Progressive movement leader exposed
Theodore Roosevelt - Movement leader
The new series at Good Intentions blog continues today.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919), the twenty-sixth President of the United States, remains one of the most active and colorful actors ever on our nation's political stage. He dominated U.S. politics at the onset of Our Progressive Century.
Racist, militaristic, self-promoting, anti-business, turncoat, relentless, and ultimately divisive - Theodore Roosevelt articulated the fundamental characteristics of Progressivism that still animate the movement today.
To read today's post, click: here.
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15 comments:
Good timing Coyote. In today's WSJ Joseph P. Kennedy II praises TR as justification for a Big Oil intervention. This is the former U.S. Representative whose hopes of being governor of Mass. were dashed after his late brother's untimely "affair with the babysitter" scandal, and who sought an annulment from the Roman Catholic church after his own bitter divorce.
TR is the Progs' favorite RINO.
"Racist, militaristic, self-promoting, anti-business, turncoat, relentless, and ultimately divisive ..."
Except for "anti-business" that reads like a description of today's Republican Party.
This post is a screed pure and simple.
Racist? TR invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. A big deal back in those days to have an African-American in the White House for a social get together.
You know who raised a furor? That's right, the Democrats.
TR appointed blacks to federal job positions. Perfect, far from it. Racist, no.
Anti-business? Is regulation, in and of itself, anti-busienss? Hardley.
Turncoat? His ego got the best of him, and he did run as an independent.
This screed is so shallow that I'm surprised this blog carries this crap.
Progressivism to Fascism had merit and was self supporting. This is nothing but a rant.
Of course, today's neo-con fascists would be perfectly fine with the American of 1900: A racially segregated society where blacks knew their place, and women couldn't vote. Where child-labor was perfectly justified since it led to greater profits, and where union "agitators" could be gunned downed in the streets like dogs.
I'll bet they sure miss the good ol' days.
You Progs have a thin skin and a blind eye.
Stand up for your heritage! Embrace it! Celebrate it! Why no 100-year celebrations of TR's reign?
TR *was* the original Progressive president who abandoned the GOP because it wasn't business-bashing enough.
As for his views on race, read the post. TR said, among other things:
- "The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages."
- "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages."
- "American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori, — in each case the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people."
- "... it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races."
- "The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands; but the victories of Moslem over Christian have always proved a curse in the end. Nothing but sheer evil has come from the victories of Turk and Tartar."
To call those words simply good, old-fashioned liberal/Prog intolerance would be a gross understatement.
Seems to me there's still a whole lot of ground to cover in "Our Progressive Century." Isn't it a shame this makes Dems so uncomfortable?
murphy, using the term 'fascist' incorrectly degrades your argument.
Remember, the word 'liberal' actually goes with 'fascist'. To the extent a Republican (like TR, until he bolted) is/was 'fascist' it involves the embrace of liberalism/progressivism/leftism. Former GOP and current Dem state Sen. Ben Westlund (Oregon) comes to mind.
Even if the only real difference between parties is pro-business and anti-business, I'll go with the former. In my view, a secure and prosperous future for all "classes" (I really don't believe in class theory, I just used that so you might understand) comes from a healthy business climate and a market-ordered economy, not one beset by the continual creep of increasingly 'progressive' over-regulation; thus subject to the disorder of political control.
I recall that approach failed pretty spectacularly in the Soviet Union. Or maybe like the Chavistas, you see Chinese communism as a model for the U.S. - that seems to be working out pretty well, huh?
The comments on this post are incoherent. This is what the Republican Party has become with John McCain as the nominee. Conservatives, presumably Republicans, attacking Teddy Roosevelt, one of the greatest Republican presidents.
Teddy Roosevelt is one of John Mccain's political heroes.
There seems to be no recognition of balance or practicality.
Just both sides, and I mean both sides, drinking Kool-Aid from their respective pitchers.
This is Spy Vs. Spy.
Catch a clue.
Teddy Roosevelt was a great president.
Regardless of your political affiliation.
When and why did progressives go from militaristic to anti-military?
They're anti-military because that's just a proxy for expressing anti-America sentiment. The Progs are very militaristic against capitalism and economic liberty everywhere. In the U.S., they are using politics, elections and the courts instead of guns. Abroad, they always willing to lob bombs at baby formula factories under the right domestic circumstances. So make no mistake, the movement always has been and continues to be VERY militaristic.
As I recall, the clinton administration, via janet "feed 'em bullets" reno, had no trouble being "militaristic" with the Davidians in Waco, or being "militaristic" with Elian Gonzalez, or in Kosovo, or in Haiti.
BTW, lefties, TR was a proponent of eugenics. That's as racist as a government policy can get.
anon 9:17,
""Racist, militaristic, self-promoting, anti-business, turncoat, relentless, and ultimately divisive ..."
Except for "militaristic" it sounds like Barack Obama.
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Anon 10:56,
And I see more of the silly moonbat trolls decide to come out and place their idiocy on display.
Hey... I'm sure you miss the good ol' days of the gulags eh?
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Conservatives, presumably Republicans, attacking Teddy Roosevelt, one of the greatest Republican presidents. Teddy Roosevelt is one of John Mccain's political heroes.
Isn't it great how visiting Progs can't help attempting to misdefine conservatives and conservatism?
TR remains a great Republican in the eyes of anti-Republicans - because he bolted the party over it being not liberal enough.
McCain has been a darling of the liberal media and was their first choice for the GOP nomination. If he was a noted conservative he would not have had to reach-out as priority #1 after securing the nomination.
1) TR was not an eugenist. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and a committed eugenist hated and ridiculed Roosevelt. TR long advocated for large families, including immigrant families.
2) TR was right to break up the cozy corruption of the big business monopolies and government. To call him anti-business in our current environment is laughable. The monopolies used their influence with government to crush and aquire any competition which dared rear it's head. Sound familiar?
3) This is the kind of bashing of a great American President I expect to see on "other" types of blogs. Criticize his policies, outline his errors of ego, track the trajectory of his Presidency, but the name-calling teaser gives every America-hater another sound bite style quote to attack one of America's most worthy leaders.
The Prog-Era eugenicist Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood. Just so pro-abortionists know the original intent/purpose of that organization was racial purification. Given the statistics, it would be hard to argue that its purpose has changed.
It is not contested that TR was a racial supremacist; it was OK for Progs to be overt about it then. Now, Progs use the soft bigotry of lowered expectations, racial preferences and quotas, along with the panoply of War on Poverty programs (failures), in order to keep the liberal Bosses running the plantation. Today's Progs/Dems propose more of the same.
The point here is that Eugenics was uniquely Progressive. No doubt this will be examined in a future post in the Our Progressive Century series.
To anon422PM:
Sorry to break this to you, but I am a conservative. I wrote the sentence you quoted, because the attacks on Teddy Roosevelt, here, on this post and subsequent comments, a century after his presidency ended, are a symptom of the incoherence breeding in the Republican Party, as a result of John McCain's candidacy and other forces at work.
It's difficult, if not misleading to judge a historical figure by contempory standards.
Anonymous8:51AM has a good take on Roosevelt and his policies, regardless of the commentor's political affiliation.
Zero regulation allows speculative excesses to damage the market.
Example: The sub-prime mortgage crisis now damaging the banking system. This was the result of speculation, i.e., borrowing on too small a margin, through unregulated financial derivatives, that depended on continued growth. When growth slowed, the borrowers couldn't repay the loans.
And no one knew the real value of the financial derivatives. That caused a crisis of confidence in the financial system.
Now, the whole economy is threatened, and the federal government, through the central bank, the Federal Reserve, has been forced to pick up the tab.
So all Americans are forced to pay because of unregulated market speculation, which created an unsustainable bubble. Americans pay both in tax dollars and a damaged economy.
There is a sensible balance in regards to regulation. TR did a good job of finding that balance.
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