The Progressives--A Long Range Plan--Summation Of The Early Era

Have you heard Americans asking how did we get into this situation and when did it begin? Gas and home heating oil prices out of control with no end in sight. Food prices, that's food prices, going through the roof here in America. Minority groups running the country and yes, I am talking about environmental groups and government control freaks.

I believe a lot of what is going on today is happening because we took a wrong turn with the ascendancy of Theodore Roosevelt to the office of the presidency and moved into high gear under Woodrow Wilson. Principally what these two men did was initiate a centralized government program that has taken the power of government out of the hands of the American people and put it into the hands of the politicians who have now made politics a profession controlled by lawyers. We have returned to the era of the monarch.

One can readily make the case that a lot of things done by the early Progressives were certainly for good causes. Lives of the poor and down- trodden were supposedly improved. But we must ask at what cost? From the moment Teddy Roosevelt began ignoring the Constitution and broke up companies to purportedly save the little guy and his family, we were on that proverbial slippery slope. We are now at the point where our elected representatives are telling us what our rights are. Didn't we fight a war in 1776 to change that?

The second impact was the cost of the nationalization of our government. While Washington, DC remained a relatively quiet community during the early Progressive period everything changed with the Depression and World War II. Buildings were built. People were hired. We were on a crisis/war time footing and the enemy had to be defeated. We had to come together to defeat these two evils and in the process government size and cost grew and we haven't seen any sign of a return to the ideas and principles of our Founding Fathers primarily that we the people are in charge. It seems that we are willing to surrender to a collective form of government. "In God We Trust" will be replaced with "Can't We All Get Along" as stated by the drunken but noble Rodney King.

After Woodrow Wilson we enjoyed a decade of prosperity under Republicans. Unfortunately that bubble of the Roaring Twenties fell on hard times. It has been reported that Calvin Coolidge did not run for office in 1928 because he did not want to be there when things fell apart. Supposedly he was asked why didn't he say something and he responded, correctly, that no one would have listened to a president calling wolf. Herbert Hoover was elected and became the fall guy for the Great Depression that in turn would re-open the door for liberal Democrats with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The First Progressive-Our Downfall Begins

Born on October 27, 1858, to a well to do family at 28 East 20th Street, New York City, Theodore Roosevelt at the age of 42, would go on to become the youngest president of the United State. He would also become the first Progressive President of this country.

Roosevelt was a frail child. His asthma was so bad that his father would take him outside and carry him up and down the block in front of their home until the attack was over. The senior Roosevelt would convert an area in their home into a gym for young Teddy. There Roosevelt would exercise lifting weights. He would grow in strength and he would become a member of the Harvard rowing team upon entering that institution. Along with great physical strength was his mental strength. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the honor society fraternity, and graduated magna cum laude in 1880.

Roosevelt would have an illustrious career. He would serve in the New York Assembly. He was a naturalist, historian, writer, explorer, author and cowboy. He would suffer an unbelievable tragedy with the death of his mother and wife who died on the same day in the same house. That would lead to his cowboy career in the American west and put him on the path to conservation of the nation's resources. Roosevelt, however, would also become the nation's first Progressive thus being responsible for initiating a policy of big government regulation.

Teddy became president because of the assassination of William McKinley. In 1898, McKinley took aim at the large, monopolistic companies being created in America. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Schwab and many other industrialists came under the scrutiny of the U.S. Industrial Commission of Trusts. Roosevelt would pick up on the businesses, now know as Trusts, and would set out to break them up and regulate them through the government. Indeed, Roosevelt gained quite a reputation as a "Trust Buster" breaking up 44 such industries during his time in office. Though not the biggest of the Trust Busters, that was a title won by William H. Taft with 90 Trust Bustings, Roosevelt put this nation on a path still taken by those who wish to return us to the day when the government told us what our rights were much like the King of England did prior to the Revolutionary War.

Roosevelt brought the presence of government regulation into the lives of countless Americans and American industries. Big Oil, Big Steel, Big Food, Big Drug, no one was safe from his scrutiny. He even proposed universal health care and national health insurance. Big brother and Big government had come on the scene.

As you go to the polls in this primary and general election season take a look at the beginning of the turn about for America. For the past almost 11 decades we, as a nation, have been regressing. We are losing out personal liberties while telling our government that we want health care to be a right. We can't figure out why college is so expensive while we tell our government that we want more grants and loans for college. We tell our government to give us more of the same failed policies like social security, medicare and Head Start. Khrushchev told us years ago that they would bury us. I believe that we are going to do the job for them and they will conquer us without a shot being fired only this time it will be the enemy within, those politicians who call themselves Progressive. The liberal chickens have come home to their roots.

The Second Amendment

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Thus says the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States.

Over the past four decades this amendment has come under tremendous attack by the Progressive left in this nation. Oh yes, we are told that our hunting rights will be protected. Ms. Hillary, recently seen tossing back a shot and beer, has now told us about her day in a duck blind where she shot a "banded" duck. Her opponent chided her on taking her "six gun" into a duck blind. Word of caution here, do not go into a duck blind with Barack Obama.

Had these two presidential candidates, and others before them , tried to convince our colonial ancestors that they some how needed the Second Amendment to protect their hunting rights, they would have been laughed off the farm. Our ancestors did not need a Constitutional guarantee to hunt. Guns were a way of life, a tool if you will, that you took with you for two reasons, to hunt animals and to protect yourself against unforeseen dangers whether man or beast.

The Progressives want to argue that the Second Amendment is not an individual right. Rather it is there for state militias. To the gun regulating Progressives, guns should be in the hands of what they perceive to be the modern militia, the National Guard and Reserves. According to my Compact Oxford Dictionary a militia is "a military force made up of civilians, used to supplement a regular army in an emergency".In short, a militia is a citizens army. During colonial times men were expected to report to the town square with weapons and ammunition that they supplied. They were, for the most part, not in uniform, and they practiced military drills on the town square in order that they could act in an effective manner during an emergency. They did not gather there to learn how to make decoys, call turkey, or stalk big game animals.

The Second Amendment is about self defense. You have the God given, not governmental given, right to protect yourself and your country. You can be called upon to this day to be a member of a citizens' militia where you would be required to bring your own gun and ammunition.

The United States Supreme Court recently heard a case involving the stringent Washington, DC gun ban. Under this ban, for all intents and purposes, citizens of the District could not own a gun. A lower court had decided that the ban was to restrictive and that the Second Amendment was an individual right. This decision was appealed to the High Court. Among the briefs and arguments was documentation that in modern times citizen militias have been created. One such example was in the state of Maryland during World War II. The governor, looking to the gun clubs on the Eastern Shore of his state, called on such clubs to serve in the capacity of militias because so many men had gone into the regular military and, along with the National Guard, had been called up for duty due to the war. The men in the gun clubs were expected to bring their own guns and ammunition and serve as the military force in the state. Some 60 plus briefs were filed on this case, a case that is going to make it clear once and for all that the Second Amendment is an individual right just like all the other rights found in the Bill of Rights and the other Amendments added to the Constitution. It's about time that this issue be put to rest so that we can rest in peace knowing that we will be able to protect ourselves from the interlopers on our rights whether they be foreign or domestic.

We're Losing Our Rights

At the time that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence most of the citizens believed that the rights they had were given to them by government. Jefferson and John Locke pointed out that the exact opposite was the case, men had natural rights and it is the people who have the ability to create and dissolve governments. The government's job is to protect our rights.

Today the Progressives, once known as Liberals, are on a mission to show all of us how wonderful it would be if this nation were led by the government. They have been very clever in promoting good causes like wear you seat belt, stop smoking and avoid fatty foods. Few of us would argue with this campaign but is it really the responsibility of the government to regulate these matters? The answer is a definitive no because we, as individuals, are in charge and are obliged to order our own lives.

Now you might ask how does this really have an adverse affect on us? Remember when wearing a seat belt was voluntary? Now it is mandatory and a punishable crime if you are caught not wearing it. Do our governmental officials really have a concern about our well being or is it simply another way to not only alter our behavior but collect money from us to fund more government programs? Are we not turning good people into criminals while ignoring serious criminal activity? Whatever happened to that new FISA law?

Is there a danger here? I believe there is. Start out with something innocuous and it's barely noticed. Pretty soon the folks are used to it. They also become accepting of the propaganda from government officials about how much good the government is doing for us when we should be asking what they are doing to us. Before we know it we will be looking at major alterations to how we live our lives. Government will tell us that we can no longer drive those big cars we like. Maybe we will be told what kind of house we can live in because our carbon footprint is to big. If we can't move to a new house the local government will be allowed to tax us to pay for all the pollution our home is emitting.

If we fail to educate ourselves on the intent of the Progressives, whose plan has been evolving since the Wilson's administration, we will find ourselves surrounded by government bureaus and their many regulations with accompanying punishments. The desire to establish a nanny state will be fulfilled

I know may you find all of this hard to believe but take a look at what happened in the past in places like Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and ask yourself is it going on here. I contend that it is and keep in mind the words of Alexis de Tocqueville,"It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones." Start with the innocent causes and watch the Bill of Rights disappear.