Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Obama Co-opts Teddy Roosevelt to Validate Policies




Barack Obama and his acolytes once again are trying to co-opt another former president for their benefit. This time the Anointed One traveled to Kansas to give a speech that the media is comparing to Teddy Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech.

I don’t know why it is, that today’s progressives have to “channel” historical figures to validate their policies. Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt can explain this cognizant dissonance through her medium, Hillary Clinton. Better yet, they have a former president who is alive and a fellow traveler: Jimmy Carter. Who better embodies the error of their ways, than he?

But humility is not a streak that runs down Obama’s back. And historical truth, whether it is current or pertains to the founding, is laughed and scoffed at; it’s merely used as a tool to shape a political means. And the Anointed One demonstrated that in his Kansas speech.

Now, for many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh reality. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn't afford them, or even sometimes understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets -- and huge bonuses -- made with other people's money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn't have the authority to look at all.

We did have regulators who warned us of the shenanigans of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But they were castigated by likes of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus. And those mortgages wouldn’t have been sold to people who couldn’t afford them if it weren’t for the asinine laws and regulations made by the D.C. swamp monsters. But that is an inconvenient truth to the master of denial.


Obama continues on this absurd rewriting of history.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

Talk about chutzpah! Who’re the ones who keep bailing out Fannie and Freddie? Who’re the ones who want to keep giving loans to people who can’t afford them? It’s because of Democratic policies that have undermined the middle-class. It’s their philosophy that has brought down the whole world’s economy. But don’t expect people like Barack Obama to take responsibility for their actions. Hell no! It’s everybody else’s fault but theirs.

Everybody should read Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 New Nationalism speech. He typifies a progressive politician. The man speaks out of both sides of mouth. Here is an example:

I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property as well as human welfare. Normally, and in the long run, the ends are the same; but whenever the alternative must be faced, I am for men and not for property, as you were in the Civil War. I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends; but I rank dividends below human character. Again, I do not have any sympathy with the reformer who says he does not care for dividends. Of course, economic welfare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight and be able to support his family. I know well that the reformers must not bring upon the people economic ruin, or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin. But we must be ready to face temporary disaster, whether or not brought on by those who will war against us to the knife. Those who oppose reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.

As you see, class warfare is a staple with the progressives. Is it any wonder that Barack Obama would co-opt him?


Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-text-obama-speech-kansas-20111206,0,4426647.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=501

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