[Cicero]

I was a little boy when Roosevelt was president, but I heard plenty of muttering about him at the time. People were just a bit careful not to raise their voices, or somebody would respond with the standard put-down: “Shut up. Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

But I knew a lot of grown ups who hated Roosevelt, and I grew up thinking that way myself. And later, though not very often, I would come across the suggestion that the world would have emerged from the Depression in 1936 if Roosevelt hadn’t plunged us all back in again.

No, he wasn’t just a leftist, he was surrounded by Communists, and was probably covertly a Communist himself, although probably he never carried a card.

Even the war, considered to be his greatest accomplishment, succeeded in defeating Hitler and Tojo, but also succeeded in setting Stalin up as the conqueror of much of Europe—indeed, for a while it looked like he might get all of it, with the help of Communists in France and Italy.

Roosevelt handed over Eastern Europe to Communism, and he began the process of handing over China to Communism.

And he left the heritage of the Welfare State, that has undermined our freedoms and increased the size of the Underclass ever since.

[ex-snook]

"The American consensus is Schlesinger's consensus: that FDR saved democracy from fascism "

My recall says the country was in far more danger from communism than fascism. The veteran march on Washington was for jobs and the promised bonus. They squatted in tents until MacArthur and troops forced them away. 'Hooverville' was hardly an assembly of fascists. Fascism, for it's short reign in the world, gathers a lot more fear than the still present communism.

[FreeKeys]

there has been curiously little argument.

Oh, really?

THE  BEST  of  all  the  SCANDALOUS  BIRTHDAY  PARTY REVELATIONS "... regarding the Great Depression: You're right, we did it."-- what Federal Reserve Board Governor (now Chairman) Ben Bernanke finally said to Nobel Laureate Dr. Milton Friedman, at Milton's 90th birthday celebration, meaning that indeed, the Great Depression WAS caused by, AND prolonged by, THE GOVERNMENT, as Friedman had always said.. [Financial Review, 12-9-2002]  Also see Rethinking the Great Depression HERE, America's Great Depression HERE,The Roosevelt Myth  HERE, Forgotten Lessons HERE, Essays on the Great Depression HERE, and FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell HERE.  Also check out the Burton Folsom speech on the Great Depression HERE and  the audio lecture, The Cause and Consequence of the Great Depression (CD) HERE."Scratch the surface of an endemic problem -- famine, illness, poverty -- and you invariably find a politician at the source."--  Simon Carr, in his review of The Mystery of Capital  by Hernando de Soto

HERE

"There is no need here to attempt to explain FDR's economic reasoning, if such an explanation is even possible. Speaking of the President's acquaintance with economics, biographer John T. Flynn noted that 'it is entirely possible that no one knew less about that subject than Roosevelt.' [from The Roosevelt Myth]  What is important is that these economic fallacies would have terrible consequences. The President's faulty grasp of what had caused the Depression led him to introduce a system whose operation was quite similar to the old guild structure, with the explicit intention of reducing competition." -- Thomas E. Woods, Jr., HERE

[newguy357]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: FDR did more damage to the republic than any other single individual. Read Milton Friedman's Free to Choose to learn a little about that if interested.

[farmer18th]

Who ever HAD reverence for FDR? If he were around at the founding of the republic, he would have been run out of town with a stick.

[snowsislander]

Yes, I think President Franklin Roosevelt was our greatest disaster on the domestic side.

In reading some of his executive orders, it's clear to me that he had no respect for our constitution. His bullying of the judiciary also was indicative of his contempt for our system, with his threats to pack the Supreme Court unless it did his bidding.

[STONEWALLS]

I was born in 1943 and growing up heard plenty of folks say that FDR put us on the road to socialism.....this was especially true in the 60s when LBJ started cranking up EVEN MORE entitlement programs....my great uncle who owned a lumber/coal business was especially angry at the course FDR put the country on.

[Rumplemeyer]

Ping, read later