Free Republic

Authors Susan S. Fainstein and James DeFilippis wrote a book titled Readings in Planning Theory, which is all about centralized planning. In the book, the two authors spend a lot of time focusing on early planners Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, and here's their conclusion about the three men: (page 23) "Many people dream of a better world; Howard, Wright, and Le Corbusier each went a step further and planned one." This is what we're up against. If it was really "better", it wouldn't keep failing. "The more the planning fails, the more the planners plan." -...

I recently wrote an entry about Walter Lippmann, in which I made the case that his book "Public Opinion" makes him the founding father of fake news. It's important to understand, "fake news" does not end with "journalistic objectivity", fake news begins with "journalistic objectivity". It has to, because if "fake news" doesn't begin with "We are objective, you can trust us" then you'll get lost in the quagmire of thousands of years of people who, while they did report things inaccurately, did not do so because it was their ideological drive. They either lied because they were told to...

One thing I don't think conservatives truely recognize and appreciate,(and I include myself in that - I always do) is that after the Woodrow Wilson era, how utterly devastated progressive ideology was. They were so annihilated, that a decade later they were forced to re-appropriate the word "liberal" and take it for themselves. In many ways, the 1920's is a "lost decade" for American tyranny aka progressivism. They were completely routed, and after the way Wilson abused regulatory and other powers, the American economy and American life suffered for it. There were no excuses. There was nobody to blame. Progressives...

Do you want someone to direct your life? God how I wish someone would come and direct my life. I just don't know what the heck I'm doing! For those who want to be directed, there are others, who call themselves progressives, who dream of directing your life. They dream of a day when you'll stop using the ballot box to vote for leadership, and start using the ballot box to start voting for dictatorship. It's true, they've written it. In his 1922 pamphlet "The Challenge of Waste", Stuart Chase (who would later serve as an adviser for President FDR)...

There's a lot of talk about "fake news" these days, but lost in the 'here we are' is the 'how did we get here'. Some websites have proclaimed Dan Rather the founder of fake news, others have crowned Brian Williams as such. Understanding fake news is impossible without a full-scale structural analysis of "objective journalism" itself, because "objective journalism" was designed to facilitate fake news. The name to know is Walter Lippmann. Walter Lippmann is generally regarded as the father of modern journalism, and as most of us know, modern journalism is what it is today because of the concept...

When I got up this morning and sat down at my computer, I started searching. I don't quite know why, but once I got started I had a feeling. This morning, I was going to find something special. And, I did. As someone who is still realizing just how powerful of a weapon against progressivism that the progressives' own history is against them, I have found many useful things. But nothing like this. Arguably the most ardent planner of the New Deal, Rexford Guy Tugwell, gave a speech in 1939 titled "The Fourth Power". This speech is amazing for its...

On February 23rd, 1903, Woodrow Wilson said: I am of the class of men who are described as imperialists, and yet I have had such an intense sympathy with the men on the other side who are getting sat upon that I could almost have wished that my opinions were different that I might join their ranks. From The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume 14, Page 367. Also, here. See also: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and modern American imperialismProgressives don't want you to know, and many of them don't even know, that when they lament and bemoan "imperialism" they are...

I tell you, Lippmann's book Public Opinion is the gift that keeps on giving. This little narrative from his book is incredible, it explains so much in regard to the symbiosis that exists between progressive journalists and their masters at city hall. On page 338, Lippmann describes an important aspect of how journalists "collect news": Newspapers do not try to keep an eye on all mankind. They have watchers stationed at certain places, like Police Headquarters, the Coroner's Office, the County Clerk's Office, City Hall, the White House, the Senate, House of Representatives, and so forth. They watch, or rather...

Have you ever read Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose party platform? You should. In Chapter 3 of his book "The Art of War", Sun Tzu writes: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. That quote has been in the right side bar of the progressingamerica blog since day one, and will never change. We need to know progressives...

Have you ever heard "what if Texas were its own country" or "what if California", etc.... Here we go. If Alaska were it's own country, because of its size and land mass it would rank 33rd among all of the world's nations. If Texas were it's own country, because of its size and land mass it would rank 40th among all of the world's nations. If California were it's own country, because of its size and land mass it would rank 59th among all of the world's nations. But what of the BLM - the Bureau of Land Management, an...

This idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. - Ronald Reagan, October 27th, 1964 Democracy, the moldy-oldy discredited system, was introduced in the year 507 BC. That's 2,500+ years, for those of you counting. The American Republic and the Liberty which it was founded on, which was never discredited but simply circumvented by progressives; by comparison was introduced in 1776 AD. That's 240 years. But who's counting? Democracy...

Specifically, the science that progressives are rejecting is Newtonian in nature. I'll explain: In the book Constitutional Government in the United States, Woodrow Wilson wrote the following:(page 57) Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Fortunately, the definitions and prescriptions of our constitutional law, though conceived in the Newtonian spirit and upon the Newtonian principle, are sufficiently broad and elastic to allow for the play of life and circumstance. To be even more specific, what Woodrow Wilson is doing as he is actively inventing the concept of the "living constitution", is holding up Darwinian science over...

Progressives are fond of selling old ideas as somehow being new, and the only real point that they have to rely on is that someone won't go and look it up. Meanwhile they engage in revisionist history, erasing and covering up historical facts, then progressives top it all off with the arrogance to claim that "Well the Founders could not have fore saw........" (finish the false claim) Mr. progressive, you would be wrong - as you always are. As recorded by James Madison, Gouverneur Morris made the following comment on August 9th, 1787: Mr. Govr. MORRIS. The lesson we are...

Have you ever scratched your head sometimes, when someone you know who you are sure is not progressive in any way, doesn't support big government, doesn't like it, and doesn't like people who are progressives and are constantly push for the biggest government man has ever known - sends you something or says something that makes you scratch your head? The end result is you say to yourself or to them: "You know who wrote that, right?" Enter the "An American's Creed". You ever heard of this? Chances are, you've seen it in whole or at least in part at...

Here's something I do not understand: The very same people who blast Margaret Sanger, and inevitably bring up the fact that she supported eugenics, will then turn around and defend Theodore Roosevelt with the deepest sincerity knowing full well that Theodore Roosevelt also supported eugenics. Somehow TR is a good progressive, but MS is a bad progressive. How is this possible?!?!?!???? In my book, there are no good progressives and I think every last one of them ought to be thrown out onto the ash heap of history. What follows are two quotes, and I defy anybody - anybody to...

Would anybody say to themselves that it must be that Margaret Sanger tripped, fell over, and landed on a Klansman? Yes, that must be it, I'm sure. It was all coincidence. She received an invitation to a Klan meeting, and everybody in her inner circle scratched their heads not having any clue how. When Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, she was close friends with one Lothrop Stoddard. They had been friends for years, as her publication Birth Control Review gave a very positive review of his most notorious book in 1914, almost a decade earlier. (See...

It has long ceased to be a secret that college campuses at all levels, from the highest ivy league centers down to community colleges, are centers of far far left wing indoctrination. Why then is it that corporations keep requiring 4 year and above degrees - many times for jobs that clearly don't need such a thing? Most of the time, if you don't have that bachelor degree, you aren't even getting in the door. Don't bother. Don't send an email, don't call, do not show up at the office. Just don't. Ok, Mr. Corporate toady boss. Let's examine your...

The Demise of a Highly Respected DoctrineBy Neva R. Deardorff, January 12, 1918 ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHILADELPHIA BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH LAISSEZ-FAIRE is dead! Long live social control! Social control, not only to enable us to meet the rigorous demands of war, but also as a foundation for the peace and brotherhood that is to come. This was the theme that ran strongly through all the annual meetings of the learned societies of the social sciences(1) which were held holiday week in Philadelphia. Education in idealistic concepts of service, toleration, justice, are in the future to underlie this social control and...

In the wake of Rolling Stone and its activist being found guilty of manufacturing a fraudulent rape hoax story, I wanted to start back at the beginning. Who was the first liberal journalist? Everything has a beginning. Where can you find that very first yellow brick in the road? Well, the first thing is making sure that we get the question right, otherwise we will produce garbage answers. In computer science, that falls into the category of "Garbage in, garbage out". So, "Who was the first liberal journalist in the age of objective journalism?".(meaning, when they started hiding their biases)...

Hey, did you know that Teddy once killed a lion? It's true. And they are going to put it on display again soon. People haven't seen this lion for two decades. Hey, did you know that Teddy really loved football? Hey, did you know that Teddy was a really avid outdoorsman? Hey, did you know that Teddy once was giving a speech, someone shot him, and he kept on speaking? Hey, did you know (pick your favorite wholly-divorced-from-governmental-policy-related-trivia and place it here)? I could just imagine if Ronald Reagan had shot a lion. The Washington Compost certainly wouldn't be celebrating...