The Republican Party is, obviously, suicidal, as it is taking the wrong and unpopular stand on so many issues:
Refusal to back any gun regulations, even after the Newtown Massacre, alienating many mothers and parents.
Refusal to move much on illegal immigration, alienating Hispanics and Latinos, and Asian Americans.
Refusal to stop attacks on women’s rights, alienating large numbers of educated, suburban and young women.
Refusal to stop the attack on Social Security and Medicare, alienating millions of people nearing retirement, and many senior citizens.
Refusal to recognize that gay rights and gay marriage are the future, and therefore, alienating both gays and lesbians and their supportive families and friends, while at the same time, many of these Republicans have been married more than once, and have no concept of “family values”.
Refusal to cooperate on creating a budget that will pass both houses, and face the reality that taxes will have to go up, even more so now that there is growing danger of war with North Korea and/or Iran.
Refusal to repudiate their own Tea Party extremists, who will destroy the party’s future, as they will defeat responsible conservatives, but be unable to win seats in the US Senate or the White House anytime soon. As it is, the Republicans could have won Senate seats in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware in 2010, and Indiana and Missouri in 2012, but Tea Party supporters promoted lunatic nominees over responsible conservatives, and because of that, the Democrats were able to gain seats and keep the majority!
The Republican Party is living in illusion, in denial, in a time warp, in a parallel universe, and they are allowing the evangelical right wing Christians and the radio talk show hosts and Fox News Channel to steer them so far to the right that the majority of the American people will repudiate them for the long run, until they finally get the message, that the nation is a centrist nation, unwilling to cater to right wing extremists!
Excellent post Professor. Totally agree. I’m one of those educated, suburban, young women who the Republicans have alienated.
What’s wrong with trying to shore up Social Security now while we still have options?
Hoopster, I TOTALLY agree with you, and the answer is to tax ALL income, not just $112,000, as Medicare taxes ALL income. If we did that, Social Security would not be in crisis, but to cut benefits while calling for more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, which is the GOP plan, is unconscionable!
Oh yes! Why the conservatives/Republicans are a greater threat to our country than Al-Qaeda!! LOL! They are sooo evillllllll. And Liberals are soooooooooo good! You realize how infantile and simplistic your this post is? But I guess its good enough for our young skulls full of mush kids that go to college and then vote! LOL!
Juan, you are being totally ridiculous! I did not say that Tea Party conservative Republicans are more dangerous than Al Qaeda, but you know very well that they are totally obstructionist and have prevented action on important matters, and are undermining any chance of compromise on ANYTHING, and the Tea Party whackos are using every tactic to take us back to the 18th and 19th centuries, and when the American people have the opportunity, as in five Senate races in the past two cycles, they repudiate it, and the GOP has lost a Senate they could have controlled with responsible conservatives, instead of extremists! I resent your calling it simplistic, when it is REALITY what I am saying on this post!
Ron: You are just repeating clichés about conservatives, that they are all racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Now, those are all false. But its a very simplistic proposal, we liberal/progressive/statist Democrats are right and compassionate therefore anyone who opposes us are irrefutably racist, sexist, bigot and homophobe. Thus there can never be an honest discussion about the issues, because are motives are rotten. We progressives are the good guys you are the bad guys, we are the sane you are the wackos, we are the moderates you are the extremist. End of story. The only good thing a anyone can do is accept every single one of the lefts statist agenda and become a nice obedient servant within the lefts statist utopian plantation. That is why I call your underlying premise simplistic. But I must add very effective, after all your man Barack Hussein Obama got all the “low information votes” , according to Times magazine, and that was so brilliant that it warranted a Man of the Year cover. Again according to liberal Time Magazine.
I have never considered Time Magazine to be “liberal”! But understand, your side always demonizes and oversimplifies the progressive side of things, and talk show hosts on Fox and radio make compromise impossible. And there is a lot of racism, nativism, misogyny, and homophobia utilized, which you cannot deny! Look at Alaska Congressman Don Young as just one example of multitudes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM19YOqs7hU I guess Joe Biden can get away with slurs, just like every other Democrat…
No, liberals are not hateful racist!! Not at all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksBA11k6xvQ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPcpW-wQpB0 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgV3PZkJmk4 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7l-pEBYeLI
What Joe Biden said does NOT match what Don Young or many other Republicans and conservatives have said, give me a break!
Why is it that the progressives leftist statist always promote change? Always we need change change change! Change for what? I know somethings are not perfect but is the changed proposed any better? Especially when it is proposed by a small intellectual elite in Washington?
I agree Professor. The conservatives always demonize our side.
Juan
That’s what the definition of progressive means.
Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/progressive
pro·gres·sive (pr-grsv)
adj.
1. Moving forward; advancing.
2. Proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments: progressive change.
3. Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods: a progressive politician; progressive business leadership.
4. Progressive Of or relating to a Progressive Party: the Progressive platform of 1924.
5. Of or relating to progressive education: a progressive school.
6. Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases: a progressive income tax.
7. Pathology Tending to become more severe or wider in scope: progressive paralysis.
8. Grammar Designating a verb form that expresses an action or condition in progress.
n.
1. A person who actively favors or strives for progress toward better conditions, as in society or government.
2. Progressive A member or supporter of a Progressive Party.
3. Grammar A progressive verb form.
Conservative is the total opposite. I consider conservatives to be regressive.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conservative
con·ser·va·tive (kn-sûrv-tv)
adj.
1. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
2. Traditional or restrained in style: a conservative dark suit.
3. Moderate; cautious: a conservative estimate.
4.
a. Of or relating to the political philosophy of conservatism.
b. Belonging to a conservative party, group, or movement.
5. Conservative Of or belonging to the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom or the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada.
6. Conservative Of or adhering to Conservative Judaism.
7. Tending to conserve; preservative: the conservative use of natural resources.
n.
1. One favoring traditional views and values.
2. A supporter of political conservatism.
3. Conservative A member or supporter of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom or the Progressive Conservative Party in Canada.
4. Archaic A preservative agent or principle.
Ah ha! I was right! Regressive is a synonym for conservative.
http://thesaurus.yourdictionary.com/regressive
😉
Juan
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” in the fight to end slavery.
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” who brought about women’s right to vote.
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” who brought about black people’s right to vote.
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” who created universal public education, and then began the struggle to end racial discrimination in public education.
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” and created the most successful anti-poverty program we’ve ever known: Social Security.
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” who gave us vast national mechanisms for the creation and protection of wealth and opportunity, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Interstate Highway System, and a myriad of other regulatory agencies without with everyday commerce would be impossible.
It was people you would call progressives who tried to “change America” who created the Internet and every other communications network that you use every day.
It is largely due to the work of people you would call progressives that the United States is a freer, more vital place now than it was on June 21, 1788. I don’t personally know anyone who thinks things would be better if we had had no change since 1788, but maybe you’re the first.
For now, I’ll just say that I don’t think we had achieved perfection on June 21, 1788, and I still don’t think we’ve achieved perfection.
Conservatives yearn for a past that never was and progressives try to create a better future for all.
That is why I am a progressive.
Off to visit family for Spring Break now. Ta ta everyone! 🙂
Ever since FDR’s presidency — when “liberalism†replaced “Progressivism†as the preferred label for center-left political ideas and activism — liberals have had trouble articulating what liberalism is, beyond the conviction that the federal government should use its power to do nice things whenever and wherever it can. The German and American New Deals may have been merely whatever Hitler and FDR felt they could get away with. But therein lies a common principle: the state should be allowed to get away with anything, so long as it is for “good reasons.†This is the common principle among fascism, Nazism, Progressivism, and what we today call liberalism/progressivism.
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 principle. Liberals often forget that the progressives were imperialists, at home and abroad. They were the authors of Prohibition, the Palmer Raids, eugenics, loyalty oaths, and, in its modern incarnation, what many call “state capitalism.â€
H.G. Wells, one of the greatest influences on the progressive mind in the twentieth century (and, it turns out, the inspiration for Huxley’s Brave New World), coined the phrase “Liberal Fascism”. Wells didn’t coin the phrase as an indictment, but as a badge of honor. Progressives must become “liberal fascists†and “enlightened Nazis,†he told the Young Liberals at Oxford in a speech in July 1932. In 1927 H.G. Wells couldn’t help but notice “the good there is in these Fascists. There is something brave and well-meaning about them.†By 1941 no less a figure than George Orwell couldn’t help but conclude, “Much of what Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party was in every respect a grassroots populist party. Party leaders spouted all sorts of socialist prattle about seizing the wealth of the rich. Mein Kampf is replete with attacks on “dividend-hungry businessmen†whose “greed,†“ruthlessness,†and “short-sighted narrow-mindedness†were ruining the country. Hitler adamantly took the side of the trade union movement over “dishonorable employers.†Upon seizing power, the radicals in the Nazi Party Labor Union threatened to put business leaders in concentration camps if they didn’t increase workers’ wages. During his rise to power Hitler — in many respects the heir of Bismarckian progressives — could hardly launch an all-out attack on Christianity. National Socialism, after all, was supposed to unite all Germans. It’s “not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death,†Hitler explained to his aides. In 1935 mandatory prayer in (German) school was abolished, and in 1938 carols and nativity plays were banned entirely. By 1941 religious instruction for children fourteen years and up had been abolished altogether and Jacobinism reigned supreme. A Hitler Youth song rang out from the campfires:
We are the happy Hitler Youth;
We have no need for Christian virtue;
For Adolf Hitler is our intercessor
And our redeemer.
No priest, no evil one
Can keep us
From feeling like Hitler’s children.
No Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!
Away with incense and holy water pots.
Creepy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJFC1qFCgyA – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9b0xr06qA – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzqWQz5OmvE – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOtGr1JFCnE
And in 1933 members of Mussolini’s press office issued an order: “It is not to be emphasized that Roosevelt’s policy is fascist because these comments are immediately cabled to the United States and are used by his foes to attack him.
Today we unreflectively associate fascism with militarism. But it should be remembered that fascism was militaristic because militarism was “progressive†at the beginning of the twentieth century. According to a document unearthed by the Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, FDR’s staff prepared a radio address to the American Legion, the first to be delivered after his inaugural, in which FDR was to instruct the veterans that they should become his own “extra-constitutional†“private army†(Alter’s words). “A new commander-in-chief under the oath to which you are still bound,†Roosevelt’s prepared text read, “I reserve to myself the right to command you in any phase of the situation which now confronts us.†While Alter concedes this was “dictator talk — an explicit power grab†and showed that FDR or his minions contemplated forming “a makeshift force of veterans to enforce some kind of martial law,†he minimizes the importance of his own discovery.
Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter.
Almost all the leading progressive intellectuals interpreted Darwinian theory as a writ to “interfere†with human natural selection. Even progressives with no ostensible ties to eugenics worked closely with champions of the cause. There was simply no significant stigma against racist eugenics in progressive circles. In the hothouse logic of the left, those who opposed forced sterilization of the “unfit†and the poor were villains for letting a “state of nature†rule among the lower classes.
Consider the infamous Tuskegee experiments, where poor black men were allegedly infected with syphilis without their knowledge and then monitored for years.In fact, the Tuskegee experiments were approved and supported by well-meaning health professionals who saw nothing wrong or racist with playing God. As the University of Chicago’s Richard Shweder writes, the “study emerged out of a liberal progressive public health movement concerned about the health and well being of the African-American population.†If racism played a part, as it undoubtedly did, it was the racism of liberals, not conservatives. But that’s not how the story is told.
Others, such as the Davis-Bacon Act, reflect the racial animus of the progressives. The act was passed in 1931 in order to prevent poor black laborers from “taking†jobs from whites. Its authors were honest about it, and it was explicitly passed for that reason; the comparatively narrow issue of cheap black labor was set against the backdrop of the vestigial progressive effort to maintain white supremacy. Today the Davis-Bacon Act is as sacred to many labor movement liberals as Roe v. Wade is feminists.
Speaking of Roe v. Wade and abortion, in 1939 Margaret Sanger created the “Negro Project,†which aimed to get blacks to adopt birth control. Through the Birth Control Federation, she hired black ministers (including the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr.), doctors, and other leaders to help pare down the supposedly surplus black population. The project’s racist intent is beyond doubt. “The mass of significant Negroes,†read the project’s report, “still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes….in that portion of the population least intelligent and fit.†Sanger’s intent is shocking today, but she recognized its extreme radicalism even then. “We do not want word to go out,†she wrote to a colleague, “that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.†When modern liberals try to explain away the Klan membership of prominent Democrats — most frequently West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd — they cough up a few cliches about how good liberals “evolved†from their southern racial “conservatism.†But the Klan of the 1920s was often seen as reformist and modern, and it had a close relationship with some progressive elements in the Democratic Party. The young Harry Truman as well as the future Supreme Court justice Hugo Black were members.
It’s bizarre how many people remember the 1960s as a time of “unity†and “hope†when it was in reality a time of rampant domestic terrorism, campus tumult, assassinations, and riots. It was in the 1960s that the left convinced itself that there is something fascistic about patriotism and something perversely “patriotic†about running down America. Anti-Americanism — a stand-in for hatred of Western civilization — became the stuff of sophisticates and intellectuals as never before. Flag burners became the truest “patriots†because dissent — not just from partisan politics, but the American project itself — became the highest virtue. The most important legacy of the 1960s has to be liberal guilt. Guilt over their inability to create the Great Society. Guilt over leaving children, blacks, and the rest of the Coalition of the Oppressed “behind.†Guilt is among the most religious of emotions and has a way of devolving into a narcissistic God complex. Liberals were proud of how guilty they felt. Why? Because it confirmed liberal omnipotence.
The American right is constantly required to own the darkest chapters in the country’s history: the accommodation of segregationists, McCarthyite excesses, isolationism prior to World War 2, and so on. Rarely mentioned is the liberal side of these stories, in which the Democratic Party was the home to Jim Crow for a century; in which American liberalism was at least as isolationist as American conservatism; in which the progressive Red Scare made McCarthyism look like an Oxford Union debate; in which successive Democratic presidents ordered such things as the detention of Japanese-Americans, sweeping domestic surveillance of political enemies, and the (justified) use of horrific weapons on Japan; and in which Moscow-loyal communists “named names†of heretical Trotskyites.
I’ve been lurking here. This is my first post. I take offense to liberalism and progressivism being equated with Fascism and Nazism. Liberals and Progressives are not Anti-American, as Juan paints in his hateful post.
“A majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as a form of far-right politics. Far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate over other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements.” -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
Idol Girl, thanks for expressing all of the accomplishments of the Progressives over time, much of which I have elaborated on over time, and is stated also on my ABOUT page.
Juan, I do not contest the shortcomings of progressivism and liberalism, but at least they are always moving toward reform and progress, while conservatives and the Tea Party Movement wish to bring us back to the days when even the Democrats were regressive. So while one can criticize progressivism and liberalism for its many imperfections in the past, one can see the present intention of the left and of the right, and to me, it is clear that the left offers a better course for the future!
And it incenses me when you compare progressivism in America to Fascism and Naziism in Europe and elsewhere, as our traditions in this country, with all of its imperfections, is vastly different, and you are oversimplifying our history in an abusive manner. And also realize much of what you complain about the Democratic Party of the past is found in the South, which in the past came very close to Fascism, and now the Republican Party has adopted a similar stand as that of the old Confederacy, a despicable development which you seem to have no problem in ignoring!
The major flaw in all of this is that fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left. This fact — an inconvenient truth if there ever was one — is obscured in our time by the equally mistaken belief that fascism and communism are opposites. In reality, they are closely related, historical competitors for the same constituents. Before the war, fascism was widely viewed as a progressive social movement with many liberal and left-wing adherents in Europe and the United States. Indeed, it is my argument that during World War I, America became a fascist country, albeit temporarily. The first appearance of modern totalitarianism in the Western world wasn’t in Italy or Germany but in the United States of America under Woodrow Wilson. How else would you describe a country where the world’s first modern propaganda ministry was established; political prisoners by the thousands were harassed, beaten, spied upon, and thrown in jail simply for expressing private opinions; the national leader accused foreigners or immigrants of injecting treasonous “poison into the American bloodstream;†newspapers and magazines were shut down for criticizing the government; nearly a hundred thousand government propaganda agents were sent out among the people to whip up support for the regime and its war; college professors imposed loyalty oaths on their colleagues; nearly a quarter-million goons were given legal authority to intimidate and beat “slackers†and dissenters; and leading artists and writers dedicated their crafts to proselytizing for the government? American progressivism, from which today’s liberalism descended, was a kind of Christian fascism (many called it “Christian socialismâ€). This is a difficult concept for modern liberals to grasp because they are used to thinking of the progressives as the people who cleaned up the food supply, pushed through the eight hour workday, and ended child labor. But liberals often forget, as I have stated before, that the progressives were imperialists, at home and abroad. They were the authors of Prohibition, the Palmer Raids, eugenics, loyalty oaths, and, in its modern incarnation, what many call “state capitalism. â€Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the “problem†and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism. What distinguished Nazism from other brands of socialism and communism was not so much that it included more aspects from the political right (though there were some). What distinguished Nazism was that it forthrightly included a worldview we now associate almost completely with the political left: identity politics. This was what distinguished Nazism from doctrinaire communism, and it seems hard to argue the marriage of one leftist vision to another can somehow produce right-wing progeny. If this was how the world worked, we would have to label nationalist-socialist organizations like the PLO and Cuban Communist Party right-wing.
Rexford Tugwell, a leading member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, said in 1934, “I find Italy doing many of the things which seem to me necessary…. Mussolini certainly has the same people opposed to him as FDR has. But he has the press controlled so that they cannot scream lies at him daily” How is this possible? Leftists wish to reconstruct society along socialistic lines; fascists glorify the nation and militarism. How can leftists favor fascism? By importing the war spirit into domestic affairs, leftists hope to reconstruct society. In war, people unite to achieve victory; in doing so, they sacrifice their personal ends to achieve the common goal. The fascists took exactly the same view, and many leftists accordingly recognized the affinity. The progressives were well aware that war would enable them to advance their ambitious social plans, and they advocated American entry into the First World War for this reason. Herbert Croly, author of the vastly influential The Promise of American Life, “looked forward to many more wars because war was the midwife of progress … Croly’s “New Republic” was relentless in its push for war”. War socialism under Wilson was an entirely progressive project, and long after the war it remained the liberal ideal…. If we are to believe that “classic” fascism is first and foremost the elevation of martial values and the militarization of government and society under the banner of nationalism, it is very difficult to understand why the Progressive Era was not also the Fascist Era. Given the Wilsonian precedent, the affinity of the New Deal with fascism is hardly surprising. Just as the progressives had done under Wilson, the New Dealers demanded collective action by the government to cope with the economic emergency. Indeed, many of the measures they supported reinstituted programs of Wilson’s wartime government. For example, the close parallel between the National Recovery Administration and Mussolini’s corporatism,is a fact that was not lost on either the fascists or the New Dealers. In “Doctrine of Fascism,” Mussolini says that fascism is against liberalism, but the liberalism that Mussolini was referring to wasn’t the progressive/liberalism of FDR, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but it was the liberalism of classical liberalism of free-market liberalism. Manchester liberalism.
Juan, you sound like Jonah Goldberg of The National Review and his book, LIBERAL FASCISM, which is not regarded highly by any intelligent, educated person. Are you sure you are not secretly him under another name? LOL
Juan
Fascism is right-wing because they hated left-wing ideologies.
Here is an encyclopedia link about fascism on the political spectrum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Position_in_the_political_spectrum
Some more info regarding fascism as being right-wing:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/whitepapers/defining/leftwing_or_rightwing.htm
“6 – The fascists opposed atheism, modernism, the Enlightenment, intellectualism, liberalism, democracy, Social Democrat activist, Marxism, secularism, true laissez-faire capitalism, and evolutionary theory. What is most important to note about this is that many people, not just the fascists, shared many elements of these same feelings. These sentiments are in essence the definition of right-wing social ideology.”
Princess Leia, thanks so much for this revealing exposure of the truth of what Fascism is, and how many American capitalists praised and promoted it, not that different than what the Koch Brothers and other corporate interests do today, working against Barack Obama, just as the industrialists worked against FDR in the 1930s and early 1940s!
As they say Professor, history repeats itself.
When Benjamin Franklin exited the Constitutional Convention, he was asked by a woman, Sir, what have you given us?
Franklin replied, “A Republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”
Most Americans today are persuaded that our American system is a Democracy and not a Republic. The difference between these two is essential in understanding Americanism and the American System.
There seems to be confusion about the Political Spectrum. Many believe that the Political Spectrum places groups, such as Communists on the far Left such as Pol Pot and Castro. Fascists or dictators on the far Right such as Hitler and Mussolini. Moderates in the middle, such as Reagan, Kennedy, and FDR.
This is not totally accurate.
A more accurate Political Spectrum would show government having zero power on the far Right and total government on the far Left. At the extreme right there is no government. The extreme left features total government, under such labels as Communism, Socialism, Nazism, Fascism, Dictators, Kings, etc. – any form of total government. Those who claim that Nazis-Fascists are Right Wing never define their terms, which causes confusion.
Toward the middle of the spectrum can be found the type of limited government that is limited to its proper role of Protecting the Rights of the People defined in the United States Constitution. Those who advocate such a form of government are really Constitutional Moderates.
So the basic forms of government are:
(1) Monarchy or Dictatorship – rule by one
(2) Oligarchy – rule by a few
(3) Democracy – rule by a majority
(4) Republic – rule by law
(5) Anarchy – rule by no one
When these five are studied more closely, we can narrow the list even more.
Monarchy or Dictatorship, which is rule by one, really does not exist in the practical sense because it’s a group that puts one of its members at the top. The King has his council of Earls and Nobles; and every Dictator has his Bureaucrats or Commissars, that is the men behind the scenes. This is not ruled by one, even though one person maybe the visible leader, its ruled by a group. So let’s eliminate Monarchy/Dictatorship, because it really doesn’t exist. Oligarchy which is rule by a group is the most common form of government in all history and the most common used today. Most of the nations in the world are ruled by a powerful few, which is why Oligarchy remains.
At the far right, we find Anarchy which by definition means without government. Some people who have studied history found many of its worst crimes were committed by governments, so they decided that by having no government it might be a better idea. This was quickly realized a mistake. The ancient Greeks stated, without Law there can be no Freedom, to which our Founding Father agreed. They felt that some form of government is a necessary force in any civilized orderly society.
In a state of Anarchy however, everyone has to guard life, liberty, and property. They all must be armed and movement is severely restricted because ones property has to be protected at all times.
Civilized people have always hired someone to do the guarding: a sheriff, police force or some branch of government. Once law enforcement was in place, the people were freer. They could leave their property, work in the fields and so on. In short, the proper amount of government makes everyone freer.
There are some who advocate anarchy not because they want no government, but because they don’t like what they have. They use anarchy as a tool for revolutionary change.
The condition of anarchy is very much like a vacuum where something rushes in to fill it. These calculating anarchists work to break down the existing government with rioting, killing, looting and terrorism. Tragically, the people living in such chaos often go to those best able to put an end to it to beg them to take over and restore order. And who is best able to put an end to the chaos? The very people who started it. The Anarchists who created the problem then create a government run by them, an Oligarchy, where they have total power. This is exactly what happened in Russia where Lenin took total power, and in Germany where Hitlers brown-shirts created the chaos that brought him to power.
But Anarchy isn’t a stable form of government. It’s a quick transition from something that exists to something desired by the power-hungry. It’s a temporary condition, and because it isn’t permanent, we can eliminate it from our list.
The word Democracy comes from two Greek words: Demos meaning people, and Kratin meaning to rule.Democracy thus means, The Rule of the People, Majority Rule. This, of course, sounds good, but what if the majority wants to take away one’s home, or business, or children? Obviously, there has to be a limit. The law in a Democracy is that the majority isn’t restrained. If more than half the people can be persuaded to want something in a democracy, they rule.
Republic comes from Latin. Res meaning ThingÂ, and Publica meaning Public. It means Public Thing The Law. A true Republic is one where the government is limited by law, leaving the people alone.
The Founding Fathers had a clean slate to write on. They could have set up an Oligarchy. In fact, there were some who wanted George Washington to be their king. But the Founding Fathers knew history, and they chose to give us the Rule of Law in a Republic, not the rule of the majority in a Democracy.
Why?
Let’s demonstrate the difference in the settling of the Old West. Consider a lynch mob in a democracy: 35 horseback riders chase one lone gunman. They catch him. They vote 34 to 1 to hang him. Democracy has triumphed, and there is one less gunman to deal with.
Now, consider the same scenario in a Republic. The 35 riders catch the gunman and vote 34 to 1 to hang him, but the sheriff arrives and says, You can’t kill him. He has a right to a fair trial. So they take the gunman back to town. A jury of his peers is selected and hears the evidence and the defense and they decide if he should hang. Does the jury even decide by majority rule? No. It must be unanimous or the accused goes free. The rights of the government aren’t subject to majority rule but to the law.
This is the essence of a Republic.
Many Americans would be surprised to learn the word Democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Nor does it appear in any of the Constitutions of the 50 states. The Founders did everything they could to keep us from having a democracy.
James Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, wrote in the Federalist Papers #10, “… democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Alexander Hamilton agreed when he stated, “We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of democracy.” Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence, said, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.”
The Founders had good reason to look upon democracy with contempt because they knew that the democracies in the early Greek states produced some of the wildest excesses of government a manageable. In every case they ended up with mob rule, then anarchy and finally tyranny under an oligarchy.
During that period in Greece, there was a man named Solon who urged a creation of a fixed body of law not subject to majority whims. While the Greeks never adopted Solon’s wise council, the Romans did. Based on what they knew of Solon’s laws, they created the Twelve Tables of the Roman Law and, in effect, built a republic that limited government power and left the people alone. Since government was limited, the people were free to produce with the understanding that they could keep the fruits of their labor. In time, Rome became wealthy and the envy of the world.
In the midst of plenty however, the Roman people forgot what freedom entailed. They forgot that the essence of freedom is the proper limitation of government. When government power grows, people’s freedom recedes. Once the Romans dropped their guard, power-seeking politicians began to exceed the powers granted them in the Roman Constitution. Some learned that they could elect politicians who would use government power to take property from some and give it to others.Agriculture subsidies were introduced, followed by housing and welfare programs. Inevitably taxes rose and controls over the private sector were imposed. Soon, a number of Rome’s producers could no longer make ends meet and they went on the dole.
Productivity declined, shortages developed and mobs began roaming the streets demanding bread and circuses from the government. Many were induced to trade freedom for security. Eventually, the whole system came crashing down. They went from a Republic to a Democracy and ended up with an Oligarchy under the progression of the Caesars.
Thus, democracy itself is not a stable form of government. Instead it is the gradual transition from limited government to the unlimited rule of an Oligarchy.
Knowing this, we Americans are ultimately left with only two choices: We can keep our Republic, as Franklin put it, or we will inevitably end up with an Oligarchy, the tyranny of the elite.
Totally agree with the Professor, Juan. Intelligent, educated people, such as myself, can’t take your right-wing talking points seriously. LOL.
For those who stayed awake during our high school government classes, we remember learning that Fascism is placed at the extreme right end of the political spectrum. Historically, it has been most violently opposed to liberal political factions, such as trade unions. Fascists have been rabidly opposed to Communists; wherever Fascist governments have come into power, leftists have been disenfranchised, incarcerated, tortured and killed.
Also, for those of of us stayed awake during high school government classes, we remember learning that liberalism is generally characterized by democratic government, tolerance and acceptance of minorities, civil liberties, an orientation toward peace and international law, and moderate economic regulation by government. Liberalism is NOT socialism or communism.
You are totally correct, Princess Leia!
@ Your Highness Leia! You are right. For those that were fed propaganda in High School!! What your teacher didn’t clarify, because she/he lack the knowledge, was that fascism , as well as Marxism, were opposed to liberalism in the classical sense (aka conservatism today in America), not so much modern day progressive/liberalism. For Europeans, liberalism is right wing, it has nothing to do with the progressive left. Most Americans confuse being socially liberal with a political/economical ideology. I am socially liberal really, open-minded, I really don’t care what anyone does in the privacy of their home, yet I believe in limited government , individual freedoms and as a necessary corollary free markets. I oppose the oppressive nanny state.
Unlike what you claim, my teacher did not feed us propaganda. Unlike what you claim, my teacher was very truthful and knowledgeable about our U.S. government. She taught us that liberalism (both classic and modern) and progressivism is left-wing and more towards the center. She taught us that Communism and Marxism are extreme left (far left). She taught us that conservativism is right-wing and that Fascism is extreme right (far right).
@Leia: When talking about forms of government I am referring to the amount of power that government has with regard to the individual and how that power is held. In both Marxist/Communist/Socialist and Fascist/National Socialism governments, the state is supreme and power is held by a few, by a true oligarchy. On the other extreme is zero government or Anarchy which always leads to some kind of dictatorship, and towards the middle we have a Republican form of government (ours in the US) and further left Popular Democracies (majority rule- like Chavez in Venezuela) which tend to give more power to the state and limit individual freedoms for the sake of social – collective rights though not reaching the totalitarian levels. So how can you possible say that conservatism/classic liberalism, which believes in limited constitutional government, in Republican rule of law,civil society, individual civil and political rights, tolerance, and the natural human economy otherwise known as free market capitalism, is closer in the spectrum to Fascism than Communism or even Popular Democracies are? Doesn’t that seem irrational to you? Both Fascism and Communism promote the supremacy of the collective over the individual, either as a class (like the “workers” in communism) or as a nationality (like the different nationalities in fascism). Furthermore the leader of the Italian socialist at the beginning of the 20th century was Benito Mussolini, the creator of fascism. Fascism is nothing more than national socialism. Marxism/communism/socialism always had and still does have an international component.Thus “Workers of the World Unite” and The Communist International or Comintern also known as Third International. Doesn’t that ring a bell? While Fascism and National Socialism are clearly nationalistic,but socialistic none the less. All you have to do is read the Fascist Constitution to realize it. Of course Marxist/Communist/Socialist and Fascist/National-Socialist hated each other but because they competed for the same constituency, which was following Marxist teaching, the working class.
There’s nothing socialist about national socialism as it puts nation before people. It doesn’t want to help the workers but seeks to exploit them. Instead of bringing equality it strengthens existing divisions and prejudices and uses a minority inside the country as a scapegoat for everything wrong.
@Leia: What you are describing is the exact description of what the Union of Socialist Soviet Republic, The German Democratic Republic, The People’s Republic of Poland, People’s Republic of Hungary, People’s Republic of Bulgaria, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, The Socialist Republic of Romania, Socialist People’s Republic of Albania, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China were. And it is the exact description of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, The People’s Republic of China and Cuba are today. All of them Marxist/Socialist! All of them responsible for more than a 120 million deaths in the 20th Century. That is socialism.
Princess Leia, you are correct in what you say and what your teacher taught.
However, Juan is correct in that both the extreme left and the extreme right are totalitarian in nature.
Political scientists put liberalism or progressivism on the left, socialism further left, and totalitarian communism extreme left. They put conservatism on the right, reactionary further right, and Fascism and Nazism as extreme right.
To both of you: Just because liberalism/progressivism is to the left still makes it miles away from totalitarianism and a distance from socialism: AND just because conservatism is to the right still makes it miles from totalitarianism and a distance from reactionary government.
Both extremes in practice have a lot in common, but the ideology they espouse is antagonistic to each other and to the more moderate and centrist forms–meaning socialism, liberalism/progressivism on the left, and reactionary and conservatism on the right!
Juan, I just saw what you said, and although the word “Socialism” is in the titles of the Communist governments, they are NOT Socialist, and distort the term.
Socialism is what the Labour Party in Great Britain was in the 20th century, or the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas were in the US in the 20th century–peaceful moves toward Socialism, without loss of civil liberties and using democratic means to bring change!
Exactly right Professor. That’s what I’ve been trying to stress to Juan. 🙂
Juan – I believe in personal responsibility. But I don’t believe in leaving a majority of the people behind on necessities like healthcare or education. I don’t believe personal responsiblity will clean the environment. I don’t believe personal responsibility will get the economy moving again.
Ron: Marxist theory contends that socialism is just a transitional stage on the road to communism. Leninism adds to Marxism the notion of a vanguard party to lead the proletarian revolution and to secure all political power after the revolution for the working class, for the development of universal (that is worldwide) class consciousness and worker participation, in a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. Thus all the regimes I have mentioned where in the socialist stage. Why? Because once pure communism is achieved according to Marxist theory there is no state/government. But in the meantime during the socialist stage there is the state. That is why all the eastern block nations were names either Socialist, Popular Republics or Democracies.Only when worldwide revolution was obtained and the socialist states completed the transition would true pure communism arise as the final stage of human history. This is historic materialism 101.
Juan, the point is that this is all propaganda to confuse people, but true socialism is a Norman Thomas or a Bernie Sanders, hardly a threat to ANYONE or to freedom!
Exactly right Professor!
Ron: This is Marxist theory not propaganda. Remember I used to flirt with Marxism, Das Capital and Das Kommunistische Manifest were and are in my library. Marx and Engels used the Hegelian dialectical perspective for their analysis of history and thus reached the inevitability of communism.Of course this was criticized by another great socialist, and even of more importance (and more dangerous) in today’s “American and Western European left”, Eduard Bernstein in “Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus” -Evolutionary Socialism- proposing gradualism as a way to achieve “socialism” through peaceful means. That is, instead of using violence and force people into socialism to one day reach pure communism, Bernstein proposed that people would vote for socialism and then pure communism might be reached or not. In other words the Marxist approach to communism was the equivalent of “murder” while Bernstein’s approach was the equivalent of “suicide”. And this last one , is of course the most dangerous.
Juan
You look great in that tin foil hat 😉
@Leia Amidala Skywalker: Likewise!
Juan
It’s Leia Organa Solo. 😉
And I’m not the one around here into conspiracy theories. Hence why I’m not wearing a tin foil hat. 😉
Oh, and give my regards to Evita 😉
May I ask what conspiracy theory I am supposedly into? I would really like to know. This is amusing…LOL Oh and my regards to Hans.
It’s because your posts always distrustful of the government.
My life experiences have taught me that not all governments are corrupt.
Of course not all governments all corrupt, but I prefer to trust then verify. Why? Because government is run by men and women who are just as fallible and weak as anybody. Just because they are elected doesn’t make them gods,better or wiser. We hope they are wise, but sadly that is not usually the case. If none among us is perfect then who among us can dictate every single aspect of our life? In any event my issue is not so much with the elected officials, sooner or later we can get rid of the bad ones, my issue is with the permanent bureaucracy that transcends different administration and are not held accountable, yet they legislate and punish us in our daily lives. I will give one example, Obamacare. Now forget for a moment the merits of the law , whether you agree with it or not. The law itself was over 2300 pages, and as Nancy “Stretch” Pelosi said, “we have to pass the law to know what is in it”. Fair enough, in the end Congress passed it even though they has no idea what was in it. But after the passage consider this, so far Obamacare has over 23,000 pages of regulations issued by regulators and bureaucrats of different agencies with no accountability at all towards the people or our representatives. We don’t know who they are, we didn’t elect them, yet they are mandating this and that, regulating how our doctors are suppose to treat us, and more. Every day there is a surprise, and who is accountable? No one! And it’s like this with all regulations ,there are over 70,000 pages of new regulations just this year in the Federal Registrar. And we the people are being legislated by a 4th branch of government, the bureaucracy with practically no accountability and representation. That is what is Tocqueville called a soft-tyranny, no matter which way you look at it. And that is what I detest.
Here’s a summary about what’s in the Affordable Care Act: http://www.winningprogressive.org/fighting-for-the-affordable-care-act
@Leia: Nothing in the link you posted addresses my question. It is all goodwill dictates. It’s amazing how the left lives in a world of make believe. How is this beneficial? “– Imposes taxes and fees on health care industry, including 10% tax on cancer-causing indoor tanning. – Significantly increases federal regulation of the health insurance industry.” All taxes on the industry will as always be passed on to the consumer and we already had before Obamacare since the 60’s a highly regulates health insurance industry. And what has happened? Cost of healthcare rose! And yet we are supposed to believe that more regulation is going to lower its cost and make it more affordable? In what kind of DA-DA land are you living?
And to make this worst this is no longer healthcare insurance but mandated government pricing, thus it will end up like all mandated government pricing in all of human history, that is in higher prices, lack of products/services and poor products/services. There have been and are options to helping those 15-18 million (if you don’t count ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!) uninsured without screwing up 1/6 of the US economy and the health system for the rest of the 300 million people in this country.
A lot of regulations you complain about are for your safety, my safety, other people’s safety. They want to ensure that you, me, everyone else have clean air to breathe, safe highways to travel on, safe food to eat, etc.
As the article says, Juan, those are common sense reforms. As the article says, Obamacare opponents, such as yourself, are more concerned with taxes than the well-being of your fellow citizens.
Republicans are like Scrooge.
I don’t believe in minimalist government, the way that Libertarians, such as yourself, do. I tend to think Government CAN and DOES do lots of good things for us but I do think that we can reform programs. So I guess you might call me socially liberal and fiscally moderate.
Leia: How do you know that a lot of the regulations I complain about are ” for your safety, my safety, other people’s safety”? Why do you assume I want dirty air and water? Why do you believe I am not for safety on the highways? Are you the type of liberal/progressive that hasn’t met a regulation you didn’t love? Good grief Leia , do you have any idea how many regulations state and federal governments have? It even regulates the size of our toilettes! LOL! These are just a few examples of ridiculous state/federal regulations:
#1 Private Investigator’s License: The state of Texas now requires every new computer repair technician to obtain a private investigator’s license. In order to receive a private investigator’s license, an individual must either have a degree in criminal justice or must complete a three year apprenticeship with a licensed private investigator. If you are a computer repair technician that violates this law, or if you are a regular citizen that has a computer repaired by someone not in compliance with the law, you can be fined up to $4,000 and you can be put in jail for a year.
#2 Business Privilege License… For Bloggers : The city of Philadelphia now requires all bloggers to purchase a $300 business privilege license. The city even went after one poor woman who had earned only $11 from her blog over the past two years.
#3 Funeral Director License for Monks: The state of Louisiana says that monks must be fully licensed as funeral directors and actually convert their monasteries into licensed funeral homes before they will be allowed to sell their handmade wooden caskets.
#4 Teeth Brushing Regulation: In the state of Massachusetts, all children in daycare centers are mandated by state law to brush their teeth after lunch. In fact, the state even provides the fluoride toothpaste for the children
#5 D.C. Tour Guide License: If you attempt to give a tour of our nation’s capital without a license, you could be put in prison for 90 days.
#6 Raw Milk License: Federal agents recently raided an Amish farm at 5 A.M. in the morning because they were selling “unauthorized” raw milk.
#7 Pumpkin and Christmas Tree Vendor License: In Lake Elmo, Minnesota farmers can be fined $1,000 and put in jail for 90 days for selling pumpkins or Christmas trees that are grown outside city limits.
#8 Untangling Whale Restriction:A U.S. District Court judge slapped a $500 fine on Massachusetts fisherman Robert J. Eldridge for untangling a giant whale from his nets and setting it free. So what was his crime? Well, according to the court, Eldridge was supposed to call state authorities and wait for them do it.
#9 Interior Design License:In the state of Texas, it doesn’t matter how much formal interior design education you have – only individuals with government licenses may refer to themselves as “interior designers” or use the term “interior design” to describe their work.
#10 Additional 1099s to File: Deeply hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill passed by Congress was a new regulation that will require U.S. businesses to file millions more 1099s each year. In fact, it is estimated that the average small business will now have to file 200 additional 1099s every single year. Talk about a nightmare of red tape! But don’t try to avoid this rule – it is being reported that the IRS has hired approximately 2,000 new auditors to audit as many of these 1099s as possible.
#11 License to Close a Business: The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin makes it incredibly difficult to go out of business. In order to close down a business, Milwaukee requires you to purchase an expensive license, you must submit a huge pile of paperwork to the city regarding the inventory you wish to sell off, and you must pay a fee based on the length of your “going out of business sale” plus a two dollar charge for every $1,000 worth of inventory that you are attempting to sell off
#12 Labeling Products with Calorie Counts: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is projecting that the food service industry will have to spend an additional 14 million hours every single year just to comply with new federal regulations that mandate that all vending machine operators and chain restaurants must label all products that they sell with a calorie count in a location visible to the consumer. We have become a nation that is run and dominated by bureaucrats. Yes, there always must be rules in a society, but we have gotten to the point where there are so many millions of rules that the game has become unplayable.
This is so ridiculous and sad at the same time. I can’t imagine anyone believing in their right mind that this is “common sense”. Here is just one of the reasons of our decline as a nation!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YQscE3Xed64#! (Opening a Business)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTXw4ObSQPI , (Raiding Barber Shops)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-boNsFfCU , (Oregon shuts down 82yo barber)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEByACY4k9M , (Tour Guide License)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tjTheDqQrw&list=PLCE9EF147C3C7C3AA&index=25 (African Hairbraiders)
Eloquently stated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1YQDjpuY_U&feature=player_embedded#!
To counteract you Juan:
Why regulations are necessary: http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20110706/NEWS/110709923
If you think a full de-regulated capalist system would work, you are nuts, and history will prove that.
Some more info concerning this matter:
http://brotherpeacemaker.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/regulations-are-a-necessary-evil/
Leia: Oh my oh my. Have I ever said anything about 0, ZERO, NADA , regulations?? I am talking about absurd, red tape , job creation hampering, idiotic regulations! Good grief! Is that so hard to comprehend? Is there not a regulation that you do not love?
Now. It’s bedtime in my neck of the woods. I wish you good night.
And by the time I get up in the morning, the Professor will probably post some more stuff, so this thread will officially be out of sight, out of mind.
To answer your final question for the night, I am very much in agreement with what that last link that I posted said – that the idea that we should go back to a time when businesses can operate with impunity doesn’t sit well with me either. That’s why I support regulations.
Princess Leia, I rarely have a post first thing in the morning! LOL Just letting you know! 🙂
Good night to all!
Looks like we’ll just have to agree to disagree, Juan. I’m moving on to some of the other posts here now.