The best presidents are the ones you never hear about.
Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic
There were eleven presidents between Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. How many can you name? Some people will get Theodore Roosevelt; he is, after all, on Mt. Rushmore. A few will recall twentieth-century presidents Taft and McKinley; few will get the other eight. Who remembers Benjamin Harrison or Rutherford B. Hayes? They are forgotten for the best of reasons: they were virtually irrelevant.
The span between the Civil War and World War I was one of those historically anomalous periods when the deeds of the rulers took an insignificant back seat to the deeds of the ruled. Even the use of the word ruled is almost a misnomer. During this time, the US population was less subject to rules from its government than any population had been for centuries.
Imagine what it must have been like to pick up a newspaper and not read about a politician. Imagine government spending about 7 percent of a burgeoning gross domestic product (it’s currently over 40 percent). Imagine no income tax and gold-backed money that appreciated in value as the economy grew more productive. We have to imagine because, tragically, no one living has experienced such freedom; contemporary civilization does not even afford a glimpse of it. More tragically, humanity has adapted to its chains.
Think about the difference between doing something you want and something you have to do. Compare your enthusiasm and energy. That difference is the key to human happiness and progress. Ask people what makes them happy. They’ll list a variety of things, but doing what one wants to do makes almost all lists. That requires freedom and the qualities of character, energy, and enthusiasm to take advantage of that freedom. It works no differently for society as a whole.
The trend lines for US economic growth and real incomes have been negative for at least two decades, with the latest quarter showing growth marginally above zero. The economy and the government run on debt, now so great it will never be repaid. America has become an amalgamation of groups who do not like each other. Many don’t even like themselves. Opioid —painkiller—addiction is skyrocketing. A sputtering economy, debt, painkillers, pain, myriad other pathologies, political splintering and the hate, distrust, and anger everywhere evident are symptoms of rampant unhappiness. It’s no coincidence that Americans are less free than they’ve ever been. Take away freedom and you engender misery.
NOT A GREAT PRESIDENT: LLOYD L. LOCHNESS
The American experiment engendered skepticism among eighteenth and nineteenth-century European elites. How would people live if nobody was telling them what to do? The history of Europe was a history of people telling other people what to do, backed by force and violence. Anarchy, chaos, and reversion to monarchy were the common predictions for America. There was a certain chaos to American life, but it was the chaos of unshackled energy. There will always be people who won’t take advantage of the freedom that Americans claimed as their birthright. The best sort of people, though, took advantage of it in astounding, unprecedented ways.
Best sort of people was not a matter of pedigree. Rather, it flowed from what they did and how they lived. Often hailing from inauspicious circumstances, they ignited the explosion of ingenuities, innovations, and inventions, big and small, that propelled America from a nation of farmers and tradesmen to the world’s industrial powerhouse in a little over a century. The Industrial Revolution kicked that explosion into overdrive during the presidencies of the forgotten, and therefore magnificent, eleven.
Shabby excuses for intellectuals and pampered aristocrats sniff at material goods, material progress, and materialism in general. The millions who emigrated from Europe and Asia to America had no such compunctions. Just as electricity powered many of the new inventions, freedom fed a high-powered current of human energy. The cornucopia of material goods, the labor-saving and life-enhancing inventions, and the abundance of opportunities unleashed ambition and industry that were dormant and suppressed in the home countries. Innovation unlocked American agricultural fecundity, which proved an irresistible magnet for those fleeing the rest of the world’s frequent famines.
If you want a clear view into a soul, discover its true feelings about freedom, energy, and happiness. Nobody condemns them, but words and deeds belie rote endorsements. Nothing should have overjoyed so-called humanitarians more than to see the “common” men and women for whom they professed such concern escape famine, squalor, stagnation, pestilence, persecution, and war, and build better lives for themselves and their families. By and large, the reaction wasn’t joy, but malicious resentment. The humanitarians couldn’t directly criticize rising living standards and life expectancies, the newly emerging middle class, the fortunes, the philanthropy, or the self-evident dynamism, optimism, and vigor. Instead, they attacked the capitalism they should have loved—but, tellingly, loathed—at its tap root: freedom.
The immigrants wanted to be here and jumped at the chance to build better lives. Knowing that what they earned was theirs, and that the money in their pockets was good as gold, put extra spring in their steps. No surprise, then, that the first major sallies against freedom and happiness were the income tax and the central bank. They worked, not because they accomplished their advertised objectives (they didn’t), but because they inflicted misery. The income tax funded the US’s unnecessary participation in World War I, and the Federal Reserve blew up and popped a 1920s’ bubble, leading to the Great Depression. Unfortunately, depressed was an apt characterization for a nation that had once been optimistic, confident, and vigorous.
Misery loves both company and more misery. The New Deal’s choking constriction of freedom—the birth of the transfer state and ever-increasing taxes, debt, and regulation—prolonged the pain. The second world war in thirty years saw history’s greatest horror and carnage. The New Deal and war established the leviathan blob and confederated global empire we’ve come to know and loathe, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt is considered one of the greatest—if not the greatest—presidents.
The extraordinary “ordinary” people and giants who propelled America’s burst of freedom, energy, optimism, and achievement are as forgotten as the magnificent eleven presidents who mostly stayed out of their way, and who never make Great President lists (with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt, the kind of “activist” statist the historians love). Happiness has succumbed to the entitlement mentality; snarling demands; never-celebrated tax freedom days months into the new year; dream-destroying volumes of regulations and laws; endless confrontation and war; state functionaries, cops, and soldiers rebranded as heroes; depravity hailed as liberation; a population sated with mindless, Brave New World-style entertainment, diversion, and drugs, and our oligarchic overlords’1984-style surveillance.
The road to happiness bypasses politics and government. Physical energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Human energy equals human freedom. Our current is running down like an old battery. Only freedom will recharge it. When someone proposes to curtail your freedom, substitute the word “happiness.” When they say it’s for your own good, they’re selling enslavement, misery and death. “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). Let’s quit pretending they are humanitarians with “good,” albeit misguided, intentions. They are malignant murderers of humanity’s mind, body, and spirit.
You don’t suppose this sick, aberrant government and culture stem from the origination of the Fed and the subterfuge it entailed do you? Once upon a time, everyone lived within their means on a fairly level playing field of opportunity but when “they ” could make up money to compete with earned money, we all lost, albeit slowly at first. Now look at the indebtedness. Just who was it that invented “modern” banking??
I believe that it was Mandrake the Magician
You sure that’s not Bob Keeshan?
Captain Kangaroo?
William Henry Harrison is the only president I can support. If all politicians agreed to follow his presidency I would stop being a voluntaryist.
Splendid choice. If only because he croaked a month into his term. I have always nursed this woody of a president who died just as he was finishing his oath;
“I do solemnly swear……………………………………………………………………………..So help me God.”
(thud)
Bullseye. It makes one wonder why the secular humanists, who feign such affection for mankind, advocate for either Orwell’s Oceana or Huxley’s Brave New World in lieu of Norman Rockwell’s America. It IS about freedom and freedom’s antithesis, “control”. Perhaps the taproot of control is either fear, or sadism, or some combination thereof.
I am much honored to have my Orwell / Huxley piece linked into your most excellent article above. It seems to be still growing strong, getting lots of hits, increasingly, from Europe including Spanish, German, French and Italian websites. I meant for the Wright piece to build on it, but may have lost people on the way. I now want to do a piece on “Values” and tie it all into the “divorce-in-progress” now taking place between Red and Blue state America but, at this point, it becomes more difficult to skirt the theological. This is not a theological forum and, therefore, I don’t believe it would be well received.
Regardless, in reading your final paragraph, it seems you may have beaten me to the target anyway. Maybe I’ll just put my arrow (pen/sword/keyboard) back into my proverbial quiver for now and read your enjoyable essay again.
BIG MOTHER IS PROTECTING YOU:
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. I saw what you did there.
But it’s for the cheedren.
Somebody said good writers borrow and great writers steal. I don’t know if my incorporation of your theme, with the link, makes me a borrower or a thief (and I’m not going to touch the good/great writer distinction), but it sure fit nicely into my article. Congratulations again on the mileage you’re getting with Huxley and Orwell; most things on the internet come and go.
TBP is a collaboration. Coolest little digital airport bar, beatnik coffee house, on the web.
Like this old clip of Maggie I found from years ago:
I used to think the Beatniks were cool because I used to watch “Dobie Gillis.” I loved Bob Denver in that role. Until I learned what Beatniks were all about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatnik
Just consider them as many “Meatheads” from “All in the Family.”
This article reminds me of a book I read not too long ago entitled: “Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity and Liberty” by Dr. Ivan Eland.
The top 10 were: John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, Martin VanBuren, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Warren G. Harding, George Washington, Jimmy Carter, Dwight Eisenhower and Calvin Coolidge.
The bottom 10 were: Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman, William McKinley, James K. Polk, George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, George HW Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It was an interesting book; well worth the read.
John Tyler is my personal favorite. I am a distant descendant of him, through my mothers side. My great grandmother, born a little after 1900, was a second cousin to his descendants or something like that. Researched it a very long time ago for a high school project.
He did very little to impact the lives of Americans or the world, which is why he deserves to be remembered as a great president, but that’s not how it works. Unfortunately for him, at least as far as the history books go, he didn’t rack up a body count in some pointless war, so most people don’t even know he existed.
Good post, Robert. And very true. My worst is most people’s best – Lincoln.
Thanks. Lincoln is definitely in the bottom six, with FDR, Wilson, Johnson, Obama, and GW Bush.
I think Eland ranked Lincoln 12th worst, based on his criteria. Lincoln obviously scored very poorly on peace and prosperity, but did not do horrible on liberty. The reasoning was that while he did engage in the dictatorial removal of liberties during the war and also denied the liberty of the south to secede, he did nonetheless, ultimately effect the emancipation of black slaves. I do not mean legally as I know the emancipation proclamation had no legal effect on a territory Lincoln did not control at the time. But as a practical matter after the war, black Americans were liberated and he gave him points for that.
An interesting thing I read awhile back about Tyler-he had kids late in life and his son fathered a kid late in life.
As of a couple of years ago when I read about it,Tyler still had a couple of grandsons who were alive.
That’s interesting.
You are right; Tyler had 15 kids by 2 wives. “As of February 2017, Tyler has two living grandsons through his son Lyon Gardiner Tyler, making him the earliest former president with living grandchildren. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. was born in 1924, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928. Lyon Tyler Jr. resides in Franklin, Tennessee, and Harrison Tyler maintains the family home, Sherwood Forest Plantation, in Charles City County, Virginia.” He is also the only President to be buried under the flag of a foreign country — the Confederacy.
Here’s some trivia, Gator: Two of John Tyler’s grandsons are still living.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2017-02-20/president-john-tyler-born-in-1790-still-has-2-living-grandsons
Oops. Red beat me to it. Sorry, Red. I didn’t see your comment until after I posted.
I agree with most of you choices but would eliminate Jimmy Carter as a beat and add Bill Clinton to the worst. The absolute worst in my book is FDR followed by LBJ. The absolute best was Eisenhower.
And so many streets named for a King who was a commie womanizer, not the King of Kings.
And how do most of those streets look? Every city has one, and they are invariably shitholes.
Whites don’t want that street in their neighborhood and nobody would ever consider putting it there. So no real shock as to their “condition.” Its not going to end up in a prosperous black neighborhood either as those folks are all being “too white” by being successful and productive.
R. G.:
You left out the parts about the “robber barons”, striking workers being gunned down by hired thugs, sweatshop conditions giving rise to books like “The Jungle”, 72-hour work weeks, Indian genocide, and repeated financial panics in 1873, 1893, and 1907. And while we’re talking about FDR, I’m guessing you think he pursued the policies he did because he was an evil man. The facts that the depression was already in its fourth year, was steadily worsening, and showed no signs of letting up when he took office aren’t a consideration.
And perhaps we should also overlook the fact that the US still had an open frontier in the 19th century, at least once we had shot, hanged, starved, infected with deadly diseases, or otherwise “relocated” its former inhabitants, so land on which to expand was plentiful. And we can conveniently fail to notice that the low-hanging fruit of the industrial revolution was ripe for the plucking and that industrial processes required huge amounts of cheap manpower. Or even cheaper child power, depending on the demands of the industry.
Now I’m no fan of the widespread government, corporate, and financial abuses that abound today. But I know better than to romanticize the era you are describing. Its impressive advances came at a terrible price for a brutally subjugated working class whose every attempt to better their lot was met with officially condoned violence.
More to the point, this isn’t the 19th century. It’s the 21st century. Our population density is nearly ten times what it was in 1870. In 1870, only 1/4 of the population lived in urban areas. Today, 83% of the population is urban. Just look at the 2016 electoral map if you think that urban and rural people don’t put different demands on government services.
In short, get real. If you want to actually contribute something constructive to the conversation, talk about specific steps that can be taken to get us from where we are to where you think we should be. Romanticizing an era that’s a century and a half removed from our own and that in real terms offered most people less opportunity than they have today is disingenuous, and a little pathetic.
@ Dolphin – it is not my intention to answer for Robert or to hijack his thread, but your comment is pretty interesting and speaks to concerns I have often wondered about as well; to wit, corporate fascism (economic Darwinism) vs. government collectivism. (Huxley vs. Orwell?)
Contrary to what some may believe, there are historical lessons from the past that are still applicable today, and regarding our future. For example, I have often mentally questioned any comparisons between the Transcendentalists of the early 1800s, who preceded the Industrial Revolution, with the Purveyors of Political Correctness during our current Technological Revolution. It is a question of “values” (Red vs. Blue / Rural vs. Urban).
I’m working on a piece, but I’m not in a rush. I believe all debates are rooted in theology, one way or another.
Mr. Dolphjin………some very good points; I too am a believer in a ‘small’ government but worldwide growth of population, technology, medicine, capitalism, weapons of war, etc. created immense change. For the Depression, FDR was A-OK – what would the naysayers have done?
IMO, what makes life worth living as one gets older (past 30) is the advances in medicine and dentistry, without which one lives in misery and pain.
Naysayer here – not gotten the government involved, aside from abolishing the central bank that caused it. FDR only prolonged it and made it worse. Third worst president in history.
Indeed, agree with Gator. Even some economists from UCLA (a liberal/progressive bastion) concluded that everything that Hoover and FDR did in response to the stock market crash made things worse and prolonged the Great Depression.
Read up on the Crisis of 1920-21. Statistically it began as even worse than after the crash of 29, was in response to the end of WW1 and all of the malinvestment that comes with war, and ended in ONLY A YEAR because Harding did absolutely nothing and encouraged the Fed to do the same. Sure, some pain, but a quick readjustment, selloff of bad debt, liquidation of failed enterprises, and a great restart that became the Roaring 20s. And while Harding did nothing, his Sec. of Commerce demanded that something had to be done. So upset was he that nothing was done in response, he responded in every possible wrong way when HE got the chance……..Herbert Hoover. Put down the government-approved history textbook and search on the 1920-21 Crisis on http://www.mises.org. All free stuff and a great explanation of why doing NOTHING is FAR BETTER than intervening.
Liberty, I wish I could thumbs up your assessment +1000. The 1920 – 21 history of recession / depression should be taught in every economics curriculum as what happens when the natural check and balances of true capitalism are allowed to work. However, unfortunately, because government is controlled, in many cases by the ones whom would lose under those conditions, it has not been allowed since.
Failure is not an option when you have the gun of government at your side.
Can’t agree with you on FDR was A-OK on Depression. But neither was Hoover. They both intervened. If they had done nothing, the depression would have been over in no time. ( I refer you to writings by Tom Woods.) But they intervened and made the Depression last much longer than it should have. The Depression was, of course, a result of the Federal Reserve. Time to get rid of the Federal Reserve, once and for all.
Dolphin,
America from the Civil War to World War I was far from perfect. It was, however, the best option for the millions who came here. There’s no denying deplorable conditions in slums, some, but not all, factories, and miserable tenant farms, but they were better than conditions from where the immigrants came, or they wouldn’t have come. Before the Industrial Revolution 99.999 percent of humanity lived on the edge of subsistence. You don’t go from widespread poverty to widespread affluence overnight. The period in question raised American real per capita incomes a greater percentage in a shorter time than any period before or since. Go read anything, fiction or nonfiction, written before this time and see if you can find the term “middle class.” It wasn’t until this time that a recognizable middle class emerged, sneeringly refered to by Marx and acolytes as the bourgeois. You say the working man’s “every” attempt to better his situation was met by armed force and violence. While attempts to unionize were sometimes met that way, millions who “resorted” to ambition and hard work bettered their situation.
I’ve read Matthew Josephson’s Robber Barons twice. I’ve also read Burton Folsom’s Myth of the Robber Barons for the other side of the story. Josephson tars everyone with the same brush, and ignores the virtues necessary to start and build innovative and prosperous companies. Yes, there were sweatshops, primarily in minimally profitable industries. John D. Rockefeller’s very profitable Standard Oil was a model of workplace safety, environmental protection (he reused refining byproducts, like gasoline, that other Cleveland refiners were dumping in the Cuyahoga River), paid well, offered his employees stock (many of them became millionaires), and built the world’s biggest and most profitable company. He drove the price of kerosene from 80 to 4 cents a gallon, enabling millions of ordinary people, who formerly couldn’t afford whale oil or kerosene, to stay up past sundown. Would everything he did pass muster by today’s standards? Undoubtedly not; Standard Oil was the impetus for the Sherman Act. The non-romanticized truth about Rockefeller, good and bad, is available in Ron Chernow’s excellent biography, Titan. Whatever his flaws, Rockefeller was a builder, not a thief. The wealth and jobs he created far outweigh whatever you might consider his depredations (although I don’t like what he did politically after he retired).
You mention our shameful history with native Americans. Let me mention another “Robber Baron,” James J. Hill. The slaughter of Native Americans is a blight on our history, but that was done by government, not the “extraordinary ‘ordinary’ people and the giants of the Industrial Revolution” I extoll. Most of the treaties we abrogated were between native Americans and either the federal government or the government-sponsored transcontinental railroads. Hill built the Great Northern railroad, running from Minneapolis to Northwest Pacific Coast. He accepted no land grants or funding from the federal government (he didn’t want the strings) and his railroad was entirely privately funded. He scrupulously observed every agreement and right-of-way he negotiated with various Native American tribes. Railroad building being dangerous work, especially in the Rocky and Cascade Mountains, he offered some of the highest wages available for such labor. The Great Northern was by far the best built line in America during this time, and is still the core of the Burlington Northern, which Warren Buffett scooped up at a bargain price after the financial crisis. The Great Northern was the only railroad of its size to never go bankrupt; all of the government sponsored, crony-socialistic boondoggle railroads did so at least twice. Yet Josephson excoriates Hill for not giving what Josephson considers a “fair” price to a group of Dutch investors when Hill took over the defunct line that Hill built into the Great Northern. Probably not one in a thousand Americans even know who Hill was.
Was Hill a robber baron? Rockefeller? Edison? Bell? Deere? McCormack? Ford? Carnegie? Vanderbilt? The Wright Brothers? If they were, they were a strange kinds of robbers who gave away appreciable portions of their fortunes.
What did FDR ever build? What did he offer to America’s true builders but obstructions? Yes, he took over a nation that had been in the Great Depression for three years. The measures he championed and enacted extended it another seven and set us on the road to ruin. Was FDR evil? “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
As for population densities, what do they have to do with anything? One of the most remarkable capitalism success stories has been Hong Kong (the PRC will eventually ruin it), and it has one of the highest population densities in the world.
You want something constructive, you want specific steps that can be taken. I’ll tell you want I want, something I’ve never had. I want to take my talents, skills, energy, and willingness to work hard, make my way, keep every dime I earn, and not a dime I don’t. I don’t want to feed, clothe, educate, or in any way contribute to the wellbeing of anyone who demands that I do so because it’s my supposed duty, or their political hencemen and enablers. I will support any measure that reduces taxes or regulations, reduces the size and power of any level of government, and allows people to keep even a little more of their own time and money for themselves. I want my freedom, my inalienable birthright as a human being. And I meant exactly what I said in my last paragraph about anybody who wants to curtail it or take it away.
So. To sum up, and this is why I never get into debates on the internet over this shit (I get tired of looking at historical straw men in the face) – the history of man is complex and filled with suffering although it is clear that certain systems do seem (given time and some semblance of respect for contract and the rule of law) to lead us out of darkness while others plunge us further into it.
There is no utopia, man’s lot is one of trade-offs and risks of all sorts. A series of choices between better and worse, not perfection and imperfection. Economically and politically, given our history globally over the past 2000 years, it seems silly to argue otherwise. Thus, at one time, we chose a degree of capitalism over barbarism and a degree of freedom over slavery and we were rewarded for that choice or opportunity with the benefits offered to us by the modern world (never mind that we appear to be squandering it). Alas, some of us appear to be too wrapped up in historical straw minutiae to see the forest for the trees (or the hay stack for the hay?).
In light of this, I would add that while some would ask you to contribute something useful I would point out that you just did, by reminding us of what progress can be made when even a small degree of freedom seeps into our day to day lives – in spite of the remaining imperfections that surround us.
Great piece Robert.
Thank you, Francis, and I’ll swear off long-winded comments for at least a month.
Oh no, don’t do that. I think your mini-essay just planted a seed in the back of my mind. As someone once said, “Somebody said good writers borrow and great writers steal” – now, how would I write if I didn’t have TBP commenters to “borrow from”? 😉
I think when you hit the Post Comment or Submit for Reviews buttons, you appreciably raise TBP’s writing quality, so you don’t need to borrow or steal from anyone else.
This reply was better then the article,good job.
HERE, HERE!
That’s “Hear, Hear!”
Excellent response Robert. And for those that did not read Robert’s first book The Golden Pinnacle he expands on it quite nicely and in an entertaining way. I would also recommend the book The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen.
From Amazon: The nation the Founders built is now in the throes of a political, economic, social, and spiritual crisis that has driven many to an almost frantic search for modern solutions. The truth is that the solutions have been available for a long time — in the writings of our Founding Fathers — carefully set forth in this timely book.
In The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World, Discover the 28 Principles of Freedom our Founding Fathers said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desire peace, prosperity, and freedom. Learn how adherence to these beliefs during the past 200 years has brought about more progress than was made in the previous 5000 years. These 28 Principles include The Genius of Natural Law, Virtuous and Moral Leaders, Equal Rights–Not Equal Things, and Avoiding the Burden of Debt.
Hi Robert – Really enjoy your writing; great response to “Dolphin” – keep up the good work. I derive great satisfaction when SJW’s like him (presumably) show up on TBP and get their heads handed to them (politely) with a thoroughly-documented note to the effect that: “If you don’t know what you’re writing about, as you clearly don’t, you will be made to look like the fool that you are.” Best Libertarian Regards from California – Rich
Thanks.
+10,000.
Your last paragraph could serve as the preamble to the Second Declaration of Independence.
Well done R.G.
Really? The last time I read the Declaration of Independence, it was full of phrases such as “WE hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men”, and “WE mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
What I get out of this is “WE”. What I get out of R.G.s last paragraph is “I”. So I guess the 2nd Declaration of Independence will have an entirely different basis than the first.
I responded to this post in a reply to TampRed below.
Debt or indebtness is a direct result of coveting thus breaking the 10 commandment : You shall not Covet .Coveting comes right along with Pride ,Lust , Greed and ENVY which are all forms of Idolatry.Keeping up with the Jones is Envy of your neighbor and Coveting what he has.Since most choose not to kill their neighbors and take their property they instead borrow money to have a lifestyle they don’t need or deserve.
Not to mention cronyism, which is what Rockefeller, etc. used to get where they are today. After the War of Northern Aggression, the cronyism skyrocketed.
Cronyism was in part the reason for the War of Northern Aggression.
Are you with me Robert ? Do you understand what is motivating Hundreds of millions of people .SIN and SIN is EVIL.
You stick with me Robert .I have so much more to teach you .?
BB – the Bible says you need to pay your debts. Stop sinning.
It’s like the drunk Jack Nicholson character in Easy Rider, cant remember the exact words, but people yap about freedom, but real freedom scares the shit out of them. Sheeple are a whole lot more comfortable being told what to do, even if what you’re told is to jump off a fucking cliff. We gripe about the useless jerkoffs who control us but we are our own Angels, or our own Demons. Fuck the government, its useless, irrelevant and incapable of doing anything. It doesn’t give a fuck about you or me, they’re stuffing their pockets with cash before we hit the iceberg. Look in the mirror and demand improvement, take one step from there. Local, sustainable, honest and reliable. Our founding fathers had the balls to say fuck you and create a new world, do we?
I remember that scene.
“Yeah, it scares ’em.. But it don’t make ’em runnin’ scared. It makes ’em dangerous.”
Big Injun Chief of the Clouds ,all my medical debts are paid.I am free and clear.Just waiting now for Doctors to make up their minds.Last time in hospital they said I was Anemia . Ordered a Endoscopy test to see if I am losing blood in my stomach. Still got this damn Hernia.Waiting for them to schedule surgery .Sucks but that’s life .
Hey CC ,for someone who doesn’t pay attention to Politicians you sure pay alot attention. I’m going to be watching you from now on .I don’t think you have a brain tumor or anything like that . Maybe just confused but I can help.My psychological services are free to Burning Platform members.Just saying.
When Dolphin posted above he mentioned Upton Sinclair’s,”The Jungle.”
Ever since it was published the American left has used it to beat business over the head and try and illustrate how cruel business is.
However,there is a very small part of the book that illustrates why the left hates religion and virtue,and how the right believes in private charity and virtue.
After the protagonist becomes a drunken bum,one brutally cold Chicago evening he and his buddy are trying to figure out where they can go to receive a free meal.They finally decide to go to a mission house but are carping because before they can eat they will have to listen to a sermon.
Today we have most religious organizations receiving and dispensing government $ without forcing people to hear a sermon.
And we wonder why the welfare rolls increase each year?
This seems like as good a place as any to reply to R.G.s rebuttal to my post. My point is this: I have nothing against Capitalism. It is a framework that allows people to seek out opportunities and focus resources to deliver products and services that people want, while at the same time providing a living for the producers. What’s not to love?
BUT. Capitalism, like all human systems, is subject to abuse. A market economy by its very nature forces producers to minimize costs and maximize competitive advantages in all ways possible. This translates directly into abusive labor practices, sweatshop working conditions, environmental damage, anti-competitive practices, fraud, and violence. These negative tendencies must be restrained if Capitalism is to be of benefit to society rather than subjugating it. I can think of no institution other than government that can institute and enforce appropriate constraints.
In R.G.s rebuttal, my key takeaway came in his last paragraph: “I want to take my talents, skills, energy, and willingness to work hard, make my way, keep every dime I earn, and not a dime I don’t.” If I read this statement correctly, it sounds like R.G. doesn’t think we should have roads, schools, police, courts, land records, or a military. Or maybe the private sector should take care of them. I’m here to tell you that I live on a private road, and I’ll take the public version any day. And even though I think the police sometimes overstep their bounds, I recognize that they’re necessary, because the alternative is vendetta. And all these things take money. Are you saying that you don’t think you should have to contribute?
We people are individuals, but we are also social creatures. A person has to be dogmatic in the extreme to think that any of us have achieved the standard of living we enjoy today by our own efforts alone. To get where I’m going with this, imagine for a moment that you are living 12,000 years ago in a small tribal group. This group has nothing like what we would today call a government. It perhaps has a council of elders who have earned their place through a lifetime in which they have demonstrated courage, sound judgment, leadership ability, and concern for the welfare of the tribe. The behavior of the members of the tribe is governed by customs and taboos. Everyone is expected to kick in for the welfare of the tribe, for without the tribe, an individual’s prospects are poor. Banishment is could easily mean a death sentence.
The basic idea is that the people in this little scenario are both individuals and member of the tribe. They of course have considerable latitude for personal action, but they have responsibilities to the tribe, and those responsibilities are enforced by tribal custom. Hunters share their game, fishermen share their catch, gatherers share their harvest, and all able-bodied men defend the tribe from predators and aggressive neighbors. Adult men teach young boys the skills and responsibilities required for full adult manhood in the tribe. Ditto for women teaching the girls. Failure to discharge those responsibilities results in being shunned.
In today’s world, we no longer live in tribes. The tribe has been superseded by a much wider society most of whose members are anonymous to us. Tribal customs and taboos have been replaced by a body of law, and many other facets of tribal structure have been replace by larger and more impersonal institutions. But we still have responsibilities to that society, even if they are discharged in a more impersonal way. Instead of sharing game, catch, or harvest with members of the tribe, we pay taxes to support the institutions that underpin modern social living. Thinking that we have no responsibility to do so is akin to the tribe member who is unwilling to share the food he has secured or to do his part to defend the tribe’s territory.
To me, the question turns on the appropriate balance between individual freedom and social responsibility. I’m in substantial agreement with R.G. that government has overstepped its bounds and that it is no longer responsive to the needs of the “tribe”. But a statement like “I don’t want to feed, clothe, educate, or in any way contribute to the wellbeing of anyone who demands that I do so because it’s my supposed duty” is just another way of saying you want all the benefits offered by modern society without shouldering any of the responsibilities. For me, that dog won’t hunt. It’s the balance. Always the balance.
This old pal of mine was stranded in Chicago and had to hitch hike home. He told a bunch of us about going to a mission kitchen to ask for a meal. They told him he was welcome to eat if he’d pray out loud before the meal. He said he prayed aloud, “Lord make these assholes give me something to eat”.
The writer lost me and I stopped reading when he said no president was notable after Lincoln until Woodrow Wilson. Apparently, the writer is not from the South. Grant made a big impression and, as Trump would say, believe me!
On top of that, the president should have little influence on your life, based on the original Constitution. See how far we’ve strayed?
Why work in a sweatshop? Why work in a coal mine? How did the labor market get flooded with too much cheap labor? Could almost unlimited immigration have anything to do with the power of the evil “Robber Baron”?
Good point. Just as today.