Progressive Indoctrination Erases a Century of Failures

We are witnessing the fruition of decades of progressive mal-education and indoctrination.  Children are schooled to believe the United States is an oppressor nation and everyone is a victim.  Our history has become a laundry list of one soiled event after another.  According to liberals,  our country has no redeeming qualities.  Howard Zinn’s, “A People’s History of the United States” is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.  

I ask, can a nation survive an onslaught of self-loathing of this magnitude?   Only a successful civilization as ours could infantilize its citizenry.  I don’t know how else to explain it.  We have adults acting like spoiled children.  But here we are tearing down statues and demanding “free stuff” without any thoughts to the consequences of our actions.  

I was rummaging around a used book store in Chattanooga, TN when I stumbled upon a paperback entitled, “The Great War and the Search for a Modern Order.”  This is exactly what I was looking for.  I needed to find a bridge from the Progressive Era to the Age of the Teat Squawkers and this was it. After reading it, come to find out, we have not changed that much in a hundred years..  It was an amazing revelation.

Yes, we’ve had huge technological advances, but so did our progenitors at the turn of the century and they were trying to deal with the disruptions of modernity as we.  Many jobs were rendered obsolete and workers were displaced; this was a huge concern, but they dealt with it.

Right down the line, every concern we have today was argued a century ago.  Issues such as indoctrination in our schools, the breakdown of the family and morality, the size and scope of the federal government, the influence of big media, immigration, and what it means to be an American; all of these issues were fervently debated back then as they are today.  

The only difference between the citizens of 21st century America and early 20th century America is experience.  They were forging a new system of governance without knowing the consequence.  We have the benefit of a hundred years of failures; yet, we refuse to learn from their mistakes.  

Today, we are witnessing one of the biggest smear campaigns in American history,  President Donald Trump has called out the media for its bias and propaganda.  This daily attack by a rabid media is having a detrimental effect on his presidency.  The exact same scenario happened to President Herbert Hoover.

Hoover was a progressive and once media darling.  They lauded him as the “Great Humanitarian” until he tried to control the narrative by managing the news.  Big media didn’t appreciate that, now he is maligned as one of the most despised public figures in American history.  He created the concept of public-private cooperation; yet, you would think this a modern day invention, probably because today’s progressives don’t want to acknowledge the failures of federal government participation and sponsored cartels.  Can anyone say, Obamacare?

Americans could learn a lot from history, if our schools would teach it.

Source:

https://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Search-Modern-Order/dp/0881339733

Populism is a Killer of Democracies

The greatest American generation, without a doubt, is the original – the founding.  Many would have us believe the WWII generation deserves that moniker.  I disagree.  I’ll give them their due in defeating totalitarianism in Europe and Asia, but they helped to install a thugocracy right here in America by expanding the central government at the expense of individual liberty and our federalist system.

They were Progressive Era babies indoctrinated by a political and social movement that eschewed limited government and embraced an administrative state.  The American spirit of community, as marveled by Tocqueville, was rendered antiquated and inefficient for the dynamism of a modern age.  Progressives believed government at all levels – especially the federal – could address the ills of society more efficiently than ordinary, motivated citizens.  Populism and democracy was all the rage.  Our founding fathers would have been horrified.

 States lost representation in Washington D.C. with the advent of the 17^th Amendment.  Populism would imbue the upper chamber along with the House of Representatives.

 

Senators no longer feared censure from their State’s legislature, or a recall.  He could act with impunity until Election Day, six years hence.  That gives him plenty of time to raise money from special interest groups that don’t necessarily have his State’s best interest in mind.

Populism expanded under the WWII generation.  LBJ’s Great Society was implemented to address the plight of the poor.  We now know this government initiative is a failure and has devastated the black community.  The War on Poverty is the biggest defeat the United States has experienced to date, yet, we still throw trillions of dollars at an age old problem that will never go away.

Populism, once again, was forced upon the States.  They lost their constitutional prerogatives when a progressive Supreme Court dictated the makeup of their legislatures.  Here is an excerpt from one of my earlier blog post:

 One of those considerations was meddling in States’ elections.  A series of Supreme Court rulings dating back to the 1960’s subverted the political process by retarding the rights of a State’s self governance.  These judges –  this priestly class – molested federalism by dictating the manner with which States’ shall choose their senators and representatives.  This was by no means a federal consideration.  This was purely local.

The rulings in question are Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v. Sims, and Wesberry v. Sanders.  The Supreme Court fundamentally changed the legislature of States by dictating their districts and how they were to be represented.  Basically, rural citizens were to be dominated by urbanites.  Degenerate values that breed on city streets would emanate from state capitols and spread throughout the countryside.

More importantly, this reconfiguration would benefit a political party that advocates centralized government.  Having Democrats dominate state legislatures, they would draw districts that marginalize hard working, liberty loving citizens while packing federal congressional districts with teat squawkers, who are looking for an agent that would steal from his neighbors

Populism has gained more ground and is now a threat to the republic.  Progressives no longer value citizenship.  They advocate for the rights of illegal aliens at the expense of their constituents.  Hell, some of them want to grant these invaders the right to vote.  Congressmen, such as Luis Gutierrez, openly declare their allegiance to foreigners who have no regard for American sovereignty, laws, or citizens.

 

How can a congressman get away with this flagrant hostility to the American creed?  The answer is the Census has configured illegal alien diasporas into a State’s population.  Congressional districts are then forged to cater to these people.  They have just as much representation in the halls of Congress as an American.  Here is an excerpt from The Center for Immigration Studies:

This hearing is going to discuss one of the most often overlooked, but nonetheless important, effects they have: on political representation. If you take nothing else away from my testimony, it should be that allowing in people, even as guest workers or just tolerating illegal immigration, has board ranging effects. These effects include such things as the redistribution of House seats. For example, if we take the 11 million illegals already here and grant them temporary status, the Census in 2010 will still count them, and seats will still be apportioned to states based on their presence. On the other hand, if we enforce the law and make most illegals go home, this too will have apportionment consequences in 2010. In our discussion of immigration, therefore, we should not compartmentalize its various impacts; instead, we must recognize the broad implications of immigration on virtually every aspect of American life, including apportionment.

   

 Populism doesn’t recognize citizenship, nor does it accept the boundaries of a constitutional republic.  Populism becomes totalitarianism; it is a killer of democracies. 

 Source:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/07/the-progressive-movement-and-the-transformation-of-american-politics

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2014/06/supreme-court-rulings-undermined.html

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/may_2015/most_democrats_think_illegal_immigrants_should_vote

http://cis.org/node/554

Democrats Scheme to Advance Administrative State

Senate Democrats pulled the nuclear option earlier this week.  They are fully aware that the American people have caught onto their shenanigans.  Barack Obama is officially a lame duck and the Republicans have a chance to win the Senate.  The Democrats need a failsafe plan that will further their socialist ideology without having to go through the legislative process.  They need the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rubber stamp Obama’s administrative state.

The progressives for over a hundred years schemed to circumvent the U.S. Constitution.  They needed a way to bypass Congress.  They needed federal bureaucracies that can act independent of the legislative process.  They need an administrative state.  President Woodrow Wilson gave them a vision even he admitted is alien to the American people:

But where has this science grown up? Surely not on this side of the sea….American writers have hitherto taken no very important part in the advancement of this science. It has found its doctors in Europe. It is not of our making; it is a foreign science, speaking very little of the language of English or American principles….It has been developed by French and German professors.

Many are asking what law allowed the executive branch to accumulate all this power while abrogating Congress’s constitutional responsibilities.  It is called the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946.

This law gave federal agencies a free hand in writing, implementing and enforcing rules and regulations.  They can do this with little input from the general public or our representatives.

In 1947, the department of justice issued the Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act. This document provides insight regarding the application of the act and remains valuable as a research tool to this day. Some of the information contained in this manual provides analysis that the courts have not yet considered.

The purpose of the APA is to provide minimum procedural standards that federal administrative agencies must follow. It distinguishes between two major forms of administrative functions: agency rulemaking and agency adjudication. Administrative rulemaking is analogous to the legislative acts, while an administrative adjudication is analogous to a judicial decision. This distinction contained in the APA has long been the subject of scholarly debate. Some argue that such a dichotomy is unnecessarily rigid and that it might not always allow for the most appropriate procedures for a particular agency. Supporters of the distinction between rulemaking and adjudication contained in the APA note that this distinction best represents the basic functions of administrative agencies.

The rulemaking provisions of the APA are more detailed than those governing adjudications. Most agencies engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking, which is required as the minimum rulemaking procedure under the APA. Under notice-and-comment rulemaking, agencies are required to give the public advance notice of the contents of proposed rule and to offer the public an opportunity to express their views of the proposed rule before the agency. Some agencies are required by the statutes that created them to follow more stringent standards, whereby all of the agency's actions during rulemaking are conducted "on the record." This latter type of rulemaking is known as formal rulemaking.

The APA defines and governs only those types of adjudications that are required by statute to be conducted "on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing." If an agency is required to conduct such a formal adjudication under the APA, it must engage in a proceeding resembling a trial. However, if the agency is not required to conduct such a hearing, the APA remains silent. Accordingly, an agency may adopt its own procedure for an informal adjudication, so long as the agency otherwise does not violate the U.S. Constitution or other law.

I contend that the Administrative Procedures Act is unconstitutional.  It violates Article One, Section One, and our constitutional concept of separation of powers.  But as we’ve seen, the progressives only need a compliant judge to implement their vision of the United States even if it’s against the will of the people.

Source:  http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/22/politics/senate-nuclear-option-5-things/

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2012/02/obama-administration-flourishes-under.html

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Administrative+Procedure+Act+of+1946

Did FDR End or Extend the Great Depression?

The above video outlines how FDR and his New Deal extended the Great Depression.  I am amazed that we are replicating the failures of that era.  It just goes to show you how influential Progressives have been in promoting their agenda through lies and distortion of history.  Now, we know why they shamelessly advocate state controlled education.

For those interested in this topic, the following books will aid your quest for the truth:

 

 

 

 

Source:  http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/345055/prager-u-did-fdr-end-or-extend-depression-jason-fertig

Is Big Health Insurance the Next Government Sponsored Cartel?

Is big health insurance on track to being the next government sponsored cartel?  Many believe the end game is to phase out private insurance companies in lieu of a single-payer system, and for all practical purposes it does seem that way.  But, the way Obamacare is currently setup, these state exchanges would provide insurance from a pool of preferred companies at discount rates, or subsidize those who can’t afford market priced premiums.  Can anyone say Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac?

Health insurance companies see gathering clouds on the horizon.  The U.S. has an aging baby boomer population who will need plenty of care.  At the same time they need new customers to offset the cost.  The numbers don’t add up.  They need to force healthy, young people onto their rolls.  And who else can be a better enforcer/protector than the federal government?

As it stands now, a handful of health insurance companies have “most favored status” in individual states.  Blue Cross and Blue Shield dominate 44 of these markets.  As a result, they are facing class-action lawsuits for price fixing and stifling competition.  The federal government has also investigated BCBS for violating antitrust laws.  All of these problems could go away if Big Health Insurance could replicate what the banks did during the Progressive Era.

At the turn of the 20^th century, big bankers and progressive politicians wanted a central bank.  The country had disbanded two in the past.  But that wasn’t about to stop them.  The bankers wanted to stifle competition and establish a safety net; the politicians wanted an unlimited credit line, hence, the Federal Reserve.  And we’ve all seen the intended results after the 2008 crash.  Big banks we’re bailed out while the taxpayers got screwed.

Could the Progressives model for banking actually be the endgame for big health insurance?  I believe they’re well on their way.

 

Source:  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/02/08/3842399/lawsuit-blue-cross-stifles-competition.html

Judge Napolitano: Theodore and Woodrow

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!

Source: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59555-351-5

H/T:  NC Renegade

North Carolina Trying to Atone for Progressives' Eugenics Program

The state of North Carolina is trying to atone for one of the more heinous acts in its history. The Republican controlled House passed a bill that would compensate victims of a sterilization program with a one-time, tax free payout of $50,000. Many believe it won’t pass the Senate. The simple fact is the state is broke.

The eugenics movement started during the Progressive era. The self-proclaimed elite wanted a program to identify and weed out the defectives, mainly the mentally ill and retarded. They needed a state sponsored board to review the worthiness of suspect citizens. North Carolina created the Eugenics Board which consisted of the following agencies:

In 1933, under the new law, the General Assembly created the Eugenics Board of North Carolina to review all orders for sterilization of “mentally diseased, feeble-minded, or epileptic patients, inmates, or non-institutionalized individuals” (State Library, “History”, p. 1). This centralized board included five members: the commissioner of the Board of Charities and Public Welfare, the secretary of the State Board of Health, the chief medical officer of a state institution for the feeble-minded or insane, the chief medical officer of the State Hospital at Raleigh, and the attorney general. In the hearings of patients or inmates in a public institution, the head of that institution was the prosecutor in presenting the case to the Eugenics Board.

And we all know the nature of a governmental beast. They wanted more power and decided to expand their authority over the general public.

By the 1950s, some in the white majority were becoming anxious about supporting blacks through welfare. The heads of the agencies of welfare departments agreed on the value of sterilization for reducing general welfare relief and ADC (Aid for Dependent Children) payments (Winston-Salem, “Wicked Silence”). Some erroneously believed that blacks accounted for the majority of illegitimate births that were “subsidized” by ADC. The state threatened to remove welfare benefits if the person did not submit to the operation. The fears about the rising cost of the ADC program was a major factor in leading to the shift in racial composition of those targeted for sterilization. As the attention shifted away from the structural causes of poverty and crime to placing the blame for urban poverty and social unrest on blacks, sterilization of blacks was facilitated (Schoen, Choice and Coercion; see also Schoen, "Reassessing," p. 149). It was believed the control the reproduction of ADC recipients was necessary; as a result, the percentage of Blacks sterilized rose from 23% in the 1930s and 1940s to 59% between 1958-60 and finally to 64% between 1964 and 1966 (Schoen, Choice and Coercion, p. 108; "Reassessing," p. 149).

Sterilization also accelerated because it expanded to include the general population when the state gave social workers the authority to submit petitions for sterilization. Therefore, the amount of eligible people increased drastically. “The North Carolina Board-which initially targeted those who were deemed mentally ill, expanded its program to include the general population.” In fact, “the majority of those sterilized had never been institutionalized, and 2,000 were younger than 19” (Wiggins, p. 1). In addition, the fight against poverty in North Carolina led to sterilizations in the general population. As this fight intensified, a new policy was created that led to an increase in the number of non-institutionalized people who were sterilized. Sterilizations of the non-institutionalized rose from 23% between 1937 and 1951 to 76% between 1952 and 1966 (Schoen, Choice and Coercion, p. 109, "Reassessing," p. 151).

Five people were prominent proponents of eugenics in North Carolina. They were: Dr. William Allan, Dr. C Nash Herndon, Ira M. Hardy, and Kate Burr Johnson.

Dr. William Allan was a pioneer in his field. He wrote or co-wrote numerous papers on genetics. Here is an excerpt from one:

"It seems to me that the only way to attain the goal of positive eugenics is to actually practice negative eugenics - the prevention of the birth of the mentally and physically unfit," he wrote in a paper presented to the Eugenics Research Association in New York in 1936.

Does that language sound familiar? President Barack Obama has stated something very similar when it comes to governmental actions on the citizenry.

It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf…

And we’ve seen what the government has done on our behalf. I shudder to think what the Progressives will do to us when Obamacare is fully implemented. After all, these are the same people who’re big advocates of the successor to the eugenics movement. 

 

Source:  http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20121213/ARTICLES/121219855/1015/news0101?p=1&tc=pg

http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/NC/NC.html

http://extras.journalnow.com/againsttheirwill/parts/two/story1.html

http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/commentary/602/entry

http://kurgman.blogspot.com/2008/10/barack-obama-concisely-sums-it-up-it.html