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Conservation does not stop with the natural resources - Theodore Roosevelt
PGA Weblog ^

Posted on 07/21/2012 4:12:57 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica

There is every reason to believe that human beings are as amenable to cultivation as other animals and plants.

Oh.

Well I guess that must be true. That comes from a government document. In the accompanying papers for the Report of the National Conservation Commission, on page 677.

This is probably something I don't need to cite a source for: Everybody knows who "Mr. Conservation" is, among the list of 43 presidents. Theodore Roosevelt. He described the RNCC report this way in the primary report document: (Page 1)

With the statements and conclusions of this report I heartily concur, and I commend it to the thoughtful consideration both of Congress and of our people generally. It is one of the most fundamentally important documents ever laid before the American people. It contains the first inventory of its natural resources ever made any nation. In condensed form it presents a statement of our available capital in material resources, which are the means of progress, and calls attention to the essential conditions upon which the perpetuity, safety, and welfare of this nation now rest and must continue to rest It deserves and should have the widest distribution among the people.

One thing that's consistent about progressives: they lie when they speak publicly. They lie in our time, they lied a century ago. It's true that progressives were much more honest about their beliefs a century ago, but you still often have to look in their books and journals and so forth, where they don't think people are looking.

So it is with Theodore Roosevelt, America's first hardcore progressive president. In a book titled "Progressive Principles"(which is a collection of Roosevelt's speeches), he said the following: (Page 48)

Let us remember, also, that conservation does not stop with the natural resources but that the principle of making the best use of all we have requires with equal or greater insistence that we shall stop the waste of human life in industry and prevent the waste of human welfare which flows from the unfair use of concentrated power and wealth in the hands of men whose eagerness for profit blinds them to the cost of what they do.

This was from February, 1912. Almost exactly 3 years to the day after the RNCC report.

See, this is the "Barack Obama standard". You notice that he's saying different things in different places, so you start to wonder what it is he really thinks. You start to really pick things apart to find the true nature of progressivism, because of discrepancies just like this. Is conservation about natural resources, people, or corporations? He says it's a statement of "available capital". I am not "available capital", I am a thinking, living, and breathing individual. This is how central planners look at people the masses. Here's that opening quote again, from the RNCC report's accompanying papers:

There is every reason to believe that human beings are as amenable to cultivation as other animals and plants.

This is almost word for word the exact same thing that Roosevelt said to one of his eugenic friends, Charles B. Davenport: (Text and audio)

I agree with you if you mean, as I suppose you do, that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind. It is really extraordinary that our people refuse to apply to human beings such elementary knowledge as every successful farmer is obliged to apply to his own stock breeding.

So when he says that conservation can apply to more than just the natural resources, but he tries to couch it in evil corporations, should I really buy that? Well, I don't. The Wisconsin Historical Society's conservation page notes the following:

......including geologist and University president (1903-1918) Charles Van Hise. Van Hise chaired the State Conservation Commission, provided conservation advice to Teddy Roosevelt, and wrote the first textbook on conservation in 1910.

I'll get to that textbook in a minute. One of the very first blog postings I did was in regard to Hise's writings, who clearly laid out progressivism in three words:

"Regulation, not socialism".

Hise was an advisor to Roosevelt on conservation, and Roosevelt was a big fan of Hise having recommented the very book I just quoted from above, which is titled "Concentration and Control".

An important volume entitled "Concentration and Control" has just been issued by President Charles R. Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin has been more influential than any other agency in making Wisconsin what it has become, a laboratory for wise social and industrial experiment in the betterment of conditions.

Yes, you read that right. For those of you who know the history of progressivism know that Wisconsin is the birthplace for progressivism. Roosevelt loved it. But that's a side note for another day. Roosevelt recommended Hise's book repeatedly: (an article titled "Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy")

Of course our policy as regards the trusts should be frankly to accept in its essentials the doctrine laid down by President Van Hise in his book entitled " Combination and Control."

I point all this out because it's important in establishing who progressives are and what they believe, as well as their associations and etc. Now about that textbook that Hise wrote on conservation. The Wisconsin Historical Society states that it's title is "The Future of Man in America", starting on page 1718.(This link goes to a magazine called "World's Work", but 'Future' isn't a book, it's merely an article), and it's very interesting how this "book"(article) ends:

It is in order that humanity itself may be given an opportunity to develop through millions of years to come, under the most advantageous conditions, that we should conserve our natural resources and thus make possible to billions of future human beings a godlike destiny.

A godlike destiny? Who is it that's all consumed with breeding better people, breeding them like cattle? The eugenics crowd. Hise did write a full book in 1910(the same year as 'Future' was written, titled The conservation of natural resources in the United States. It has small section devoted to eugenics, in which it states:

A further proposal in reference to the conservation of man is furnished by Eugenics. Breeding has been long practiced with reference to producing high grade stock. Until recently man has given very little attention to the matter as far as his own race is concerned. It is still true, ever, in civilized countries, that defectives of various classes are allowed to propagate the race. It is certain that as a first very moderate step toward the development of the stamina of the human race, defectives should be precluded from continuing the race by some proper method. In Indiana by somewhat exceptional methods this is already accomplished so far as certain classes of defectives are concerned. By other methods, the segregation of all defectives of each sex in asylums, hospitals, and institutes, the same result may be reached. In some states this is partially done, but nowhere completely. Whatever the method chosen, it should be thoroughgoing.

That's Roosevelt's advisor, Charles Hise. In reference to the conservation of man, is eugenics.

I guess conservation does not stop with the natural resources after all.


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: conservation; progressingamerica; tr
I should probably make my view here clearer. Is conservation merely a way of cloaking eugenics? Could be. But keep in mind that eugenics itself was nothing more than the intrigues of a bunch of central planners.

It's probably most realistic to state that both eugenics and conservation are fronts for central planning, in their own ways. I would say that's why the two are connected. Those with intrigue, jealousy, and ambition can't help but over reach.

I do not think and do not believe that Theodore Roosevelt was a communist, but it's still important to note that plank 7 from the communist manifesto deals with controlling the land.(as do 1 and 9, to a degree) Conservation ultimately put government in control of land. Control the land, control the people.

There's only so many ways you can consolidate power. There's only so many ways that planners can plan our lives, without there being some overlap.

"The plans differ; the planners are all alike" - Frederic Bastiat - Economic Harmonies 1.83

1 posted on 07/21/2012 4:13:02 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
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To: TheCause; 1forall; foundedonpurpose; Silentgypsy; skinkinthegrass; RichardMoore; Little Ray; ...
If anybody wants on/off the revolutionary progressivism ping list, send me a message

Progressives do not want to discuss their own history. I want to discuss their history.

Summary: "The end is what you want, and the means is how you get it" - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, page 24, paragraph 2.

2 posted on 07/21/2012 4:19:04 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (What's the best way to reach a you tube generation? Put it on you tube!)
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To: ProgressingAmerica; phockthis
Per our brief conversation yesterday.

Moooo.

3 posted on 07/21/2012 4:24:03 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

The Davenport letter.

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/33/capture03082010173211.jpg


4 posted on 07/21/2012 4:27:10 PM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: ProgressingAmerica
For those of you who know the history of progressivism know that Wisconsin is the birthplace for progressivism.

My old thread doesn't come up any longer...
Wisconsin Stories: Laboratory of Democracy
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a0e7e5c1da3.htm

Though I can't find the transcript any longer like I did with that old thread there is this...

Sesquicentennial Wisconsin Stories

Fighting Bob (11:56)
Explore the origins of Bob La Follette, the founder of the the Progressive Party. As a young Republican with a promising career, he witnessed corruption and graft that transformed his political world view. La Follette drew on the University of Wisconsin System to revolutionize local government and the Wisconsin Idea was soon creating models for the rest of the nation.

5 posted on 07/21/2012 4:58:04 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: ProgressingAmerica
This was another old thread of mine that is pertinent to understanding the evolution of the Progressive/Populist movement...

The Populist I & R Movement Direct Democracy in Action
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a1b96bf5d10.htm

Still on the Net...@ The Populist I&R Movement: Democracy in Action June 1996

During the 1880s, reformers began increasingly to examine the ballot measure as a means to circumvent the monied interests that were vested in state and federal legislatures -- as a way to bring to popular vote issues that would not be given voice by either major party. The People's Power League was organized in 1892 by James W. Sullivan to advocate the writing into state constitutions of provisions for initiatives and referenda, and in the same year both the Socialist Labor Party and the Populist Party included I&R resolutions in their party platforms. The I&R movement soon drew the support of nationally recognized figures, including labor leader Samuel Gompers, socialist standard-bearer Eugene V. Debs, author Edward Bellamy, and populist orator and Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. As to how it relates to your article on environmentalism... Conclusion
Environmentalists have had a good ballot measure track record since the early 1970s. In the past three electoral cycles, environmentalists have been able to win 62% of their ballot campaigns (59 out of 95 measures in several dozen different states in the period 1990-94). This is extremely noteworthy as the overwhelming majority of ballot measures on all issues fail (well more than 60% by some estimates).

Nonetheless, environmentalists and other progressives have good reason to be concerned that in the next several electoral cycles they may well be faced in ballot measure campaigns with increasingly sophisticated and deep-pockets opposition and with external factors such as voter resistance to government, more taxes, and publicly-funded good causes. Corporate and individual contributions to ballot measure campaigns are not constrained by the same ceilings as political campaigns, providing an additional incentive for unlimited corporate and trade association dollars (this is comparable to unlimited "soft monies" poured into political party coffers).


6 posted on 07/21/2012 5:19:43 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: ProgressingAmerica

The principles of eugenics cannot be successfully argued against. Humans, being animals, can potentially be bred for desirable traits, or be bred to get rid of undesirable traits. That is just a fact.

Recent quite good science, as opposed to the crappy eugenic “science” of 1900 or so, seems to indicate that intelligence (whatever that means) is something between 1/3 and 2/3 heritable. Since in modern societies we have efficient assortative mating, and the intelligent and successful have a much lower birth rate, we are by definition breeding for lower average intelligence over time.

The problem with doing anything about this, of course, is implementation. No human or organization, IMO, is wise enough or good enough to be decide what the desirable and undesirable traits are, and certainly not to be entrusted with the power necessary to effectively control human reproduction.

So we’ll just have to remain wild animals and hope for the best.


7 posted on 07/21/2012 5:26:51 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

No, none of that is fact. Eugenics is one of the most anti-family doctrines that ever came to be; it led directly to Adolf. Relating intelligence to so-called “eugenics” is to deny God.


8 posted on 07/21/2012 5:34:55 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

Disagree. Strongly. Facts are facts, and that some have misused them or applied them where not appropriate does not cause them to stop being facts. Even Nazis.

Do you disagree that humans vary in intelligence?

Do you have any scientific basis for belief that intelligence is not to some extent heritable, other than of course your distaste, which I fully share, for some implications of such heredity?


9 posted on 07/21/2012 5:43:37 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Olog-hai
Relating intelligence to so-called “eugenics” is to deny God.

Cannot see why. The laws of genetics were created by Him, and I can see absolutely no reason why those laws don't apply to humans as much as to any other member of the animal kingdom.

We ARE animals, though we are not JUST animals.

10 posted on 07/21/2012 5:46:46 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

Nobody knows what the “laws of genetics” are except God. The eugenicists’ folly is already on record; no modern scientist has successfully decoded the entire program written into then DNA of any being let alone man’s, and to presume that eugenics, with its lack of such knowledge, is superior has to be absurd. What influences and upbuilds the behavior of man more is the strong and stable family, whereas the lack thereof destroys him. And as far as animals go, the characteristics bred in and out have nothing to do with intelligence, since they run on instinct. Gifts of human intelligence are exactly that—gifts.


11 posted on 07/21/2012 6:13:06 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: ProgressingAmerica

Mr Conservation, yes that is good. From his home in Oyster Bay, he clear cut over a mile long and about 300 yards wide so he could sit on his front porch and see the bay from his estate.

Try that on any other Republican, the press would crucify them.


12 posted on 07/21/2012 10:23:40 PM PDT by DeweyShootem
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