How We Got Here....

PoliticalChic

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1. The sixties was a pivotal time in the formation, or reformation of this culture. One interesting explanation involves the numbers of individual coming of age at the time, who must be civilized by their families, schools, and churches. A particularly large wave may swamp the institutions responsible for teaching traditions and standards.

a. “Rathenau called [this] ‘the vertical invasion of the barbarians.’” Jose Ortega y Gasset, “The Revolt of the Masses,” p. 53. The baby boomers were a generation so large that they formed their own culture. The generation from 1922-1947 numbered 43.6 million, while that of 1946-1964 had 79 million.


2. The most effective organ for the transmission of culture is the family. The attitudes and mechanisms of social interaction begin, through observation, from infancy: how the group operates, the role of breadwinners, the role of dependents, questions of religion, race, charity, justice.

a. But if the family does not exist, attitudes toward these situations must be learned by the individual later in life, and to learn at this late state require conjecture, not observation. The flaw is that one must substitute his own intellect for that of myriad interactions of a society. To see the result of this process one need only review the success of Liberal government programs.

b. The interactions of the family were not based on ‘reason,’ but on tradition and experience, so less susceptible to casuistry. They were based on generations of experience so deep and ingrained that it could neither be absorbed nor parsed by reason. “This is the correct way to treat one’s wife, to express disapproval, to ask for help, for forgiveness, etc. etc….”


3. If a child does not learn through observation, through family, school and church, they may be considered arbitrary, and he may endeavor to create rules of his own, based on 'reason'. This secondary process can only be a self-excusatory rationalization for his desires: copulate freely, do not take on responsibility through marriage, do not respect or trust authority, demand governmental support, base political choices upon feelings rather than experience, don’t bother to learn a trade, and so on.


4. The child learns the lessons of virtue, civic and otherwise, religious devotion, marital behavior, restraint, self-esteem, and self-sufficiency in the home. If the home is destroyed, or its influence negated or derided, as it is by both welfare and by today’s Liberal Arts ‘education,’ it is difficult for the individual to come to a practicable, ethical view of the world.

a. His need and desire is warped into ‘there is something wrong with the world,” and he can be co-opted into participation into a grand new scheme to put things right. The scheme can be called Marxism, Socialism, Fascism, Cultural Revolution, or ‘hope and change.’
"The Secret Knowledge," David Mamet


b. The Progressive influence can be traced:
"The use of a university is to make young gentleman as unlike their fathers as possible."
Woodrow Wilson, first Progressive President

...and that is exactly what 'progressive' means.....
 
You were doing pretty well up to this point, allowing for biased value judgments:

The Progressive influence can be traced:
"The use of a university is to make young gentleman as unlike their fathers as possible."
Woodrow Wilson, first Progressive President

...and that is exactly what 'progressive' means.....

In the first place, Theodore Roosevelt was the first progressive (or industrial-liberal) president, not Wilson. In the second place, no, that's not "exactly what progressive means," and if you're going to talk about cultural change you're not talking politics and should leave political figures like Wilson out of it. And you appear to be getting confused anyway. Was this a spontaneous eruption of the Baby Boom generation, or a malicious plot by liberals controlling the universities? It can't be both, you know.

The first explanation (generational) is closer. Here's an even better one: we are changing our cultural values because we are changing our material circumstances. Traditional sexual and gender-relations morality as it is expressed in all of the so-called "great" religions is a product of the agrarian age, part of which involved the need for high birth rates. Hence condemnation of homosexuality, hence restriction of non-procreative sex, hence male domination of women (which studies show leads to higher birth rates). As we are no longer in the agrarian age, we are evolving a new sexual morality and a new balance between the sexes that is sharply different from the old one, just as that in turn was sharply different from the prevailing moral values among hunter-gatherer societies.

It's not as new as the Boomers, either. The process goes back to the 19th century if not earlier. The Boom generation did accelerate the process, but so did the Missionary generation some 70-80 years earlier (who accomplished women's suffrage and some other gains for gender equality). Nor does it have much to do with the size of the Boom. It had more to do with when we were born in the cycle of history. If you really are interested in what happened at that time and why, go here: Turnings
 
1. The sixties was a pivotal time...


b. The Progressive influence can be traced:
"The use of a university is to make young gentleman as unlike their fathers as possible."
Woodrow Wilson, first Progressive President

...and that is exactly what 'progressive' means.....

Only Democrat Woodrow Wilson is N-O-T considered America's first Progressive President. :laugh2:

I would love to know where you cribbed this shit from. Give credit to source(s)


Teddy Roosevelt Speech

Soundclip of TR campaigning for the Progressive Party (RealAudio format).
Sound clip courtesy of Dr. Maurice Crane, Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University.


sounds like Tea Party Populism?
We propose boldly to face the real and great questions of the day, and not skillfully to evade them as do the old parties. We propose to raise aloft a standard to which all honest men can repair, and under which all can fight, no matter what their past political differences, if they are content to face the future and no longer to dwell among the dead issues of the past. We propose to put forth a platform which shall not be a platform of the ordinary and insincere kind, but shall be a contract with the people; and, if the people accept this contract by putting us in power, we shall hold ourselves under honorable obligation to fulfill every promise it contains as loyally as if it were actually enforceable under the penalties of the law.
 
I think Glenn Beck and similar-minded yahoos wrongly tout Wilson as the first progressive president because TR was a Republican and recognizing him would blow the pretense that Republicans have always been conservative.
 
1. The sixties was a pivotal time...


b. The Progressive influence can be traced:
"The use of a university is to make young gentleman as unlike their fathers as possible."
Woodrow Wilson, first Progressive President

...and that is exactly what 'progressive' means.....

Only Democrat Woodrow Wilson is N-O-T considered America's first Progressive President. :laugh2:

I would love to know where you cribbed this shit from. Give credit to source(s)


Teddy Roosevelt Speech

Soundclip of TR campaigning for the Progressive Party (RealAudio format).
Sound clip courtesy of Dr. Maurice Crane, Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University.


sounds like Tea Party Populism?
We propose boldly to face the real and great questions of the day, and not skillfully to evade them as do the old parties. We propose to raise aloft a standard to which all honest men can repair, and under which all can fight, no matter what their past political differences, if they are content to face the future and no longer to dwell among the dead issues of the past. We propose to put forth a platform which shall not be a platform of the ordinary and insincere kind, but shall be a contract with the people; and, if the people accept this contract by putting us in power, we shall hold ourselves under honorable obligation to fulfill every promise it contains as loyally as if it were actually enforceable under the penalties of the law.

"Only Democrat Woodrow Wilson is N-O-T considered America's first Progressive President."
Really.
Who wrote that for you...get your money back.

1. Let’s begin with the idea that Teddy Roosevelt viewed his powers as President as superior to the restrictions of the Constitution, as in:

a. Teddy Roosevelt, during the Coal Strike of 1902: “To hell with the Constitution when people want coal.”

b. And in his (Roosevelt’s) speech “The New Nationalism,” 1902: “The state has a role in effecting economic equality, and superintending private property.”

c. And “The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good.”


2. But, the most powerful Progressive President was Woodrow Wilson…
“…no one was more important to the origins of the administrative state in America than Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow. Wilson served as the 26th President of the United States and was a leading academic advocate of Progressive ideas long before his entry into politics. Much of his contribution to Progressive thought came in his work from the 1880s,…” The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What It Means for Limited Government

Wilson actually put into effect views that he and Roosevelt shared. Under Wilson, the United States of America was the first fascist nation:
a. Had the world’s first modern propaganda ministry
b. Political prisoners by the thousands were harassed, beaten, spied upon and thrown in jail for simply expressing private opinions.
c. The national leader accused foreigners and immigrants of injecting treasonous ‘poison’ into the American bloodstream
d. Newspapers and magazines were closed for criticizing the government
e. Almost 100,000 government propaganda agents were sent out to whip up support for the regime and the war
f. College professors imposed loyalty oaths on their colleagues
g. Nearly a quarter million ‘goons’ were given legal authority to beat and intimidate ‘slackers’ and dissenters
h. Leading artists and writers dedicated their work to proselytizing for the government.
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Classical_Liberalism_vs_Modern_Liberal_Conservatism.pdf p. 9


3. Woodrow Wilson was a former college professor, first (and only) POTUS with a PhD was the first and probably the only president to have studied socialism, arguing that “in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same.” His numinous rhetoric resonated with the highest of principles: “Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals.” 1919: Betrayal and the Birth of Modern Liberalism by Fred Siegel, City Journal 22 November 2009

The study of socialism mentioned was a formal study, unlike that of the current President who 'studied' same at his mother's knee...
 
I think Glenn Beck and similar-minded yahoos wrongly tout Wilson as the first progressive president because TR was a Republican and recognizing him would blow the pretense that Republicans have always been conservative.

Bingo!

or they say, like they used to before the Berlin Wall fell, that Roosevelt like Reagan, was not a real conservative.

Reagan after the fall of the wall: Reagan Legacy Project
 
I think Glenn Beck and similar-minded yahoos wrongly tout Wilson as the first progressive president because TR was a Republican and recognizing him would blow the pretense that Republicans have always been conservative.

Bingo!

or they say, like they used to before the Berlin Wall fell, that Roosevelt like Reagan, was not a real conservative.

Reagan after the fall of the wall: Reagan Legacy Project

Oooooo......looks like you found a friend!

You may need an recipe book in addition to "Vegan Cooking For One."
 
TO: http://www.usmessageboard.com/members/politicalchic.html

Dante: Only Democrat Woodrow Wilson is N-O-T considered America's first Progressive President.

PoliChic: Really.
Who wrote that for you...get your money back.


maybe a cursory search of even Wikipedia can help PoliChic: The Progressive Party of 1912 was an American political party. It was formed by Theodore Roosevelt, after a split in the Republican Party between President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt.

PoliChic: Under Wilson, the United States of America was the first fascist nation - this is the kind of ridiculousness that keeps you on the fringe. In an academic environment where you might be stuck - learning h-o-w to make an argument and back it up like this is acceptable gibberish, judged not on it's credibility as a valid argument, but on it's ability to meet certain requirements laid out in a classroom - how to frame an argument.

Your assertions and reasoning, along with your bizarre ideological slant that sees black as white, are whack-a-doodle dandy for people who appreciate Ideological Lunacies. :clap2:

keep 'em coming
 
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I think Glenn Beck and similar-minded yahoos wrongly tout Wilson as the first progressive president because TR was a Republican and recognizing him would blow the pretense that Republicans have always been conservative.

Bingo!

or they say, like they used to before the Berlin Wall fell, that Roosevelt like Reagan, was not a real conservative.

Reagan after the fall of the wall: Reagan Legacy Project

Oooooo......looks like you found a friend!

You may need an[sic] recipe book in addition to "Vegan Cooking For One."

if you're going to act like you're in a Freshman Poli-sci class, you'll be graded like you are.


btw, I am no vegetarian
 
TO: http://www.usmessageboard.com/members/politicalchic.html

Dante: Only Democrat Woodrow Wilson is N-O-T considered America's first Progressive President.

PoliChic: Really.
Who wrote that for you...get your money back.


maybe a cursory search of even Wikipedia can help PoliChic: The Progressive Party of 1912 was an American political party. It was formed by Theodore Roosevelt, after a split in the Republican Party between President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt.

PoliChic: Under Wilson, the United States of America was the first fascist nation - this is the kind of ridiculousness that keeps you on the fringe. In an academic environment where you might be stuck - learning h-o-w to make an argument and back it up like this is acceptable gibberish, judged not on it's credibility as a valid argument, but on it's ability to meet certain requirements laid out in a classroom - how to frame an argument.

Your assertions and reasoning, along with your bizarre ideological slant that sees black as white, are whack-a-doodle dandy for people who appreciate Ideological Lunacies. :clap2:

keep 'em coming

Glad you opened the door. Will do.

The unaddressed heart of the OP is the huge misstep that occurred in the blending of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the resulting expulsion of religion and morality, and attempting to replace same with human reason.

The theme of the OP is that the huge generation of the 60's did the same....and the evolution of society was stunted and actually thrown backwards.

What we call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

Not big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions can replace the traditions that grow out of millennia of human interaction.


Go for it.
 
It has long been my opinion that the 80's generation is the worst in modern times.
Aptly named the "Me Generation" - it was the generation of complete self orientation...where everything revolves around whether it makes you happy or not. "If it feels good do it".
Also the generation where uber-consumerism took hold, also the first of over-consumption and mass credit card spending...first years of 3rd mortgages.
Etc. etc. etc.
 
Glad you opened the door. Will do.

The unaddressed heart of the OP is the huge misstep that occurred in the blending of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the resulting expulsion of religion and morality, and attempting to replace same with human reason.

The theme of the OP is that the huge generation of the 60's did the same....and the evolution of society was stunted and actually thrown backwards.

What we call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

Not big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions can replace the traditions that grow out of millennia of human interaction.


Go for it.
Religion and morality before the Enlightenment made the western world so much better to live in than France, after the French Revolution that Americans like Thomas Jefferson so admired. Heck, even Jefferson's closet ally in many things(Madison), had to push good ole Thom's and views aside on this one. The blending of the human reason parts of the Enlightenment, with parts of the ideology of American revolutionaries, gave the world a better template for republican democracy and freedom, and liberty, than France ever did.

Only time will tell whether the 60's revolution started a change in society that will be compared most like the French or American templates. It is too soon for a definitive judgement, but where your ideological conservatism shows through is where the weakest links are to be found. Your assumptions are that what ails America today is caused by the60's revolution. The causality is weak at best.

What ailed America prior to the 60's is conveniently left out of your argument, as if American society was a wonderful and stable utopia, until a new and evil generation sprang miraculously out of the gates of hell, in order to corrupt the heavenly Eden that was pre-60's America.

What you call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

I will grant you no...big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions, can replace the traditions that grow out of the millennium of human interaction. But traditions can be counterproductive and even destructive to society.

Tradition is not set in stone. Tradition would hinder progress of the species. Tradition is the last refuge of a conservative clinging to a past Eden like bliss, that never existed in reality.
 
Glad you opened the door. Will do.

The unaddressed heart of the OP is the huge misstep that occurred in the blending of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the resulting expulsion of religion and morality, and attempting to replace same with human reason.

The theme of the OP is that the huge generation of the 60's did the same....and the evolution of society was stunted and actually thrown backwards.

What we call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

Not big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions can replace the traditions that grow out of millennia of human interaction.


Go for it.
Religion and morality before the Enlightenment made the western world so much better to live in than France, after the French Revolution that Americans like Thomas Jefferson so admired. Heck, even Jefferson's closet ally in many things(Madison), had to push good ole Thom's and views aside on this one. The blending of the human reason parts of the Enlightenment, with parts of the ideology of American revolutionaries, gave the world a better template for republican democracy and freedom, and liberty, than France ever did.

Only time will tell whether the 60's revolution started a change in society that will be compared most like the French or American templates. It is too soon for a definitive judgement, but where your ideological conservatism shows through is where the weakest links are to be found. Your assumptions are that what ails America today is caused by the60's revolution. The causality is weak at best.

What ailed America prior to the 60's is conveniently left out of your argument, as if American society was a wonderful and stable utopia, until a new and evil generation sprang miraculously out of the gates of hell, in order to corrupt the heavenly Eden that was pre-60's America.

What you call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

I will grant you no...big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions, can replace the traditions that grow out of the millennium of human interaction. But traditions can be counterproductive and even destructive to society.

Tradition is not set in stone. Tradition would hinder progress of the species. Tradition is the last refuge of a conservative clinging to a past Eden like bliss, that never existed in reality.

Yet that is a major difference between progressive and conservative...not that there should be no change, but the rate of change.
 
Glad you opened the door. Will do.

The unaddressed heart of the OP is the huge misstep that occurred in the blending of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the resulting expulsion of religion and morality, and attempting to replace same with human reason.

The theme of the OP is that the huge generation of the 60's did the same....and the evolution of society was stunted and actually thrown backwards.

What we call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

Not big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions can replace the traditions that grow out of millennia of human interaction.


Go for it.
Religion and morality before the Enlightenment made the western world so much better to live in than France, after the French Revolution that Americans like Thomas Jefferson so admired. Heck, even Jefferson's closet ally in many things(Madison), had to push good ole Thom's and views aside on this one. The blending of the human reason parts of the Enlightenment, with parts of the ideology of American revolutionaries, gave the world a better template for republican democracy and freedom, and liberty, than France ever did.

Only time will tell whether the 60's revolution started a change in society that will be compared most like the French or American templates. It is too soon for a definitive judgement, but where your ideological conservatism shows through is where the weakest links are to be found. Your assumptions are that what ails America today is caused by the60's revolution. The causality is weak at best.

What ailed America prior to the 60's is conveniently left out of your argument, as if American society was a wonderful and stable utopia, until a new and evil generation sprang miraculously out of the gates of hell, in order to corrupt the heavenly Eden that was pre-60's America.

What you call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

I will grant you no...big government, nor technocrats and bureaucrats of the administration state, nor good intentions, can replace the traditions that grow out of the millennium of human interaction. But traditions can be counterproductive and even destructive to society.

Tradition is not set in stone. Tradition would hinder progress of the species. Tradition is the last refuge of a conservative clinging to a past Eden like bliss, that never existed in reality.

Yet that is a major difference between progressive and conservative...not that there should be no change, but the rate of change.
not the only argument. the fringe arguments which can and often do carry the day, are about change for change's sake and change as destructive to the very fabric of a society.

I always say progress has it's victims. Just ask the Luddites. :lol:

I will always be a Luddite at heart, which is different than being conservative of mind. Distinctions make me a liberal. :eusa_angel:
 
note: Progressive politics usually comes out of the social institutions that are the traditional repositories of religion and morality.

Before FDR, before Social Security and other progressive programs, the masses of American people would most likely have identified with the following...

Adelaide Anne Procter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Procter's poetry was strongly influenced by her religious beliefs and charity work; homelessness, poverty, and fallen women are frequent themes. Procter's prefaces to her volumes of poetry stress the misery of the conditions under which the poor lived, as do poems such as "The Homeless Poor":

In that very street, at that same hour,
In the bitter air and drifting sleet,
Crouching in a doorway was a mother,
With her children shuddering at her feet.

She was silent – who would hear her pleading?
Men and beasts were housed – but she must stay
Houseless in the great and pitiless city,
Till the dawning of the winter day. (51–58)
 
1. Let’s begin with the idea that Teddy Roosevelt viewed his powers as President as superior to the restrictions of the Constitution

BZZZT! No, let's not. Sorry, but "progressive" has an established meaning, and you don't get to redefine it for your own convenience.
 
What we call 'progressive' is that self-satisfied view that a group or a movement can judge all of the possibilities and permutations of their actions.

Nope, that's wrong, too. Sorry, but like I said, the word has an established meaning and you don't get to redefine it for your own convenience.
 

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