Posted on 12/07/2006 4:36:39 AM PST by shrinkermd
...Those who say that Mr. Bush's campaign for global democracy is overreaching (again, including this writer) should also note that democ- ratization is a thread that runs through American history. One of President Wilson's goals in World War I was to make the world safe for democracy. That is not quite the same thing as making it democratic, but it's a big step. Even before Pearl Harbor, in the State of the Union message in January, 1941, President Roosevelt proclaimed a goal of ensuring "four essential human freedoms." They were freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. He wanted to see all of these everywhere in the world.
The attack on Pearl Harbor put the US on the road to becoming a world power. It did not end the debate over America's role in the world, but it did end the debate over whether the US has a role - it does.
It helped end the Great Depression that had begun in 1929, something that all the New Deal programs of the 1930s could not do, though they did ameliorate it. In this process, itchanged American society. With 14 million men in the armed forces, women entered the labor force in unprecedented numbers. Their granddaughters are still there.
It marked the faint beginnings of the civil rights movement... President Truman used an executive order to integrate the armed forces after the war. Other steps followed.
And I bet they didn't complain if they were sent by "chickenhawk" Frank Roosevelt to fight Germany, a country that "never did anyhing to us."
I for one think it is unecessary to give the gift of democracy to these 6th century Islamofascist thinkers....I think a WWII attitude should have been the way to go....like carpet bombing the cities of the middle east back to the stone age with techniques developed for use against Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo...these middle easterners respect power and death and laugh at our light handed approach to war....they get much worse than that from their own rulers.....the US is a cake walk to them by comparison.
I tend to agree with you on that and if he did that after 9/11, the majority of America would have approved. Hell, I even say destroy the oil fields. I place my faith that America would develop something quickly before any other nation on this earth could.
I wasn't alive, but I remember what Mom told us. She and Grandma were coming home from church, they always rode the bus to church as Grandma had never learned to drive. They were standing on a street corner waiting for this bus when the word was passed through the group. Mom was 20 years old.
Bravo! Good one.
I had forgotten about the draft and I'm pretty sure most people are not aware that the draft was instituted before Pearl Harbor.
The first two are good, because they are the government's role, and because they are spelled out in the Constitution.
The second two -- freedom from want, and freedom from fear -- are not only not the government's role, but they are impossible for a government to provide. Want and fear are character defects of individuals, and people need to work on THEMSELVES. Then maybe -- by the grace of G-d -- they will be removed.
My father and one uncle (who damn near got killed) fought their way through France and into Germany. My dad never wanted to go camping when my brother and I were kids because he said he got enough of that during the war. Another uncle was stationed in the Pacific where he said he spent a lot of time surfing and playing cards; I could never tell if he was joking or not.
FDR and the greatest generation deviated from the Constitution irrevocably with this sort of tripe.
We are still paying big for this bogus speech of FDR, and for all his other garbage.
People are already forgetting that 9/11 ever took place, and that is only a ltitle over five years. That people remember that Pearl Harbor ever occurred, may disappear as witnesses to that day pass from the scene.
I remember Pearl Harbor, not for the signal events of the day (I was not yet quite four years old), but because my father had just purchased a brand new 1942 Ford on December 6th. And paid what he though was just one hell of a price ($1,042). He could have sold it the following Monday morning for probably twice that, but then, what would he have for a car?
Since my father was a farmer, he was on "C" gasoline rationing, essentially unlimited, and that vehicle got hard use as a truck, ambulance, even pressed into use pulling trailers and one memorable instance, substituted for a tractor, pulling a hay rake. Didn't have enough traction to pull a plow, though. (In case you are wondering, there was a bumper hitch bolted on the back bumper and extending up to the frame.)
When you have to drive a nail, a lot of things look like a hammer.
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