Since Larry Mentoned Wilson ....

[EmptyTimCup]

Liberal Fascism Pg 41


The progressives were the real social Darwinists as we think of the term today - though they reserved the term for their enemies (see Chapter 7). They believed in eugenics. They were imperialists. They were convinced that the state could, through planning and pressure, create a pure race, a society of new men. They were openly and proudly hostile to individualism. Religion was a political tool, while politics was the true religion. The progressives viewed the traditional system of constitutional checks and balances as an outdated impediment to progress because such horse-and-buggy institutions were a barrier to their own ambitions. Dogmatic attachment to constitutions, democratic practices, and antiquated laws was the enemy of progress for fascists and progressives alike. Indeed, fascists and progressives shared the same intellectual heroes and quoted the same philosophers.

Today, liberals remember the progressives as do-gooders who cleaned up the food supply and agitated for a more generous social welfare state and better working conditions. Fine, the progressives did that. But so did the Nazis and the Italian Fascists, And they did it for the same reasons and in loyalty to roughly the same principles.

Historically, fascism is the product of democracy gone mad. In America we've chosen not to discuss the madness our Republic endured at Wilson's hands - even though we live with the consequences of it to this day. Like a family that pretends the father never drank too much and the mother never had a nervous breakdown, we've moved on as if it were all a bad dream we don't really remember, even as we carry around the baggage of that dysfunction to this day. The motivation for this selective amnesia is equal parts shame, laziness, and ideology. In a society where Joe McCarthy must be the greatest devil of American history, it would not be convenient to mention that the George Washington of modern liberalism was the far greater inquisitor and that the other founding fathers of American liberalism were far crueler jingoists and warmongers than modern conservatives have ever been.

Sounds a lot like Occupy movement today

Discuss

 

[EmptyTimCup]

Wilson's view of politics could be summarized by the word "statolatry," or state worship (the same sin with which the Vatican charged Mussolini). Wilson believed that the state was a natural, organic, and spiritual expression of the people themselves. From the outset, he believed that the government and people should have an organic bond that reflected the "true spirit" of the people, or what the Germans called the Volksgeist. "Government is not a machine, but a living thing," he wrote in Congressional Government. "It falls not under the [Newtonian] theory of the universe, but under the [Darwinian] theory of organic life." From this perspective, the ever-expanding power of the state was entirely natural. Wilson, along with the vast majority of progressive intellectuals, believed that the increase in state power was akin to an inevitable evolutionary process. Governmental "experimentation," the watchword of pragmatic liberals from Dewey and Wilson to FDR, was the social analogue to evolutionary adaptation. Constitutional democracy, as the founders understood it, was a momentary phase in this progression. Now it was time for the state to ascend to the next plateau. "Government," Wilson wrote approvingly in The State,"does now whatever experience permits or the times demand." Wilson was the first president to speak disparagingly of the Constitution.

reminds me of 'The Road to Serfdom'

 

[Larry Gude]

reminds me of 'The Road to Serfdom'

DHS. TSA. TARP. Med D. Oil, the wars, immigration.

You know who Dubbya really admired? Churchill. Very fitting when you consider that there is no individual more responsible for the collapse of the British Empire. You know who else inspired him? Jesus Christ, the foremost socialist of all time.

I wonder who Mitt is inspired by? That's a good question.

 

[EmptyTimCup]

Wilson, of course, was merely one voice in the progressive chorus of the age. "[W]e must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in connection to the activity of the many," declared the progressive social activist Jane Addams. "Now men are free," explained Walter Rauschenbusch. a leading progressive theologian of the Social Gospel movement, in 1896, "but it is often the freedom of grains of sand that are whirled up in a cloud and then dropped in a heap, but neither cloud nor sand-heap have any coherence." The remedy was obvious: "New forms of association must be created. Our disorganized competitive life must pass into an organic cooperative life." Elsewhere Rauschenbusch put it more simply: "Individualism means tyranny." In a sense, the morally inverted nonsense made famous by Herbert Marcuse in the 1960s - "oppressive freedom," "repressive tolerance," "defensive violence" - was launched by the progressives decades earlier. "Work makes you free," the phrase made famous by the Nazis, was anticipated by progressives who believed that collectivism was the new "freedom."

 

[Larry Gude]

but neither cloud nor sand-heap have any coherence.

Take away line, that.

Clouds and sand dunes are beautiful BECAUSE they are all different. There is no greater enemy to the individual than those that seek order above all. That is NOT man. That is NOT natural.

 

[EmptyTimCup]

These two visions - Darwinian organicism and Christian messianism - seem contradictory today because they reside on different sides of the culture war. But in the Progressive Era, these visions complemented each other perfectly. And Wilson embodied this synthesis. The totalitarian flavor of such a world view should be obvious. Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil or simply a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the belief that the entire society was one organic whole left no room for those who didn't want to behave, let alone "evolve." Your home, your private thoughts, everything was part of the organic body politic, which the state was charged with redeeming.

Hence a phalanx of progressive reformers saw the home as the front line in the war to transform men into compliant social organs. Often the answer was to get children out of the home as quickly as possible. An archipelago of agencies, commissions, and bureaus sprang up overnight to take the place of the anti-organic, contraevolutionary influences of the family. The home could no longer be seen as an island, separate and sovereign from the rest of society. John Dewey helped create kindergartens in America for precisely this purpose - to shape the apples before they fell from the tree - while at the other end of the educational process stood reformers like Wilson, who summarized the progressive attitude perfectly when, as president of Princeton, he told an audience, "Our problem is not merely to help the students to adjust themselves to world life...[but] to make them as unlike their fathers as we can."'

If the age of parliamentary democracy was coming to an end - as progressives and fascists alike proclaimed - and the day of the organic redeemer state was dawning, then the Constitution must evolve or be thrown into the dustbin of history. Wilson's writings are chockablock with demands that the "artificial" barriers established in our "antiquated" eighteenth-century system of checks and balances be smashed. He mocked the "Fourth of July sentiments" of those who still invoked the founding fathers as a source for constitutional guidance. He believed the system of governmental checks and balances had "proven mischievous just to the extent to which they have succeeded in establishing themselves as realities." Indeed, the ink from Wilson's pen regularly exudes the odor of what we today call the living Constitution. On the campaign trail in 1912, Wilson explained that "living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of Life...it must develop." Hence "all that progressives ask or desire is permission - in an era when 'development,' 'evolution,* is the scientific word - to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle." As we've seen, this interpretation leads to a system where the Constitution means whatever the reigning interpreters of "evolution" say it means.

 

[EmptyTimCup]

sounds like Obama ..........

In his unintentionally chilling 1890 essay, Leaders of Men, Wilson explained that the "true leader" uses the masses like "tools." He must not traffic in subtleties and nuance, as literary men do. Rather, he must speak to stir their passions, not their intellects. In short, he must be a skillful demagogue.

 

[EmptyTimCup]

This captured in small relief the basic difference between Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt, bitter rivals and the only two proudly progressive presidents of the Progressive Era. These were very different men with very similar ideas. Roosevelt was a great actor upon the world stage; Wilson saw himself more as a director. Roosevelt was the ''bull moose" who charged into any problem; Wilson was the "schoolmaster" who first drew up a lesson plan. One wanted to lead a band of brothers, the other a graduate seminar. But if the roles they played were different, the moral of the story was the same. While Wilson wrote treatises explaining why Americans should abandon their "blind devotion" to the Constitution, Teddy was rough-riding all over the document, doing what he pleased and giving bellicose speeches about how the courts had sided against "popular rights" and were "lagging behind" the new realities. Indeed, William Howard Taft - Roosevelt's honorable yet overwhelmed successor in the White House - might not have chosen to run for reelection, hence denying Roosevelt the Republican nomination, had he not been convinced that Roosevelt's "impatience with the delay of the law" made him "not unlike Napoleon."

...

Teddy, the famous trustbuster, had resigned himself to "bigness" and now believed the state should use the trusts for its own purposes rather than engage in an endless and fruitless battle to break them up. "The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed." he explained. 'The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare." Teddy's New Nationalism was equal parts nationalism and socialism. "The New Nationalism." Roosevelt proclaimed, "rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it." This sort of rhetoric conjured fears among classical liberals (again, increasingly called conservatives) that Teddy would ride roughshod over American liberties, "Where will it all end?" asked the liberal editor of the New York World about the rush to centralize government power. "Despotism? Caesarism?"

 

[b23hqb]

I find it a hoot that so many uninformed people still consider Bush or his dad conservatives at all.

Both Bushes were never really conservative - both actually only conservative on a few items, but over all just one-world social progressives in the mold of Wilson and Roosevelt.

A lot of us knew that back then, but we had no choice in the election.

The only reason either of them was nominated by the powers that be in the good old boy network of the RNC ( the same way the good old boy network of the DNC works), and subsequently elected, was the RNC refusal to support the nomination of a real conservative in the Reagan mold. The results of those elections were based on who The Bushs' were running against - Dukakis, Clinton, Algore and Kerry - all way out there leftists.

In actuality, there was no other choice for the of the American people but to elect the Bushs' to three terms.

The only reason Clinton seems not so far left is because he was forced into that role because of the 1994 switch of leadership in the Congress to Republicans, and the nomination of "he has waited his time" Dole as Clinton's opponent.

Most comparisons on progressiveness between Bush and the big o are probably pretty accurate, except the messiah takes it much, much further left in a fascist/socialist/statest mode than any Republican nominee.

Now, trying to paint W in the same color as the extreme radicalism of the messiah, is just too much to laugh at. Just shows how far to the left the left has drawn the right.

Just trying to be Prez Kennedy-like policies now, which is where the current conservative base has always been, is considered far-out right-wing whacko.

Go figure.

 

[Larry Gude]

sounds like Obama ..........

Consider this; there is all sorts of thought process and people and ideals we ascribe to Obama that make it readily evident where his ideology comes from, what he thinks and why and, most importantly, how it affects public policy. And much of that was known before he was elected.

Where is that on the right? We know people who are federalists. We know names like Hyeck to their Keynes. We know Grover Nordquist, Will, Walter Williams, Reagan.

What of Mitt?

 

[EmptyTimCup]

What of Mitt?

look at where Mitt was Gov'ner

in the North East ....... not an area known for Conservatism

he is more of the same ...... Socialist Lite, like McCain .....

I am pretty sure I mentioned a couple times, there were no conservatives running in this race ..... except guys who were not getting any press


I think Rick may have had some Conservative cred. but he is a Politician and had other issues

 

[Larry Gude]

look at where Mitt was Gov'ner

in the North East ....... not an area known for Conservatism

he is more of the same ...... Socialist Lite, like McCain .....

I am pretty sure I mentioned a couple times, there were no conservatives running in this race ..... except guys who were not getting any press


I think Rick may have had some Conservative cred. but he is a Politician and had other issues

And the case for Les is made again. :shrug:

 

[EmptyTimCup]

I am NOT making a CASE for MITT, only explaining what the 'leaders' or party hacks have given us


refer to the 'is it time for a third party' article from Red State

 

[Larry Gude]

I am NOT making a CASE for MITT, only explaining what the 'leaders' or party hacks have given us


refer to the 'is it time for a third party' article from Red State

I understand you're not. I mean, it would be great if he won and he did for the nation what he did in his professional life; cut waste, streamline, try and fix things.

The thing is, at this point, I've not heard him set targets for oil prices (under $50) speak of wiping out debt so consumers are freed, increasing interest rates so those taking the hit on the debt can earn real profits, end the damn wars, open up health care to competition, set reasonable immigration policy and start chopping away at federal spending.

Those are all straightforward, key issues. I mean, isn't he at least obligated to give us some promises to break later?

 

[EmptyTimCup]

Those are all straightforward, key issues. I mean, isn't he at least obligated to give us some promises to break later?

Hope and Change was the best NON Promise ...........


what did obama really promise - besides Closing GitMo

 

[Asmodeus]

I find it a hoot that so many uninformed people still consider Bush or his dad conservatives at all.

Both Bushes were never really conservative - both actually only conservative on a few items, but over all just one-world social progressives in the mold of Wilson and Roosevelt.

A lot of us knew that back then, but we had no choice in the election.
...snip...

I voted for Bush41 the first time because in my view he was literally the most qualified individual to ever run for POTUS... It was not because I saw him having great conservative creds...

I voted for Perot when Bush41 turned out to be more liberal than I could handle... Bush43 was a bigger social liberal... He was just less of one than Gore or Kerry...

 

[Larry Gude]

Hope and Change was the best NON Promise ...........


what did obama really promise - besides Closing GitMo

Fully socialized medicine.
End of the tax cuts.
World Peace
Return of American integrity around the globe
More golf

 

[EmptyTimCup]

Fully socialized medicine. - this is still playing out

End of the tax cuts. - how many times has he extended the Bush Tax Cuts - while whinig about the rich

World Peace - Revolution in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria - all take over by islamists groups [well Syria is still playing out] - terrorist hit lists

Return of American integrity around the globe - yeah now we are the toothless paper tiger

More golf

 

[daileyck1]

DHS. TSA. TARP. Med D. Oil, the wars, immigration.

You know who Dubbya really admired? Churchill. Very fitting when you consider that there is no individual more responsible for the collapse of the British Empire. You know who else inspired him? Jesus Christ, the foremost socialist of all time.

I wonder who Mitt is inspired by? That's a good question.

Larry,
Please explain why you think Churchill is more responsible for the collapse of the British Empire than anyone else.

 

[Larry Gude]

Larry,
Please explain why you think Churchill is more responsible for the collapse of the British Empire than anyone else.

You enjoy reading about history?

http://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-Lib-Patrick-Buchanan/dp/1415954801