It is impossible to invent constitutional devices which will prevent the popular will from being effective for wrong without also preventing it from being effective for right. Our aim must be the moralization of the individual, of the government, of the people as a whole. We desire the moralization not only of political conditions but of industrial conditions, so that every force in the community, individual and collective, may be directed toward securing for the average man, and average woman, a higher and better and fuller life in the things of the body no less than those of the mind and the soul.
Hey nicollo,
It’s incredible that the more that gets discovered of Theodore Roosevelt’s actual policies,(Policy proposals) you know, things of more substance than just that he shot a lion. The more anti-constitutionalist he obviously was. Obama could have said this, what you quoted from that speech.
But I wanted to ask you something different. I noticed something, let me know if you have noticed the same thing.(now that I’m mentioning it)
Have you ever noticed the aversion amongst conservatives to look at the progressive era from 1900 to 1920? There seem to be three primary camps:
1) Those who absolutely refuse to look at anything older than 1960. “Those damn hippies, it’s all their fault!” - or, The Weather Underground, or however you’ve seen it worded. All of the evils of progressivism begin in the 1960s and they’re proud to say it.
2) Those who cast it all to FDR. Both of these eras are problematic, but neither are “the source”.
3) Those who try to make arguments about progressivism before progressivism even existed. This group is highly disorganized. They’ll blame the Enlightenment, they’ll blame Abraham Lincoln, they’ll blame several other weird and kooky things. I get surprised sometimes when a new one appears.
But all three have the same problem. They all do everything they possibly can to avert their gaze from the actual literal progressive era. The era was so progressive it’s actually named the progressive era and yet they refuse to look at it. They’ll bend forward, they’ll bend backward, they’ll twist into knots and all sorts of other pretzel shaped formations. They cannot be moved. They will not look. The progressive era is 100% off limits. The progressive era is a protected species.
You may have noticed this, maybe not. But now that I mention it, have you seen this formula?
Why do you think there is such an aversion to discussing the era where progressivism was born?