In a recent exchange on Twitter, the discussion had turned to Congressional Progressives and I didn’t get the feeling that there is a true appreciation of how dangerous these people really are. There are really only two things standing between Progressives and the realization of their goals. No, it is not the Tea Party movement but they have added a critical component and it is not Congressional Conservatives and Moderates because they are two few in number. The real roadblocks are the United States Constitution and exposure. For the Progressive agenda to move forward the United States Constitution must either be redefined or completely altered and even more important, the true nature of their agenda must remain secret to the voting public.
Most of America’s people live their lives comfortably in the middle of the political spectrum. They recognize the need for essential services but are fiscally conservative. They do not see America as an aggressor but they recognize that the only real deterrent to the aggression of other nations is a military that is adequately armed and trained for war. They willingly reach out to help anyone in a time of need but do not appreciate a government entitlement machine that makes those in need recipients for life. They welcome lawful émigrés to this nation but demand that our borders and our country are protected from those that would enter illegally for the purpose of exploiting America’s generous nature. Most of all, they are not isolationists at heart but want to see some common sense applied to trade agreements and the import tax structure that will preserve our industries and economic well being. Any blatant attempt to violate these basic ideals was historically met with angry retribution at the polls.
Thomas Jefferson warned us about the evils of print news when he said that “A man who reads nothing is better informed than a man who reads nothing but newspapers.” In Jefferson’s day, print news was actually worse than today’s media. It was mostly personal opinion and would openly praise their friends while publically roasting their enemies with little concern for the truth. As newspapers became corporations (and as the law began to deal with those that would print outright falsehoods) the press became more responsible and over time, had begun to establish trust with the public.
There had been no real shift in the basic ideals of the American electorate but starting with the Progressive era in the early 1900’s, there was another major shift in the reporting of news. Papers in major cities began to editorialize again rather than report and they intentionally infused the news with the opinion of the author rather than detail the events of the day. Since there were very few alternative news sources, they were quite successful at shaping the opinions of their readers without much criticism or notice.
The Progressive wordsmiths seeking to shape public opinion through their papers enjoyed, or rather exploited, the faith they had established with their readers during the decades of work by dedicated reporters that were interested in truth over ideology. Now it was different. Progressives sought to change America and before that could happen, they had to either change American opinion or obfuscate the true purpose of Progressivism in a jumble of doublespeak. Isn’t it ironic that now that the press has come full circle Mr. Jefferson looks more like a prophet than someone who was merely commenting on the common practices of corrupt news men during his lifetime?
Now that the news was being crafted to support the agenda of Progressives, the human aspect was being calmed, if not controlled. Those that did not believe the positive press given to the Progressive movement would be demoralized with the unending stories about the excesses of the wealthy and the abuses they waged against the poor defenseless workers. The relentless assault in the press dulled the senses of readers until they were not even sure what the truth was anymore. Fortunately, we now have a multitude of new sources for information. The internet and cable television have shattered the monopoly held by the graduates of liberal schools of journalism and the people have overwhelmingly responded by seeking those sources over traditional media by a factor of two and three to one.
Progressives are the one group in America that truly believes that the ends justify the means. They began the underhanded work of using the courts to redefine the Constitution early in the 20th century while people were still under the ether of the liberal press. Roscoe Pound was a noted legal scholar and educator. In 1908, he was part of the founding editorial staff of the first comparative law journal in the U.S., the “Annual Bulletin” of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association. He was also the founder of the movement for "sociological jurisprudence", an influential critic of the U.S. Supreme Court's "liberty of contract" (freedom of contract) line of cases and one of the early leaders of the movement for American Legal Realism.
Sociological jurisprudence was a new idea in law at the turn of the 20th century and would provide the means whereby the courts could assume the role of not simply trying a case based on current law but could instead be used to bring divergent interests into alignment with each other. The long and the short of it is that it is a sociological tool whereby the courts could “translate” law as society changed rather than rely on the written word of law. That one move would give Progressives unbridled power to alter the Constitution through judicial interpretation rather than through the Amendment process intended by the founders.
Of course to make sociological jurisprudence work they needed to nullify the intent of the founding fathers. That would be done through the theory of Legal Realism. Legal Realism states that all people are flawed and therefore, the laws written by man must contain some measure of those flaws. The founding fathers, it was argued, were not trying to construct a nation for all men but to protect their own limited interests. It was therefore right and proper to “adjust” those laws by interpretation using the lens of the modern era to affect a more just society and those interpretations would include the United States Constitution. That was the only way the Progressives could craft legislation that directly violates the Tenth Amendment, allowing the Federal Government the ability to seize powers that previously belonged solely to the States and the people.
Healthcare is a perfect example. The Constitution does not grant the Federal Government the authority to direct, control or regulate healthcare but the government has been using sociological jurisprudence to broaden the power granted to Congress to “provide for the general welfare” under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution since the time of Theodore Roosevelt. The original meaning of this phrase, as clearly enunciated in the Federalist Papers, was to provide for the general welfare of the Union as an entity or a collection of States. It did not give Congress the authority to provide anything directly for the citizens of this nation except for an America free from Federal interference so that they could pursue “life, liberty and happiness” as each saw fit. Progressives had tainted the courts so that the “general” in that phrase was reinterpreted to mean all of the citizenry and not simply the nation and that is now being used as the justification for this onerous healthcare reform act.
Unfortunately, Progressives are not all about doing things for the “general welfare” out of some undying sense of social justice. The roots of Progressivism are based in a firm belief that there are people in this world that are highly advanced and that these “elite” must accept the responsibility for those that are incapable of making proper choices for themselves. The early Progressives looked to Europe for guidance took many cues from Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and other radical philosophers. They were firm believers in eugenics and the theory that superior qualities could be bred to create a ruling class of elites and that out of necessity, governmental powers would eventually be limited to that ruling class. Some even proposed the elimination of people that fell below an acceptable minimum of intelligence or drive. George Bernard Shaw felt that a life that was of no use to society could not be much use to that unfortunate person either. He suggested that chemists devise a humane gas that would kill instantly and painlessly and that we should even play classical music as we marched people of limited use to their demise.
Curiously, one of the Progressives that helped flesh out the idea for a universal healthcare system, Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Ezekiel had written about the need to ration care based upon the ability of the patient to contribute to society. While that is a far cry from Shaw’s call for gas chambers, it still results in an early demise for those that cannot effectively add value to the collective and tells me that the Progressive’s view of human life is far less sacred than that of the founding fathers.
The only thing that preserves our Constitution; our protection against this politically inbred army of self proclaimed elites is the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. That separation guarantees that major changes in our government are only possible if an overwhelming majority of the people support those changes. It is noteworthy to mention that every Progressive President to date has sought to sidestep the separation of powers required in the Constitution and expand the power of the Presidency through agencies, bureaucracies and now, Czars. If they succeed, that will mark the beginning of the end of the Republic.
Most of America’s people live their lives comfortably in the middle of the political spectrum. They recognize the need for essential services but are fiscally conservative. They do not see America as an aggressor but they recognize that the only real deterrent to the aggression of other nations is a military that is adequately armed and trained for war. They willingly reach out to help anyone in a time of need but do not appreciate a government entitlement machine that makes those in need recipients for life. They welcome lawful émigrés to this nation but demand that our borders and our country are protected from those that would enter illegally for the purpose of exploiting America’s generous nature. Most of all, they are not isolationists at heart but want to see some common sense applied to trade agreements and the import tax structure that will preserve our industries and economic well being. Any blatant attempt to violate these basic ideals was historically met with angry retribution at the polls.
Thomas Jefferson warned us about the evils of print news when he said that “A man who reads nothing is better informed than a man who reads nothing but newspapers.” In Jefferson’s day, print news was actually worse than today’s media. It was mostly personal opinion and would openly praise their friends while publically roasting their enemies with little concern for the truth. As newspapers became corporations (and as the law began to deal with those that would print outright falsehoods) the press became more responsible and over time, had begun to establish trust with the public.
There had been no real shift in the basic ideals of the American electorate but starting with the Progressive era in the early 1900’s, there was another major shift in the reporting of news. Papers in major cities began to editorialize again rather than report and they intentionally infused the news with the opinion of the author rather than detail the events of the day. Since there were very few alternative news sources, they were quite successful at shaping the opinions of their readers without much criticism or notice.
The Progressive wordsmiths seeking to shape public opinion through their papers enjoyed, or rather exploited, the faith they had established with their readers during the decades of work by dedicated reporters that were interested in truth over ideology. Now it was different. Progressives sought to change America and before that could happen, they had to either change American opinion or obfuscate the true purpose of Progressivism in a jumble of doublespeak. Isn’t it ironic that now that the press has come full circle Mr. Jefferson looks more like a prophet than someone who was merely commenting on the common practices of corrupt news men during his lifetime?
Now that the news was being crafted to support the agenda of Progressives, the human aspect was being calmed, if not controlled. Those that did not believe the positive press given to the Progressive movement would be demoralized with the unending stories about the excesses of the wealthy and the abuses they waged against the poor defenseless workers. The relentless assault in the press dulled the senses of readers until they were not even sure what the truth was anymore. Fortunately, we now have a multitude of new sources for information. The internet and cable television have shattered the monopoly held by the graduates of liberal schools of journalism and the people have overwhelmingly responded by seeking those sources over traditional media by a factor of two and three to one.
Progressives are the one group in America that truly believes that the ends justify the means. They began the underhanded work of using the courts to redefine the Constitution early in the 20th century while people were still under the ether of the liberal press. Roscoe Pound was a noted legal scholar and educator. In 1908, he was part of the founding editorial staff of the first comparative law journal in the U.S., the “Annual Bulletin” of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association. He was also the founder of the movement for "sociological jurisprudence", an influential critic of the U.S. Supreme Court's "liberty of contract" (freedom of contract) line of cases and one of the early leaders of the movement for American Legal Realism.
Sociological jurisprudence was a new idea in law at the turn of the 20th century and would provide the means whereby the courts could assume the role of not simply trying a case based on current law but could instead be used to bring divergent interests into alignment with each other. The long and the short of it is that it is a sociological tool whereby the courts could “translate” law as society changed rather than rely on the written word of law. That one move would give Progressives unbridled power to alter the Constitution through judicial interpretation rather than through the Amendment process intended by the founders.
Of course to make sociological jurisprudence work they needed to nullify the intent of the founding fathers. That would be done through the theory of Legal Realism. Legal Realism states that all people are flawed and therefore, the laws written by man must contain some measure of those flaws. The founding fathers, it was argued, were not trying to construct a nation for all men but to protect their own limited interests. It was therefore right and proper to “adjust” those laws by interpretation using the lens of the modern era to affect a more just society and those interpretations would include the United States Constitution. That was the only way the Progressives could craft legislation that directly violates the Tenth Amendment, allowing the Federal Government the ability to seize powers that previously belonged solely to the States and the people.
Healthcare is a perfect example. The Constitution does not grant the Federal Government the authority to direct, control or regulate healthcare but the government has been using sociological jurisprudence to broaden the power granted to Congress to “provide for the general welfare” under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution since the time of Theodore Roosevelt. The original meaning of this phrase, as clearly enunciated in the Federalist Papers, was to provide for the general welfare of the Union as an entity or a collection of States. It did not give Congress the authority to provide anything directly for the citizens of this nation except for an America free from Federal interference so that they could pursue “life, liberty and happiness” as each saw fit. Progressives had tainted the courts so that the “general” in that phrase was reinterpreted to mean all of the citizenry and not simply the nation and that is now being used as the justification for this onerous healthcare reform act.
Unfortunately, Progressives are not all about doing things for the “general welfare” out of some undying sense of social justice. The roots of Progressivism are based in a firm belief that there are people in this world that are highly advanced and that these “elite” must accept the responsibility for those that are incapable of making proper choices for themselves. The early Progressives looked to Europe for guidance took many cues from Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and other radical philosophers. They were firm believers in eugenics and the theory that superior qualities could be bred to create a ruling class of elites and that out of necessity, governmental powers would eventually be limited to that ruling class. Some even proposed the elimination of people that fell below an acceptable minimum of intelligence or drive. George Bernard Shaw felt that a life that was of no use to society could not be much use to that unfortunate person either. He suggested that chemists devise a humane gas that would kill instantly and painlessly and that we should even play classical music as we marched people of limited use to their demise.
Curiously, one of the Progressives that helped flesh out the idea for a universal healthcare system, Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Ezekiel had written about the need to ration care based upon the ability of the patient to contribute to society. While that is a far cry from Shaw’s call for gas chambers, it still results in an early demise for those that cannot effectively add value to the collective and tells me that the Progressive’s view of human life is far less sacred than that of the founding fathers.
The only thing that preserves our Constitution; our protection against this politically inbred army of self proclaimed elites is the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. That separation guarantees that major changes in our government are only possible if an overwhelming majority of the people support those changes. It is noteworthy to mention that every Progressive President to date has sought to sidestep the separation of powers required in the Constitution and expand the power of the Presidency through agencies, bureaucracies and now, Czars. If they succeed, that will mark the beginning of the end of the Republic.
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment