Any "plan to rebuild the middle class" that doesn't include a push to reduce our expectations to what they were when the middle class was much stronger is futile and will never work.
Amen Brother. It is hard to fathom that so called conservatives want some brown shirts of either party to come up with a grand plan. Grand plans never work out. Just look at the Nazis and the USSR. They planned everything supposedly for their common people.
“Conservatives have no obligation to come up with a “plan to rebuild the middle class” at all, at least when it comes to politics. The problem is that any such plan would be a non-starter and would make any candidate who promotes such a plan completely unelectable.
“Any “plan to rebuild the middle class” that doesn’t include a push to reduce our expectations to what they were when the middle class was much stronger is futile and will never work.
More reasons not to want a central plan from anyone.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3148898/posts
Did the Founding Fathers know what centralized planning was?
PGA Weblog ^
Posted by ProgressingAmerica
Have you ever come across the suggestion that the America that existed during the time of the Founders is incompatible with “modern America”? There’s a huge problem with this. This idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.
Its true. Progressives believe in centralized planning, which is an older concept than individual Liberty. All we have to do is ask Adam Smith. In his book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Adam Smith wrote the following: (Page 95)
The man of system, on the contrary,is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chessboard have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chessboard of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful, If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.
Centralized planning was well known about in 1759.
Progressives are all “men of system”; that is, they all believe that there needs to be some system in place, we can’t just allow people to live their lives as they see fit! They all believe that their ideal system is best - much better than any natural order. They have told us as much. Here are two such examples. This, from a member of FDR’s Brains Trust. And as Smith rightly points out, every central planner thinks they all have the ideal plan of government at hand. They are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Adam Smith continues:
Some general and even systematical idea of the perfection of policy and law may no doubt be necessary for directing the views of the statesman. But to insist upon establishing, and upon establishing all at once, and in spite of all opposition, every thing which that idea may seem to require, must often be the highest degree of arrogance. It is to erect his own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong.
The essence of the rule of law vs the rule of man.
As most people know, the Founding Fathers were fond of the writings of Adam Smith, so yes, Adam Smith knew what centralized planning was and by extension so did the Founders. They just didn’t call it that.
300 years ago, they would have called centralized planning “Monarchism”. Who else would be arranging these chess pieces other than the Kings? The Lords? Quite possibly the Lords, but even if that were true the King would see the Lords arranging chess pieces and would want to arrange a few pieces of his own.
So no, modern America is not incompatible with the Founder’s America. Modern America is incompatible with the world view of the Kings, and of the Pharaohs, and any other tyrannical ideas that progressives model themselves after.
Yeah; the people in the middle class (and those who aspire to be) need to make themselves happen.