Teddy Roosevelt on Limited Government

[Scuba]

[NYC_SKP]

1. Greatest Page Material.

Let's go.

[mr_hat]

2. Government should protect.

Government must.

[BluegrassStateBlues]

3. K&R for a quote from my distant cousin. nt

[Martin Eden]

4. K&R for TR and for the TRUTH

Holds true today, more than ever.

[Brigid]

5. Loves me some TR.

[silverweb]

6. K&R

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Different century, same teams, same issues.

Those who lust after ever more wealth and power over others never give up -- and neither can we give up our efforts to limit and thwart them.

[jazzimov]

7. K&R

[Snake Plissken]

8. Nobody knows this better than the owners of the tea party

they spend hundreds of millions of dollars programming their sheep to believe up is down and right is wrong.

[Faryn Balyncd]

9. Here is the plarform Teddy Roosevelt ran on in 1912:

Progressive Party Platform of 1912

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.


http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/progressive-platform-of-1912/

[TeeYiYi]

10. k+r ...nt

TYY

[hootinholler]

27. Sign me the fuck up! n/t

[Half-Century Man]

11. Tally Ho

We need some modern Teddy, trust bust'en master

[Volaris]

12. the date on tht quote astounds me...

Exactly 100 years ahead of its time.

Again I say the first progressive republican to run for president (and mean it) will craft domestic and foreign policy to such an extent that it will likey propel this nation into the 22nd century.

[Uncle Joe]

13. + Infinity with a cherry on top.

Thanks for the thread, Scuba.

[TeamPooka]

14. K&R!

[abelenkpe]

15. K&R

[RainDog]

16. k & freaking r n/t

[grantcart]

17. When I tell someone I am a Roosevelt Democrat I chuckle to myself

because I like to take the best of these two great Presidents.

Both were bold and energetic, both made some big mistakes but both were interested in helping real people.

Most people don't know that Teddy Roosevelt suffered from lung problems as a child and was homeschooled. He committed himself to a rigorous course of physical exercise and reshaped his lungs and chest.

He suffered a great personal loss when his mother and wife, the two women that he was absolutely devoted to died on the same day. He never spoke of either of them the rest of his life so great was the pain that he bore.

[longship]

19. Thanks, grantcart.

A nice portrait of a great progressive president. And yes, he was flawed, as they all are.

R&K for your response and the thread.

[burrowowl]

18. K&R!!!!!

[krispos42]

20. The ability of instant communication...

(telegraph,then telephone, then fax, then email, then widespread web-based applications)...and rapid, cheap transit (steam railways and ships, then cars and trucks, then diesel trains and ships, then airlines and air freight, then the Interstate Highway System and jet airliners) have allowed the reach of the corporation to grow immensely.

Now a corporate officer could reach into any marketplace, gather real time (or at least near-real-time) information, and issue directives the same way. Resources could be cheaply and rapidly harvested from one area, cheaply and rapidly transported to another location some distance away, processed, and then cheaply and rapidly sent to markets many miles away. Money could flow from distance markets to headquarters, to be concentrated and re-distributed across vast numbers of communities to vast numbers of workers.

In short, rather than a corporation having control only over a loose confederation of distant operations, separated by distance and time, we now have very large, very powerful concentrations of money sitting in a vast web of light-speed-fast communication and numerous transportation hubs, able to exercise direct, real-time control over all of its activities.


Removing government results in corporate power taking its place, until and unless we change the laws.

[jtuck004]

21. Interesting. All those things are available to the people, but they would rather watch "The Voice".

Unless and until mom and pop and the kids get out of their lazboys and toss the remote, the tyrants - i.e. corporations - will ALWAYS, eventually, win. There will be temporary successes, but until they turn their back on the comfort they sell their freedom for this is a lost cause.

Then again, I may be too optimistic.

[krispos42]

22. Well, my point was more that the potential for both corporations and government to get very large...

...is now orders of magnitude greater than at any point in human history, including when the Constitution was written.

The government can use that power to protect people from the ravages of capitalism, which is a cold, heartless, brutal, and merciless creature. But when it doesn't, capitalism runs amok. Sadly, part of capitalism in America is the ability of those corporations to buy the laws and regulations and enforcement they desire.

So, we're probably fucked.

On the plus side, corporatism has been reigned in before. Hopefully it can be again.

[jtuck004]

23. "The government can use that power". Exactly. And -we- are the government. When we abdicate

our responsibilities, we lose our freedom.

[tillikum]

24. that quote is going in the file!

[Demo_Chris]

25. Very interesting quote. nt

[L0oniX]

26. K & R