So many are racing back to the very things that brought our founding fathers…and mothers to this land. History is being erased so that people won’t have a record of what it is to be controlled. The quest for personal freedom is what made the original settlers cast their fate to a dangerous ocean crossing, unknown food sources and no shelter. The simple ability to live their lives as they see fit drove them to leave the comforts they had come to know for the unknown. And now we see a rush to return to the coddling and controlling of what is perceived to be a benevolent government. Its all been documented but now we see it being erased for fear people will see the folly of this movement.
The slide began a century ago when Woodrow Wilson began the American Progressive movement. That movement called for government to address social problems, its inequalities and inequities. He was an avowed racist who instituted anti-sedition Laws that allowed the jailing of people who said things that disagreed with him and his policies. If you spoke out against WW1, you were considered seditious and subject to incarceration. So much for inequality and inequities.
Moving forward, the lurch left took advantage of a financial crisis, the 1929 stock market crash and resulting economic calamity, to institute all kinds of entitlement programs. President Franklin Roosevelt said he would “wage war” as if a foreign entity had attacked. So, we got Social Security intended for aging widows who lived past 65, then the average lifespan of a widow, the Tennessee Valley Authority, National Industrial Recovery Act that guaranteed workers would have the right to unionize, and the Public Works Administration, in his first “100 days”. Add Glass Steagall that reined in banking and other government controls on the economy. When those didn’t improve the economy, he doubled down in his second term and created the Works Progress Administration to provide jobs for the unemployed among others. Keynesian economics were in full force; government debt spending skyrocketed. Thankfully some of his progressive items were rebuffed like packing the Supreme Court with more judges so that he could institute even more progressive wants. His programs still exist today, have been expanded well beyond their original intent, and are yokes around our financial necks.
The rise of the “squad” and the attacks on the Constitution, (currently free speech but the right to bear arms is next up), have shown that progressives are gaining (in?) control. The unionized teachers have used their Marxist political slant to indoctrinate students and as Russian Premier Khrushchev said, “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within…” Despite the many examples of where socialism/communism failed miserably and the many benefits capitalism has brought to the world, progressives see their opportunity to make our lives better by doing to us the things they know are best. The only way their ideas can be universally installed is through coercion. When those things aren’t what you want, you’ll learn what bondage means. It’s at that point you’ll wish you knew history better.
Current Day Publius 