Capitalism's Savior (Everything You Believe About FDR Is False)

Wall Street Journal ^ | Wednesday, October 29, 2003 | CONRAD BLACK

[Dead Dog]

Slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. It was about the industrial north pushing unfavorable tarrifs onto the products of the South. We can play fast and lose with the facts, but the worse acts of racism in the US happend during the draft riots in NY City.

[JohnGalt]

Come on, you know how we got the economy rolling again.

After the Second World War Europe was broke and a rich capitalist had only two choices: hide his money in the mattress or put it in America. The dollar has been propped up for 50 years on this geo-political fact alone.

Inflationary measures allow government to sell debt on the open market, while cheap imports curb inflation by giving plenty for people to buy, even as our costs of living have gone through the roof.

Making England pay for armaments in gold, was also a clever idea, but that was by law in the post-WW I reforms, not FDR's idea.

[headsonpikes]

Throughout FDR's first term, radicals of all stripes were making great headway. Communists, Socialists, Technocracy folks, and all the various nativist fascist groups were agitating amongst the suffering millions.

New Deal socialism is America's political crime, not Roosevelt's solely.

[Restorer]

My point was that any Irish immigrating to American during or after the war were not doing it because of starvation in Ireland. If there was any starvation in Ireland during this time period, it was minimal.

If you will reword the questions in your second paragraph coherently, I will attempt to answer them

[Dead Dog]

see the examples of Russia and Germany

That is a small step to the left as opposed to one giant leap?

[JohnGalt]

That is the first bold and interesting thing you have said in two days of battling. You are on much better ground RE: Lincoln with such a stance.

Know only that I am a free thinker and am not waiting to spring the PC police on you.

Do you believe in violating property rights to achieve your end?

Is your dislike for say an Eric Rudolph based on pragamatism (his actions hurt the political cause, but killing abortionists is not all bad) or because it's wrong to commit a sin to fight a sin?

[JohnGalt]

That is a little clearer; I think understand your point.

Don't blame FDR for America, blame America for FDR, is that about right?


Yours in liberty,

[hchutch]

Would you rather have seen the USA go Communist or socialist?

A stich in time saves nine, as the saying went. And it worked. We have to fix that mess, we let it stick around for too long, but I'd say we got the better end of that deal.

[JohnGalt]

Apologies I forgot that I had not used the abortion example with you on an earlier exchange.

I am not sure what your stance on the "supreme evil" of our day abortion is, but I used the example of 20,000,000 women walking around who contracted to murder their own babies. Our society has long thought murderers should be punished so I was asking whether the cost (financial, cultural...) of putting 20,000,000 women in prison is worth it.

[presidio9]

We can play fast and lose with the facts, but the worse acts of racism in the US happend during the draft riots in NY City.

I'll agree with you there, but only if you have gotten your facts on the Five Points Riots from someone other than Lenoardo diCaprio. The Five Points Riots was about Irish people dodging the draft because they perceived the Civil War to be about "helping n-ggers." See, they did not like black people, because black people were their direct competition for employment. Did you know that the Irish rioters burned down an orphanage during the riot.

And wait a minute: Are you seriously comparing a week of rioting to 250 years of slavery? Are you? Where in God's name do you people come from?

[JohnGalt]

Not so fast. Capitalism is the free flow resources in the market place. FDR simply maintained a fort that charged the lowest extortion rates.

[B.Bumbleberry]

FDR was a great leader in the sense that he was able to get people to accept his policies and programs, no matter how flawed. He was a horrible President in the sense that he came close to injecting socialism wholesale into this country and tried his best to destroy free enterprise.

He and his idealists mounted an unbelievably comprehensive attack on American business, to which they erroneously ascribed the cause of the depression. If he had not been thwarted by a courageous majority of the SC, we would have a totally different economy today and people would undoubtedly be much poorer.

For myself, I think the evidence weighs heavily in favor of those who think FDR prolonged the depression.

[JohnGalt]

Can we drop the GofNY reference?

I dropped the reference in jest the other day because I saw you were from NY and went out on a limb that you might be Irish--wonder if we are related... What county?

[hopespringseternal]

When he entered office in 1933, unemployment was at 33%, there was almost no public-sector relief for the jobless, 45% of family homes had been -- or were in imminent danger of being -- foreclosed, and the Chicago Grain Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange and the banking system had collapsed. Almost no one was engaged in agriculture on an economically sustainable basis and the nation's food supply was apt to be severely interrupted at any time.

I'm not buying it. For one thing, all the old timers told me that the foreclosures came much later and were not for delinquent mortgage payments, but for property taxes. This is how the government acquired embassy row.

While farming was difficult, most old farmers expressed the sentiment that the depression did not have the earth-shattering impact depicted here. Factory workers and urban dwellers took the full force of the depression, farmers and rural dwellers were one step removed from it.

Of course, this is anecdotal and these people were children or young adults, so take this as you may.

At any rate, there is ample debate that the bottom had been reached and the recovery that happened under FDR was unrelated to his hand-waving and pronouncements. In the end, he may have expanded government simply because the opportunity existed, irrelevant to how it affected the economy. In fact, many of his own advisors warned him that his actions were detrimental to recovery, but he pressed on because the political situation was ripe for their implementation.

[Skooz]

World War II ended the Great Depression. FDR had little to do with it.

[Orbiting_Rosie's_Head]

FDR finished whatever was left of the Old Republic that Lincoln had not destroyed.

Let's not forget that it was Wilson who gave FDR the weapons to do it, and that it was Johnson who dealt a stunning blow to the family.

[presidio9]

I believe that the first inalienable right is the right to life. It superceeds all other rights. The second is liberty. The third is property. In that order. Get the picture.

That being said, as long as legalized abortion is the law of the land, there is nothing to be gained from killing abortionists. When it is finally outlawed, I would have no problem with performing an abortion being named a capital offense. I make no distinction between an unborn human being and one a few months older.

All of that being said, it is tangential and irrelevant. As I pointed out, there is nothing to be gained by fighting a guerilla campaign against doctors who perform abortions. As long as it is legal, it will continue to go on. There was plenty to be gained from participating in the Underground Railroad, because plenty of slaves gained their freedom and no one took their place. That is why the abortion debate does not make a useful analogy to slavery. Until you accept the fact that abolishing slavery was one of the most important things ever done by in this country anything else you have to say is either ignorant or irrelevant.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Until you start with the premise that slavery was a supreme evil perpetrated by a small minority in this country no other rationalization you attempt to supply is valid.

Any statement which requires a policy be assumed 'supreme' anything is invalid by its nature.
Q.E.D.

Your personal disgust at the moral repugnancy of slavery does not indicate that the nature of the Republic should have been abolished to eliminate a social evil, however abominable. Legal means could and should have been utilized more fully. Lincoln alone was not to blame for this escalation.

[JohnGalt]

I go back and forth between who is third worse: Wilson or LBJ. Thoughts?