economics, and his own business ventures lost money.

Rhetoric was TR's strong suit. He denounced "the mighty industrial overlords" and "the tyranny of mere wealth."

Just what specifically this "tyranny" consisted of was not spelled out. This was indeed an era of the rise of businesses to unprecedented size in industry after industry — and of prices falling rapidly, as a result of economies of scale that cut production costs and allowed larger profits to be made from lower prices that attracted more customers.

It was easy to stir up hysteria over a rapidly changing economic landscape and the rise of new businessmen like John D. Rockefeller to wealth and prominence. They were called "robber barons," but those who put this label on them failed to specify just who they robbed.

Like other Progressives, TR wanted an income tax to siphon off some of the earnings of the rich. Since the Constitution of the United States forbad such a tax, to the Progressives that simply meant that the Constitution should be changed.

After the 16th Amendment was passed, a very low income-tax rate was levied, as an entering wedge for rates that rapidly escalated up to 73 percent on the highest incomes during the Woodrow Wilson administration.

One of the criticisms of the Constitution by the Progressives, and one still heard today, is that the Constitution is so hard to amend that judges have to loosen its restrictions on the power of the federal government by judicial reinterpretations. Judicial activism is one of the enduring legacies of the Progressive era.

In reality, the Constitution was amended four times in eight years during the Progressive era. But facts carried no more weight with crusading Progressives then than they do today.

Theodore Roosevelt interpreted the Constitution to mean that the President of the United States could exercise any powers not explicitly forbidden to him. This stood the 10th Amendment on its head, for that Amendment explicitly gave the federal government only the powers specifically spelled out, and reserved all other powers to the states or to the people.

Woodrow Wilson attacked the Constitution in his writings as an academic before he became president. Once in power, his administration so restricted freedom of speech that this led to landmark Supreme Court decisions restoring that fundamental right.

Whatever the vision or rhetoric of the Progressive era, its practice was a never-ending expansion of the arbitrary powers of the federal government. The problems they created so discredited Progressives that they started calling themselves "liberals" — and after they discredited themselves again, they went back to calling themselves "Progressives," now that people no longer remembered how Progressives had discredited themselves before.

Barack Obama's rhetoric of "change" is in fact a restoration of discredited ideas that originated a hundred years ago.

Today, brothers and sisters, we are blessed by having two excellent and educational threads. This one, and this other one :

Obama Unveils $3.8 trillion budget

From this thread, we have the following:

Like other Progressives, Theodore Roosevelt was a critic and foe of big business. In this he was not inhibited by any knowledge of economics, and his own business ventures lost money.
Rhetoric was TR's strong suit. He denounced "the mighty industrial overlords" and "the tyranny of mere wealth."

Which immediately allows us to mine the wealth within the line between rhetoric and demagoguery.

"The tyranny of mere ignorance."
"The tyranny of mere doublespeak."
"The tyranny of mere pandering."
"The tyranny of mere class warfare."

And finally,
The tyranny of mere Bullshit" *

Moving right along to the mere First Incompetent's budget, we get this gem : "We built this budget around the idea that our country has always done best when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules,"

To normal human beings, in a society, except for the very young, the insane, the handicapped, the terminally ill and the extremely aged, NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO A "FAIR SHARE" OF ZERO!
It's impossible to accept that 50% of our entire population falls within the exempt list at the beginning of this paragraph.

That ubiquitous phrase is thrown out endlessly, and meaninglessly, and the parasites of society capitalize on it, as do the pandering bureaucrats and politicians. The mere parasites are entitled to a "fair share" of zero. What do they all have in common?
Everyone on that list except for minors can vote themselves permanent parasite status, as can 50% of the adult population.

*BULLSHIT
London Times Online, 25 Feb 2005

It has occurred to me lately that we need to rename the terms “Progressive” and “Liberal” because they have lost their meaning.

PROGRESSIVES: Contemporary so-called “Progressives” are not progressive at all. They are REGRESSIVE. They want to go retreat from liberty.

LIBERALS: Contemporary so-called “Liberals” are not liberal at all. They don’t want to “liberate” — rather, they want to ENSLAVE others. Contemporary Liberals should therefore be referred to as “Fascists” because they want extreme social regimentation via government.

The JFK Democrats (strong on defense) wouldn’t even recognize the greedy agglomeration of selfish special interest groups that comprises today’s Democrap party.

If we get the nomenclature to correctly portray the Fascist/Regressives for what they really are in the minds of the unwashed masses, that’s half the battle!

We see this on the Left AND the Right.

Where there's a shell, there's a way.

25 years ago, we had Ronald Reagan, Johnny Cash, and Bob Hope.
Today we have Obama, no cash, and no hope!

If you can't appreciate the pure beauty of the violin after hearing this, something's wrong with your ears.

Or you can get raw with these strings.

How about this gamechanger from America's Got Talent (which they SHOULD have won).

And finally, this, dedicated to the one and only rdb2, whose eyes are growing dim.

Either way, the violin is sweet yet LETHAL.

Do it!

“Judicial activism is one of the enduring legacies of the Progressive era.....Progressives [believe] that the Constitution is so hard to amend that judges have to loosen its restrictions on the power of the federal government by judicial reinterpretations.”

I agree with one part of this.

I believe the primary CAUSE of judicial activism is the great difficulty in amending the Constitution.

Advocates for change are ALWAYS tempted toward an easier solution.

Namely...finding a judge who agrees with their political agenda.

I believe a better route to amendments would be direct National Referendums.

An amendment could be initiated by a majority vote in Congress OR a majority vote in 25 state legislatures, at least one year before a presidential election.

To become law, the amendment would need to obtain a direct, popular majority vote in TWO consecutive presidential election years.

If the amendment fails to receive a majority vote in either election, it automatically expires.

This would force all presidential candidates to take a specific position on the amendment.

And, requiring two presidential election cycles means the potential amendment would be vigorously and nationally debated for at least 5 years.

This amendment process would put a new razor sharp political weapon in the arsenal AGAINST judicial activism.

It has occurred to me lately that we need to rename the terms “Progressive” and “Liberal” because they have lost their meaning.
PROGRESSIVES: Contemporary so-called “Progressives” are not progressive at all. They are REGRESSIVE. They want to go retreat from liberty.

"Objective journalists" and "liberals"/"progressives" (who are so-called merely because they pander to journalists, and therefore are accorded whatever positive labels they want) inverted the meaning of "liberal" in the 1920s. William Safire gives that time frame in Safire's New Political Dictionary, tho he does not say who did it. But, after all, who else but journalism would have the propaganda power to pull that off?
To the objection that "journalism" is a cacophony of competing voices, the answer is simple and complete: journalism was a cacophony of competing voices until the Associated Press homogenized journalism in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. Since then, although editorial pages vary, the main body of the paper has been driven by the wire services. And to the objection that there are other wire services besides the AP, that doesn't matter - all wire services inherently have the same homogenizing influence because they all affect the business model of the newspaper the same way. But the AP is the granddaddy of them all, and still the largest - and an aggressive monopolist to boot.
You have a good idea, but only in the sense that Will Rodgers had the solution to the submarine menace - "Boil the Oceans." We don't have the propaganda power to rectify the fraudulent labeling systematically conducted by journalism. My preferred solution is to sue the AP and its membership for libel - noting that the apparent diversity of journalism is illusory, and that it is a single entity which cannot evade its responsibility for things like keeping Rush from buying the St. Louis Rams, for libeling the Duke Lacrosse team, promoting the "TANG memo" hoax, telling the voters in the FL panhandle in 2000 that Gore had won Florida's electoral votes before the polls were closed in the panhandle, and so on and so forth. The name of their swindles is legion. Ideally it would be a class action lawsuit, and a RICO suit for triple damages.
Incidentally, the fact that journalists claim that journalism is objective is proof that they are not even trying to be objective. To actually attempt to be objective, one must start by being open about any reasons why one might not be objective. Journalists do have motives which are not congruent with the public interest - they want influence and they want advertising revenue. The desire for influence with an audience is the obvious reason for rules like, "If it bleeds, it leads," and "'Man Bites Dog' not 'Dog Bites Man.'" Those rules have obvious value for attracting attention, but little to no value in assuring that the stories selected on that basis promote the public interest rather than merely interesting the public. When journalists claim objectivity they are doing the very opposite of what they would be doing if they were actually trying to be objective.

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