Ok, it must be really really embarrassing for Democrats to discover that their saintly Obama probably hates America just the he way his wife, minister, fellow congregants, and friends do; the way the O.J. Simpson jury did, and the way his children someday will. And gee, they thought he was such a nice man with such a nice, safe, pure, transcendent message. Yet, it turns out that all the transcendence and hope was in direct proportion to his hatred of America. And no wonder he was so transcendent - if he had talked in any real way he probably would have exploded in rage at the America he hates; so he wisely stuck to manipulative, air headed, pep rally chanting about hope and change.
How could such a debacle befall the self-righteous and sanctimonious Democrats. It's simple really: the Democratic ideology is inherently hateful and Anti-American, but at least half the Democrats don't realize it. Obama is the most Democratic Senator in America - actually to the left of the avowed Socialist, Bernie Sanders - and so he may be the most anti-American Senator of all.
Sadly, it has always been so. America was founded to be about freedom from gov't. Democrats hated that because they lacked the intelligence to understand how freedom can result in more good than well-meaning, heart- felt, socialist, welfare programs. It's as simple as that.
So, while Ronald Reagan held forth on the virtues of freedom, and single handedly defeated Communism (which killed about 100 million in the 20th Century) with brilliant rhetoric and the Stinger missiles he bravely sent to Afghanistan over Democratic objections, the Democrats had been spying for the communists, refusing to cooperate with Sen. Joe McCarthy (who was merely trying to root communists out of gov't), and simultaneously trying to bring their heart-felt, Socialism to American policy and legislation. Obama - an open proponent of socialized medicine and, undoubtedly, many, many other things - is just the latest Democrat to be outed for his socialist anger at American freedom.
For those who may think the above analysis about the history and origins of Democratic, anti-American, socialist, welfare is too knee-jerk, reflexive, reductive, and/or simplistic, here, from Jonah Goldberg's fantastic new book, "Liberal Fascism," (number one on the NY Times bestseller list) is what some very distinguished Democrats have said - in the Obama, anti-American, socialist, tradition - about big gov't Communism, Socialism, Nazism, Fascism, and progressivism [the term Hillary now uses to describe herself].
-W.E.B DuBois: (the most important black leader in the first half of the 20th Century) "Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th Century approach his stature. The formation of the Nazi dictatorship was absolutely necessary to get the state in order." In 1937 he proclaimed: "there is today more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past." (page 10)
-Guy Tugwell: (FDR Brain Trust) said of fascism: "It's the cleanest, neatest piece...of social machinery I've ever seen." ( page 11)
-Walter Lippman: called on FDR to be a "dictator." (page 11)
-H.G. Wells: "progressives must become "liberal fascists and enlightened Nazis" ( page 21)
-Wallace Stevens: "I am pro-Mussolini." ( page 27)
-Isaac F. Marcosson: in the NY Times, "Mussolini is a Latin Teddy
Roosevelt." ( page 27)
-American Legion: "do not forget, Fascists are to Italy what the American Legion is to America." ( page 27)
-Will Rogers: "I'm pretty high on Mussolini 'Dictatorship' is the right form of gov't if you have the right dictator." ( page 27)
-Saturday Evening Post: gave Mussolini biggest advance ever on article he wrote about himself. (page 32)
-Winston Churchill: dubbed Mussolini the world's greatest lawgiver (page 27)
-Freud and Einstein: called Mussolini the hero of Culture (Page 29)
-Puccini and Toscanini: both were pioneering Fascists of Mussolini (page 32)
-Ida Tarbell: called Mussolini the "despot with a dimple." ( page 28)
-Lincoln Steffens: about Russia -"I have seen the future and it works"
(page 28)
-McClures magazine: "Fascism is a 'great step forward' and the first new idea in govt' since the founding of the American Republic" ( page 28)
-John Patrick Duggins: Columbia University is "Fascism's veritable home in America and a school house for budding fascists ideologues." ( page 32)
-Nicholas Butler: (President of Columbia University) received a signed photo from Mussolini thanking him for his, "most valuable contribution to the promotion of understanding between Fascist Italy and the United States" ( page 29)
-James Farrell: (head of US Steel) Mussolini is the "greatest living man"
-Lowell Thomas: "he (Mussolini) stands out like a Modern Caesar - the answer to America's needs" (page 30)
-Jonah Goldberg; "communists and Nazis tended to vote together in the Reichstag" (page 77)
-Jonah Goldberg: "More dissidents were arrested under...Woodrow Wilson than Mussolini" ( page 80)
-Jonah Goldberg: "In Italy they were called Fascists; in Germany they were called Nazis; in America they were called progressives" (page 81)
-Woodrow Wilson: "The State does..whatever the times demand" (page 86)
-Jane Adams: "the individual must lose the sense of personal achievement" (page 87)
-Walter Rauschenbusch: "individualism means tyranny" (page 87)
-Woodrow Wilson: "our problem...to make kids as unlike their fathers as we can" (page 92)
-Woodrow Wilson: "Jefferson has passed...American is not a place for unrestricted individual enterprise" ( page 93).
-Woodrow Wilson: "Bismark's welfare state is the most perfected in the world" ( page 95)
-Charles Beard: "fascism is an amazing experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism" (page 100)
-Stuart Chase: "Communist Party officials...create a new heaven on earth" (page 102)
-W.E.B. Dubois: "I stand in wonder...I am a Bolshevik"
-Arthur Bullard: "Any citizen who did not put the state first is merely dead weight" ( page 110)
-Stuart Chase: "why should Russia have all the fun of remaking a world?" ( page 131)
-H.G. Wells : called for "a 'Phoenix Rebirth' of Liberalism under the banner of Liberal Fascism" ( page 134)
-George Orwell: (met FDR at White House often) "Much of what H.G. Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany"(page 135)
-Father Coughlin: "capitalism is doomed" (138)
-Nazi newspaper: described Roosevelt as a man of irreproachable, extremely responsible character and immovable will... with a profound understanding of social needs...with nationalist socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies" ( page 147)
-Mussolini: "America has a dictator in FDR" ( page 148)
-Rexford Tugwell: in 1934 "I find Italy doing many of the things which seem to me necessary" (page 156)
-NRA Study: "The Fascist principles are very similar to those which have been evolving in America and are of particular interest at this time" (page 156)
-Washington Post: headline -"Reagan Still Sure Some In New Deal Espoused Fascism" (page 157)
-Harry Hopkins: (new deal Communist) "that we (those in FDR Administration) are not afraid of exploring anything within the law, and we have lawyers who will declare anything you want to do legal" ( page 159)
-Jonah Goldberg: "in the 1960's Mao Tse-Tung's Little Red Book of revolutionary maxims became a best seller in America"
-Irving Louis Horowitz: "Fascism will return to the United States not as right wing ideology but almost as a quasi-leftist ideology" (page 198)
-John F Kennedy: "political labels and ideological approaches are irrelevant to the solution of today's challenges" ( page 211)
-Jonah Goldberg: "The Marxist explanation of Fascism was that it was the capitalist ruling classes' reaction to the treat of the ascendancy of the working class." (page 223)
-Sidney Webb: "no socialist eugenicist can be a Laissez Faire individualist... the result is this country gradually falling to the Jews and Irish" (page 249)
-H.G. Wells: "eugenics must be the central tenant of any true successful socialism" (page 249)
-Jonah Goldberg: "George Bernard Shaw was not only an ardent socialist but totally committed to eugenics" (page 249)
-John Maynard Keynes: "eugenics is the most important significant..and genuine branch of sociology" (page 250)
-Harold Laski: ( friend to FDR and other American Democrats) "Socialists have to inculcate that spirit which would give offenders against the state short shrift and the nearest lampost" (page 251)
-Charles Van Hise: "we know enough about eugenics so that if the knowledge were applied the defective classes would disappear within a generation" (page 256)
-Jonah Goldberg: "when the Nazi took over they replaced the traditional infrastructure of the state and churches with a Nazi monopoly on charity" (page 267)
-Jonah Goldberg: "Mein Kamph is replete with attacks on dividend hungry businessman whose greed, ruthlessness and short sighted narrow mindedness were ruining the economy. The Nazi Party labor union threatened to put business leaders in concentration camps if they didn't increase workers' wages" (page 288)
-Fortune Magazine: "the corporate state is to Mussolini what the New Deal is to Roosevelt" (page 293)
-Foreign Affairs: "The Italian (fascist) system treated workers better" ( page 295)
-Adolf Hitler: "Christianity will disappear from Germany just it has done in Russia" (page 365)
-Lawrence Tribe (Harvard Law School): religious views were inherently superstitious and hence less legitimate then secular ones" (page 366)
So then, if you were surprised to discover that American Democrats had a natural love affair with Communism, Socialism, and Fascism you have to wonder why. Was it due to your own failings or perhaps a liberal conspiracy in the schools and media to keep the information from you, or both. In any case, if you are still tempted to imagine that the caring, big gov't programs you support could not possibly lead to the horrors of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin then you have to wonder how it is that Jefferson knew they would - 150 years earlier. What exactly did Jefferson know. Simple: he knew men and he knew human history. But, despite his wisdom, and the country he gave us base on that wisdom, the Democrats made the 20th Century the bloodiest of all centuries. Try to imagine what would be left of the world if Jeffersonian Republicans hadn't been there the whole time as the last best hope for freedom on earth.
Ted Baiamonte
bje1000@aol.com
the republican intellectual
thedumbdemocrat
w517
3.20.2008
3.06.2008
Thomas Jefferson And Wm. Buckley Jr.
For those of us who believed history was more or less a straight line from the Magna Carta to Thomas Jefferson to William F. Buckley Jr. or Milton Friedman, the passing of William Buckley is quite a sad blow. There is comfort in all the kind words, most of which seem to say that Buckley's main contribution was to save conservatism for America starting in about 1955 with the publication of his magazine. They might have pointed out too that even the billions in Europe, Asia, and India would have thanked him for much of the freedom and prosperity they are enjoying now if they understood that the track of history ran along side Mr. Buckley.
Interestingly, the kind and knowing words have almost unanimously claimed that a large part of what Buckley did was purge conservatism of racism, anti-Semitism, and the John Birch Society, but they utterly failed to say what was left after the purge? It is certainly true that he did cleanse the philosophy of its errant elements, but far, far more importantly, he revitalized Jefferson's thinking about the freedom that had completely defined and dominated American intellectual life prior to The Great Depression and WW 2. It is no exaggeration to say that without Buckley, we would not have been able to reach back into our history, through those two usually cataclysmic events, to the Jeffersonian America that had been the greatest country on earth. This was because many simply didn't want to reach back to see what they had come to think of as the foundation for depression and world war.
Until Buckley came along, conservatism was widely considered, dead; having been discomposed by Karl Marx's recycled theory of a benevolent state despotism - a theory which still enjoys widespread acceptance; especially in academia - the Depression, and World War 2, all of which involved very liberal gov't involvement in our lives to an extent never imagined by our ingenious, freedom-loving, founders. Lionel Trilling, an obviously disaffected American, proudly announced after WW 2 that there was "no important conservative voice anywhere in America". What he meant was that Jeffersonian anti-Federalism, and the conservative social values that naturally attached to it, were thoroughly beaten, and the door to a brave new American socialism was wide open. It is no wonder that in such an extreme environment people like Joe McCarthy went to extreme lengths to protect the conservative American values that eventually triumphed over socialism to save the world.
Much of pre-war history is left out of the Buckley saga, I think, in large part because Buckley wanted us to properly appreciate that modern American intellectual history was to start with him. And that was fine with us, ......for the most part; notwithstanding Jefferson and his disciples who always had waged a very ferocious and principled Republican opposition that clearly existed and asserted itself all the way to and throughout the New Deal. Also, Buckley had a dream that he could make his Roman Catholicism an integral part of modern American history, and so to that extent too he was content to leave the all-mighty Jefferson mostly out his heroic account of history. And too, out of reverence for all the warring founding fathers, Buckley, and many others, seemed to think it somewhat unseemly to claim Jefferson for partisan purposes. This, despite the fact that Jefferson went to war against big gov't and for freedom the second Washington appointed him, and never took a breath until he defeated the Federalists once and for all, years later, in the real American Revolution of 1800. We will never know what was lost or gained because the simple narrative of American history that features a straight line from Jefferson to Buckley will probably never be drawn. But, perhaps this did not happen fortuitously as Buckley reasoned correctly that Jeffersonian ideas needed a fresh modern face for the fresh new challenges that emerged out of Marxism, the Depression, and WW 2? We'll never know.
Or perhaps, Jefferson had suffered in Buckley's mind as nearly everyone had conceded that Hamilton had seen America's economic future far more clearly than Jefferson, and when Hamilton's particular actions, like Washington's, were seen to have been obviously necessary to our founding.
All this, of course, patriotically excludes Hamilton's desire to have a King rather than a President, the "Newburgh Crisis," during which Hamilton sought to overthrow our gov't for the benefit of the military and upper class, and the Whiskey Rebellion, during which Hamilton personally - despite being Secretary of the Treasury - led an army to crush small farmers in Western PA. who objected to the nation's first onerous and very regressive tax. But did any of that really make Hamilton equal to or superior to Jefferson in his long term understanding of the American Revolution's meaning?
In the fullness of time it is apparent that American History and World History is a battle between freedom and gov't. This, Jefferson understood above all else, while Hamilton, and sadly, most historians, did and do not; or at least will not acknowledge because of their own naive and partisan preference for Hamilton's big gov't schemes, or out of a collective respect for both men who, perhaps, can be seen as heroic prisoners of their time.
The situation is so bad that Democrats - the party that is about to nominate an ever lovin big gov't socialist - are now allowed to claim Jefferson as one of their own merely because the party's name changed over the years from Republican (under Jefferson), to Democratic - Republican, and then to Democratic? The whole world, and to some extent Buckley too, allowed them to get away with this and thus deprived us of the most basic, continuous, powerful, and educational thread in all of World and American History.
But who can argue with Buckley? To all the world it seemed he had prevailed when Reagan was elected. The conservative Joe Sobran captured the spirit of that time when he said, "we've got a world to run now". In the end it was a huge illusion. Reagan was a charismatic fluke who happened along at the right time, and who happened to like Buckley. Now, even with dozens of new Buckley disciples all around - like Rush Limbaugh who alone reaches 15-20 million per week - Republicans are in the minority. So what did Jefferson and Buckley accomplish in the end - just 200 years of relative freedom? Is it all gone now that Jefferson, Reagan, and Buckley are gone?
Perhaps; at least, they taught us that in an age of universal suffrage, chance and charisma matter far more than history or ideas? Buckley oozed a rare intellectual charisma to great affect, but Obama too, for example, oozes a tremendous populist charisma, and a quotidian, brain dead, cookie cutter, Harvard socialism that may propel him to the White House. If you assume charisma is equally likely to appear on either side of the political equation then you have to assume too that the magic of algebra will cancel it out - right? Perhaps so, but does that then mean that only good ideas matter in the end? No, of course not. A cursory look through world history will disabuse anyone of that notion; and quickly.
In the end it would seem that many variables matter: charisma, money, ideas, chance, hard work, and persistence. Buckley employed them all in an heroic effort to buy us time, but the grim reaper Democrat (if that's too harsh just ask yourself what they will socialize after medicine) is still at freedom's door exactly where it has been throughout all of human history.
Buckley's unprecedented success may indicate that intellect is the one variables that Democrats can't consistently match. In the end, freedom is a better idea or it is not! All the other variables may ultimately cancel each other out, but canceling out the idea of freedom, intellectually at least, is nearly impossible one would hope. That is the slight edge modern Republicans will always have to keep them in the game. After all, America is, in the end, an idea; an idea about freedom that became the greatest country in history. How can it be defeated? Jefferson, Reagan, and Buckley showed us that, more than anything, ideas, or an idea, matter. At least that is what we must pray is true now that Mr. Buckley is no longer here, reassuringly, to fight our battle for us. All of us can try to promote freedom, and should, but who can be sure our meager efforts will be sufficient to save America the way Thomas Jefferson and William F. Buckley Jr. once did? Buckley, as always, had an answer for us about the seeming inevitability of gov't: "despair is not allowed", but who can really escape it now that our greatest champion has left us all alone.
Ted Baiamonte
TheDumbDemocrat
The Intellectual Republican
www. thedumbdemocrat
Interestingly, the kind and knowing words have almost unanimously claimed that a large part of what Buckley did was purge conservatism of racism, anti-Semitism, and the John Birch Society, but they utterly failed to say what was left after the purge? It is certainly true that he did cleanse the philosophy of its errant elements, but far, far more importantly, he revitalized Jefferson's thinking about the freedom that had completely defined and dominated American intellectual life prior to The Great Depression and WW 2. It is no exaggeration to say that without Buckley, we would not have been able to reach back into our history, through those two usually cataclysmic events, to the Jeffersonian America that had been the greatest country on earth. This was because many simply didn't want to reach back to see what they had come to think of as the foundation for depression and world war.
Until Buckley came along, conservatism was widely considered, dead; having been discomposed by Karl Marx's recycled theory of a benevolent state despotism - a theory which still enjoys widespread acceptance; especially in academia - the Depression, and World War 2, all of which involved very liberal gov't involvement in our lives to an extent never imagined by our ingenious, freedom-loving, founders. Lionel Trilling, an obviously disaffected American, proudly announced after WW 2 that there was "no important conservative voice anywhere in America". What he meant was that Jeffersonian anti-Federalism, and the conservative social values that naturally attached to it, were thoroughly beaten, and the door to a brave new American socialism was wide open. It is no wonder that in such an extreme environment people like Joe McCarthy went to extreme lengths to protect the conservative American values that eventually triumphed over socialism to save the world.
Much of pre-war history is left out of the Buckley saga, I think, in large part because Buckley wanted us to properly appreciate that modern American intellectual history was to start with him. And that was fine with us, ......for the most part; notwithstanding Jefferson and his disciples who always had waged a very ferocious and principled Republican opposition that clearly existed and asserted itself all the way to and throughout the New Deal. Also, Buckley had a dream that he could make his Roman Catholicism an integral part of modern American history, and so to that extent too he was content to leave the all-mighty Jefferson mostly out his heroic account of history. And too, out of reverence for all the warring founding fathers, Buckley, and many others, seemed to think it somewhat unseemly to claim Jefferson for partisan purposes. This, despite the fact that Jefferson went to war against big gov't and for freedom the second Washington appointed him, and never took a breath until he defeated the Federalists once and for all, years later, in the real American Revolution of 1800. We will never know what was lost or gained because the simple narrative of American history that features a straight line from Jefferson to Buckley will probably never be drawn. But, perhaps this did not happen fortuitously as Buckley reasoned correctly that Jeffersonian ideas needed a fresh modern face for the fresh new challenges that emerged out of Marxism, the Depression, and WW 2? We'll never know.
Or perhaps, Jefferson had suffered in Buckley's mind as nearly everyone had conceded that Hamilton had seen America's economic future far more clearly than Jefferson, and when Hamilton's particular actions, like Washington's, were seen to have been obviously necessary to our founding.
All this, of course, patriotically excludes Hamilton's desire to have a King rather than a President, the "Newburgh Crisis," during which Hamilton sought to overthrow our gov't for the benefit of the military and upper class, and the Whiskey Rebellion, during which Hamilton personally - despite being Secretary of the Treasury - led an army to crush small farmers in Western PA. who objected to the nation's first onerous and very regressive tax. But did any of that really make Hamilton equal to or superior to Jefferson in his long term understanding of the American Revolution's meaning?
In the fullness of time it is apparent that American History and World History is a battle between freedom and gov't. This, Jefferson understood above all else, while Hamilton, and sadly, most historians, did and do not; or at least will not acknowledge because of their own naive and partisan preference for Hamilton's big gov't schemes, or out of a collective respect for both men who, perhaps, can be seen as heroic prisoners of their time.
The situation is so bad that Democrats - the party that is about to nominate an ever lovin big gov't socialist - are now allowed to claim Jefferson as one of their own merely because the party's name changed over the years from Republican (under Jefferson), to Democratic - Republican, and then to Democratic? The whole world, and to some extent Buckley too, allowed them to get away with this and thus deprived us of the most basic, continuous, powerful, and educational thread in all of World and American History.
But who can argue with Buckley? To all the world it seemed he had prevailed when Reagan was elected. The conservative Joe Sobran captured the spirit of that time when he said, "we've got a world to run now". In the end it was a huge illusion. Reagan was a charismatic fluke who happened along at the right time, and who happened to like Buckley. Now, even with dozens of new Buckley disciples all around - like Rush Limbaugh who alone reaches 15-20 million per week - Republicans are in the minority. So what did Jefferson and Buckley accomplish in the end - just 200 years of relative freedom? Is it all gone now that Jefferson, Reagan, and Buckley are gone?
Perhaps; at least, they taught us that in an age of universal suffrage, chance and charisma matter far more than history or ideas? Buckley oozed a rare intellectual charisma to great affect, but Obama too, for example, oozes a tremendous populist charisma, and a quotidian, brain dead, cookie cutter, Harvard socialism that may propel him to the White House. If you assume charisma is equally likely to appear on either side of the political equation then you have to assume too that the magic of algebra will cancel it out - right? Perhaps so, but does that then mean that only good ideas matter in the end? No, of course not. A cursory look through world history will disabuse anyone of that notion; and quickly.
In the end it would seem that many variables matter: charisma, money, ideas, chance, hard work, and persistence. Buckley employed them all in an heroic effort to buy us time, but the grim reaper Democrat (if that's too harsh just ask yourself what they will socialize after medicine) is still at freedom's door exactly where it has been throughout all of human history.
Buckley's unprecedented success may indicate that intellect is the one variables that Democrats can't consistently match. In the end, freedom is a better idea or it is not! All the other variables may ultimately cancel each other out, but canceling out the idea of freedom, intellectually at least, is nearly impossible one would hope. That is the slight edge modern Republicans will always have to keep them in the game. After all, America is, in the end, an idea; an idea about freedom that became the greatest country in history. How can it be defeated? Jefferson, Reagan, and Buckley showed us that, more than anything, ideas, or an idea, matter. At least that is what we must pray is true now that Mr. Buckley is no longer here, reassuringly, to fight our battle for us. All of us can try to promote freedom, and should, but who can be sure our meager efforts will be sufficient to save America the way Thomas Jefferson and William F. Buckley Jr. once did? Buckley, as always, had an answer for us about the seeming inevitability of gov't: "despair is not allowed", but who can really escape it now that our greatest champion has left us all alone.
Ted Baiamonte
TheDumbDemocrat
The Intellectual Republican
www. thedumbdemocrat
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