Replies

Look, if you want to criticize Theodore Roosevelt and his progressive politics, be my guest. If you wish to state he did a lot to violate the country and its foundational origins, again, be my guest.

However, if you’re going to do that, I strongly suggest you tear Thomas Jefferson up even further than Theodore Roosevelt, since according to various sources including Liberty the God that Failed, he potentially rivaled even Barack Obama, much less Theodore Roosevelt, as a big government ogre/progressive. Let’s list some stuff he enacted when he became President under the promise of ending Federalism (as you can read here: http://distributistreview.com/review-liberty-the-god-that-failed-part-i/):

“1. His call for the shooting of Tory counter-revolutionaries who should have been treated as prisoners of war, pursuant to a bill of attainder he himself drafted and pushed through the Virginia legislature.

2. Jefferson’s support for the early Jacobin massacres as expressed in the “Adam and Eve” letter.

3. His lifelong ownership of slaves, some of whom he had flogged for attempting to escape, and his continued slave trading while President.

4. Endorsement of state law prosecutions for “seditious libel” against the President and Congress.

5. His approval of an expedient and quite illegal “amendment” of the Constitution by the Republican-controlled House to expand the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in order to facilitate the impeachment of his Federalist opponent, Judge Pickering, for drunkenness.

6. Jefferson’s declaration that ‘where the laws become inadequate even to their own preservation… the universal resource is a dictator, or martial law.’

7. His embargo of American shipping, including the federal seizure of ships and cargoes, without due process.

8. His instigation of “treason” trials and his demand for the death penalty for American citizens who had merely attempted to recover their own property from federal agents. (Christopher A. Ferra, Liberty, the God That Failed (Angelico Press, 2012), 237-239.)”

And that’s not even the half of it: Apparently, there was also this to consider:

“The Loyalty oath statute Jefferson drafted for the Virginia legislature is typical of these totalitarian measures. The purpose of the loyalty or test oath was, of course, to flush out suspected Tories whose hidden thoughts were threats to the revolutionary cause. Jefferson’s definition of a Tory, written in defense of the loyalty oath, is supremely illustrative of the manner in which he and his fellow radicals imposed what they called Liberty on those who would dissent even inwardly from their program: A Tory has been properly defined to be a traitor in thought, but not in deed. The only description, by which the laws have endeavored to come at them, was that of non-jurors, or persons refusing to take the oath of fidelity to the state.(Ibid. 160)”

And did I mention that Jefferson actually attempted to implement loyalty oaths to people as young as 16 years old? He declared that all 16 year olds are to, and I quote:

“[S]wear or affirm that I renounce and refuse all allegiance to George the third, king of Great Britain, his heirs and successors,, to profess absolute allegiance to Virginia as a free and independent state, and to turn over to the authorities anyone known to be involved in treasons or traitorous conspiracies which I now or hereafter shall know to be formed against this or any of the United States of America.”

And for those who fail to do so, well, Ferrara gives some details there, as well:

“Whoever refused to take the oath was disarmed, stripped of his voting rights and barred from holding public office, serving on juries, suing for money or acquiring property. Jefferson also participated in drafting a statute that subjected non-jurors to triple taxation.(Ibid., 160.)”

Oh, and he also pulled a Woodrow Wilson by promising to end Federalism, yet then proceeded to double down on John Adam’s policies by declaring that “we are all Federalists now” in his second term.

Honestly, taking all that into account, he makes Theodore Roosevelt seem like someone who actually CARED for the Constitution by comparison. And don’t get me started on his support for the Jacobin horrors despite Morris and even William Short’s exposure of just how horrific it was (and Jefferson actually liked Short), even doubling down on the support every single year up to 1793, and even there, he pretty much dropped support because it was politically inconvenient.

Heck, forget Jefferson, the entire premise of progressivism was present in even Locke’s writings, which inspired at the very least Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and possibly Ben Franklin. I’ll even quote the relevant sections:

“A few decades later, the “cautious Locke, standing in Hobbe’s shadow, announces the same new doctrine but with far more prudent language, adding a fundamental development regarding private property…Locke’s doctrine is essentially the Hobbesian state of nature with an emphasis on private property as the primary means of defending the right to self-preservation. His description of the state of nature pleasingly presents it as one of “Peace, Good Will, Mutual Assistance, and Preservation”, with ‘Men living together according to reason, without a common Superior on Earth, with authority to judge between them’ only to concede – literally one page and one section later – that it inevitably devolves into Hobbe’s “State of War” on account of the “want of positive Laws and judge with Authority to appeal to…’ Man is born, says Lock with “a title to perfect Freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the Rights and Privileges of uncertain and constantly exposed to the Invasion of others.’ The inevitable State of War ‘once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace’. No matter what Locke’s apologists in academia labor to find by way of distinctions, Hobbes and Locke are essentially at one in their teaching on a state of nature that is really a state of war, giving rise to a “natural law” that is really a natural right to self-preservation by any means necessary. Like Hobbes, Locke declares in the state of nature ‘every man hath a right to punish the Offender, and be Executioner of the Law of nature’ which is none other than the right to self-preservation.(Ibid. 58-59.)”

And here’s Hobbe’s original ideology, and you’ll notice there’s barely any difference between the two (and Hobbes is basically the guy who promotes tyranny to secure society, aka, Progressivism):

“For Hobbes, natural law in the state of nature is not God’s law written on man’s heart, but merely “a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and omit that by which he thinketh it may be best reserved.

According to Hobbes, while God has decreed the laws of nature, man has no innate understanding of them, as is shown by varying human opinions over what the natural law requires. Hence, man must be guided solely by the decisions of the civil authorities… Hobbes then, is a legal positivist and a voluntarist: right and wrong are determined solely by the will of the legislator upon emergence from the state of nature, for ‘Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.’ The doctrine seems shocking until we realize that it represents the juridical status quo of political modernity: the will of the majority trumps the objective moral order.(Ibid. 57.)”

So yeah, what both Hobbes AND Locke stated essentially said that humanity was essentially a brute where natural law has absolutely no effect on him and needs government overreach to restrain and grant rights.

Like I said, you want to trash on Theodore Roosevelt for his progressive views and how they tarnished America, go right on ahead, but I strongly suggest that you be consistent in your criticisms and also direct them to Thomas Jefferson, and maybe also all of the founding fathers if you must, and also direct them to John Locke and Hobbes as well, since they had the idea of progressivism as defined by Roosevelt and his ilk LONG before Roosevelt was even born. Roosevelt may have merely spat on the constitution, but Jefferson spat on, used as toilet paper, and outright burned the constitution.

And BTW, that’s not even the only sources I have on Jefferson’s progressive actions. I can also cite these ones as well:

*https://youtu.be/o1ZgmqPZB5k / http://the-american-catholic.com/2016/07/14/july-14-1789-first-bastille-day/

*http://catholicism.org/liberty-the-god-that-failed.html

*http://catholicism.org/enlightenment-not-over.html