A quote from Theodore Roosevelt -- pertinent today?

[LostinVA]

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

Theodore Roosevelt, editorial to the Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918.



*********************************************************************

Posted without comment. I'm interested in DUers' take on this.

[bpcmxr]

1. Amen. n/t

[Bluebear]

2. Sounds like Teddy didn't get his pony.

:crazy:

[jonnyblitz]

12. yes, it's a big poutrage fail!!11

:silly:

[cboy4]

36. ....

:spray:

[KitchenWitch]

3. That quote is an absolute jewel

[ThomCat]

4. That is an attitude about government transparency and accountability

that I can get behind. :)

It would be wonderful if we could have that attitude back in government today, that people are an important extension of government by reviewing the government's actions and keeping the government honest.

None of this crap about faith. Keep your faith in church, not in the White House.

Every politician should always be kept in a figurative glass office so nothing is hidden.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Ah the days when I used that quote for the partisans on the

OTHER side

[KitchenWitch]

6. Seriously!

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Yep, AOL... in fact I think I'd better dig out my WORD document

that is FULL of those quotes... for the here and now

[KitchenWitch]

8. Good plan!

:hi:

[Starry Messenger]

9. k&r

I guess it's not so commonly read because it's too long to fit on a bumper sticker.

[krispos42]

10. I had part of that quote as my sigline for quite a while

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."


Great to see it in context.

[LostinVA]

14. My one comment (on context)

The context was that he, as a former President, was asked to comment at how then-current President Woodrow Wilson was using the full force of Federal law to stifle criticism of his handling of World War I.

[Raster]

11. Recommended most highly!

[jonnyblitz]

13. k & r.

:hi:

[LostinVA]

15. hi back!

:hi:

[Jamastiene]

16. K&R

[tbyg52]

17. Amen!

Also see my sig.

I am for honesty and transparency in *all* venues.

[Captain Hilts]

18. The nuclear age has increased the importance of the presidency exponentially. nt

[Two Americas]

28. maybe

It is the compliance and the obedience of the people that worries me, the willingness to place all faith and trust in a ruler. That is what is increasing the "importance" - the power - of the rulers.

[bluedawg12]

19. That's exactly right.

K&R

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

20. Good point

to me it rings with the feelings of Revolutionary War soldiers who knew that they fought the King not to install another one by another name.

[Mari333]

21. k n r

[bvar22]

22. My take on this quote ?

:patriot:
K&R

We need a Teddy Roosevelt (Trustbuster) before a FDR will be effective.

When are The Democrats going to deal with "Too Big to Fail"?

[Arkana]

23. I agree fully.

And no one's stifling dissent around here.

You're free to criticize Obama to your heart's content, just as I'm free to ignore you.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

29. I'm very surprised you got that from my OP

Since I didn't say anything like that.

:shrug:

Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not anyone is "stifling dissent," eh?

on edit: This is Lostinva. I didn't know Haruka had logged me out and her in on the laptop.

[Two Americas]

24. reasonable people can disagree

I don't know who this "Theodore Roosevelt" character is, some Naderite or bitter Clinton supporter or far leftist, I suppose.

This Roosevelt has apparently never heard about the leadership principle. Typical of his ilk.

The Leadership Principle

The president is the recipient of the people's support; he is independent of all groups, factions, and partisan interests, but he is guided by ideas which are understood by, and central to his supporters beliefs. In this twofold condition: independence of all factional interests, but unconditional dependence on what is best for the people, as he sees it, is reflected the true nature of the leadership principle. The president is no representative of any particular group whose wishes he must listen to or follow. He is rather himself the embodiment of the desires of the people. In his person the desires of the people are realized. He transforms the mere feelings of the people into a transformed and coherent reality. Thus it is possible for him, in the name of the true wishes of the people which he serves, to go against the subjective and biased opinions and convictions, beliefs and personal desires of individuals within the people if these are not in accord with the wishes of the people.

He is the leader of ALL of the people, and while we may not understand or agree with every decision he makes, we trust that he acts in the best interests of all of the people. Petty factions will manufacture phony outrage, and use that to tear down the leader, and in doing that they tear down the party and are a threat to the country and enemies of the people.


Modernized translation of the Führerprinzip

[Mari333]

25. wow. social darwinism used by the Nazis

The Führerprinzip was not invented by the National Socialists. Hermann Graf Keyserling, a German philosopher, was the first to use the term "Führerprinzip". One of Keyserling's central claims was that certain 'gifted individuals' were 'born to rule' on the basis of Social Darwinism.

The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors. The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to no one. Giorgio Agamben has argued that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law itself. The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today. The justification for the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors supposedly produced order and prosperity in which those deemed 'worthy' would share.

This principle became the law of the National Socialist German Worker's Party and the SS and was later transferred onto the whole German totalitarian society. Appointed mayors replaced elected local governments. The Nazis suppressed associations and unions with elected leaders, putting in their place mandatory associations with appointed leaders. The authorities allowed private corporations to keep their internal organization, but with a simple renaming from hierarchy to Führerprinzip. In practice, the selection of unsuitable candidates often led to micromanagement and commonly to an inability to formulate coherent policy. Albert Speer noted that many Nazi officials dreaded making decisions in Hitler's absence. Rules tended to become oral rather than written; leaders with initiative who flouted regulations and carved out their own spheres of influence might receive praise and promotion rather than censure.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip

[Two Americas]

27. thanks Mari333

What is this "will of the people" that they are talking about? What do the people get out of it, why do they participate? What is their role? When the leaders in Germany talked about this, they talked about 10,000 leaders - a cadre of bullies defending and promoting the leader. That urge among the people - to bully and scapegoat and idolize larger than life leadership figures - exits independently of anything any leader actually does, and is the other half of what makes the leadership principle take effect. So saying that people are acting as though a leader were a dictator is not the same as saying that a leader is in fact a dictator, and only those yearning for the imposition of the leadership principle would continually confuse the two. We see that here every day.

There is a trajectory to this we need to be alert to, an escalating cycle of events. Those who have been abused must be abused more and more in order to justify the previous abuse. Their very suffering bears witness, damns and condemns the abusers, and that leads to escalating attacks. The abusers cannot stop mid-cycle without admitting that they were wrong in the first place, and they will not do that unless forced to. That is why it is important that everything come to light. The abusers and their apologists will claim that it is the complaints and resistance that justify more abuse, which of course leads to more resistance and complaints and more abuse once you head down that road. People must know, and those who are guilty of abuse must be brought to justice or it will go on and on.

We are seeing that cycle at DU. People viciously attacked GLBTQ people. People who were targeted and their allies then complained about the abuse and expressions of bigotry. This makes the people who are abusing others guilty, by implication. Therefore, the ones complaining must be further abused, since they are tacitly accusing the abusers. If they continue to complain, they must eventually be eliminated.

That is what is going on with people - "if those poutrage gays are right, then I am a bad person, or my hero is a bad person." We had a choice - we could say "they ARE being abused and it must stop. We must all stand together" or...we could say "they have nothing to complain about and they are causing the trouble and I will not accept that the homophobes are wrong, will not accept the implied damning and condemnation of them - THAT can't be true, because if it is that would mean that I would also be wrong and a bad person." Once someone makes that mistake, they can't back down and have to make it again and again - or tolerate it and stay silent - and each time it gets worse and worse.

The logic there is that the evidence of the abuse is the problem, the victims laying around bleeding on the ground are the ones upsetting our happy little world, and if they would stop their moaning - their implicit damnation of the abusers: "How dare they bleed as though we had stabbed them or something! How dare they accuse us of being the sort of people who would stab them, which they are implying by complaining about their wounds?? They are accusing me of being a murderous stabbing person!" - then there would not be a problem. "They are making too much out of it!"

All you need to do is to be a victim of previous abuse in order to be seen as an appropriate target for further abuse. This is a sick and dangerous pattern, and it has control over the discussion right now.

You cannot cover up evidence of abuse, disappear it, because that is the mentality that leads inevitably to the literal disappearance of people. "Getting over it" means discarding the victims - and discarding the people is WHY they are victims, how they are being victimized - and "moving on" means moving farther down that road of escalating abuse.

That is the path that the leadership principle takes us down, because in the absence of democracy the people descend to the lowest common denominator and seek scapegoats.


...

[proteus_lives]

26. A great quote from a great man.

100% correct, we always need to question and keep an eye on our leaders. If they're good, we built monuments and name high schools after them. If they misuse or abuse the public trust, it's the rope. (Metaphorically and on a rare occasion literally.)


Man I love TR. If there was one president I had to call on in a "Flash Gordon, we have 14 hours to save the Earth."-type situation, it would be President Theodore Roosevelt.

[Cid_B]

39. Hell yes...

I like your situation too..

[proteus_lives]

42. Thanks!

I like your sig line!
:-)

[Lex]

30. REGARDLESS of the party of the President, this is true.

nt

[Behind the Aegis]

31. The best line....

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.

[mitchtv]

32. That is a good line

and strangely approptiate even today

[voc]

38. Excellent point ...

Two Americas.
~
The line is sadly appropriate as well.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Jim Lane]

34. Question: What would TR think if he were alive today?

I happened to be reading something about Theodore Roosevelt recently, and it got me to wishing I could interview his ghost.

My guess is that he'd find a lot to dislike in the contemporary Democratic Party, but that he'd be absolutely appalled at what's become of the Republican Party. If he were to re-enter politics, he'd probably decide to be a Democrat.

But he might decide not to be a politician at all. He might decide that this "television" thing had become a total cesspool and that he should undertake the challenge of providing the American people with honest, thorough information.

[proteus_lives]

35. I'd like to interview him too.

I think he would hate the spinelessness of bot parties. But he would vomit at what the party of Lincoln has become. TR spent many years fighting the big interests. He would let no one control him. I think he would do what he did before, form a third party. (Which I would sooo join.) He had views that I disagreed with but I believe he would fight to take the government back from the special interests.


If interested, there's this great two-volume biography of TR by Edmund Morris. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex.
(I'm dying for a third volume!)
:-)

[LostinVA]

40. Far more likely, TR would turn his back on BOTH parties!

Far more likely, TR would turn his back on BOTH parties and put his tremendous charisma into forming an alternative. This is exactly what he did with the Progressive Party, aka the Bull Moose Party, in 1912.

Roosevelt wrote in the party's platform: "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."

[Captain Hilts]

41. That's true. But I think he would be more at home in the Democratic Party...

for the same reasons Franklin and Eleanor were.

[cboy4]

37. K&R

:patriot:

[AlCzervik]

43. yes indeed, that quote from TR along with this one-

from Ben Franklin-

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

[proteus_lives]

44. 100% TRUTH.

That BF quote has always been one of my favorites.