Teddy Roosevelt: The Strenuous Life (EXCELLENT)

Roosevelt speech before the Hamilton Club ^ | MARCH 31, 1900 | Teddy Roosevelt

[Benrand]

I thought this applies to what the Country is going through now, it's a great speech. Too bad he's a Dead White Guy and the Academy doesn't care for military studies. I just read it again, the Jane Fonda's have been around for a long time.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

[Benrand]

Got the date wrong, sorry.

SPEECH BEFORE THE HAMILTON CLUB, CHICAGO, APRIL 10, 1899

[el_texicano]

My favorite president. You have to admire the spirit which he exuded for his times. May God grant us true men such as he, true leaders of his mettle. What would he have said today after the Sept. 11th tragedy?? I suspect our ears might have burned after Teddy got through speaking.

[liberallarry]

He's the one. Check out his later life, if you don't know it already, the part where he goes off hiking in unexplored South America, past 50 years of age, with a badly damaged body.

[nofriendofbills]

", the Jane Fonda's have been around for a long time. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!"

The Jane Fonda's are always with you, the question is do we have enough TR's today?

And to what extent are we ready to emulate him ourselves?

[texasbluebell]

Speak softly and carry a BIG stick! I think our enemies have not seen our big stick enough lately. Soon, very soon...

[Benrand]

Bump

[BillyBoy]

Ya gotta admit, Teddy Roosevelt had incredible physical strength and mentally he was a giant among historical writers.

[KillTime]

It is not the Critic who counts, not the one who points out how the Strong man Stumbled or how the Doer of Deeds might have done better. The Credit belongs to the Man who is actually in the Arena, whose face is Marred with Sweat and Dust and Blood; who Strives Valiantly; who Errs and comes short again and again; who knows the Great Enthusiasms, the Great Devotions, and spends himself in a Worthy Cause; who, if he wins, knows the Triumph of High Achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while Daring Greatly, so that His Place shall never be with those Cold and Timid Souls who know neither Victory nor Defeat.

~T. Roosevelt

[Benrand]

Self-help. What a novel idea. Toughness, what a concept. In place of Teddy's ballsy take-em-on attitude, we get Oprah and crying.

[Austin Willard Wright]

I much prefer William Graham Sumner's sensible and wonderful essay published the same year: "The Conquest of the United States by Spain." Sumner was a voice of reason compared to the wild man from Oyster Bay.

T.R. has the dubious distinction of being on the only president in American history to praise war per se. In this respect, he rejected the great American tradition of nonintervention and opposition to entangling alliances as represented by Washington and Jefferson. As T.R. wrote in 1897, "In strict confidence....I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one." (Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956, 50

[liberallarry]

He was a man of his time. So far, America has always managed to find them when it needed them.

[Austin Willard Wright]

A man of his time? Why is that necessarily deserving of praise? If you are looking for heroes who rose above their time, check out William Graham's Sumner's excellent, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain" also delivered in 1899.

[liberallarry]

I will, simply because all these guys are brilliant and well worth reading.

But I always found Washington's and Jefferson's isolationist views unrealistic. They weren't even correct at the time they were made. After all, we needed French help to beat the British. At best, they served a tactical purpose for a short (historical) period of time.

We are an expansionist nation. Always have been. Alliances and entanglements are thus doubly unavoidable.

As to being a man of his time, I didn't mean that was admirable....I meant the nation got what it needed. I find T.R. admirable, period.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Are you saying that interventionism is "realistic." If so, perhaps you could answer these two questions? Who created and funded Bin Laden's organization in the 1980s? Who paid the Taliban 43 million dollars earlier this year as a reward for erradicating drugs? The answer, of course, is the U.S. The "unrealistic" "isolationists" call this blowback or, if you prefer, the law of unintended consequences. The "realists" merely ignore the problem.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Your point about the French Alliance is interesting. From the American standpoint, it clearly shortened the war and prevented a long and bloody guerrilla struggle that would have probably also produced American victory. Having said that, it was a disaster for the intervening power: France. Paying for the costs of the war helped to produce the fiscal and tax crisis which eventually led to the French Revolution.

[liberallarry]

And your point is....?

[liberallarry]

Sorry first post is the reply to your second post. This is to your first.

"Are you saying that interventionism is "realistic."

Realistic. Unavoidable. Not Easy. Just as Teddy said.

[Austin Willard Wright]

My point is that I am the interventionists are not truly the realists in this debate. The noninterventionists are. I raised specific facts to point this out. Your response is.....

[Austin Willard Wright]

Inteventionism is perfectly avoidable. The Swiss have avoided it for several centuries. Noninterventionism isn't "easy" either though it is the most realistic choice in a world of imperfect alternatives.