I’ve been looking for a book on the Progressive Era
that delineates the ideologies of both Republican and Democratic politicians of
that period. I do believe Judge
Napolitano’s latest work accomplishes what I’m looking for.
Considering
the hagiographies I’ve had to endure, namely, Arthur Walworth’s Pulitzer Prize
biography of Woodrow Wilson, an honest and refreshing history is much needed,
especially in this day and age of progressivism run amok. And how do I know that Judge Napolitano’s
book meets that criterion? Publisher
Weekly did a hit job review. That’s how
I know.
Fox
News regular and former New Jersey judge Napolitano (Constitutional Chaos)
seeks to prove that presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were not
heroes but A-list bad guys.. Napolitano claims that Roosevelt and Wilson
“pushed aside the traditionally accepted and constitutionally mandated
restrictions on the federal government and used it as an instrument to
redistribute wealth, regulate personal behavior, enrich the government, and
enhance the government’s health with wars.” With the draft, instituted by
Wilson in WWI, the U.S. instituted “a form of slavery and therefore tyranny.”
Napolitano repeatedly links what he views as Roosevelt’s and Wilson’s
Progressive era folly and perfidy to the present, claiming that Wilson
instituted the federal income tax we know today, which the authors calls
“theft” and that, thanks to Roosevelt’s foreign meddling, the U.S. is the “most
imperialistic country in the history of the world.” This hit job takes on the
Federal Reserve, compulsory education, industrial regulation, and race with
equal lack of subtlety. Roosevelt and Wilson, according to Napolitano, were
agents of central economic planning. Whatever political points Napolitano is
trying to score, he doesn’t accomplish. Agent: Bob Barnett. (Nov.)
Off to the bookstore I go!
H/T: NC Renegade
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