Pretty good post, fox.
the only thing I will add, and I believe it is the start point of all that comes into your post, is the federal reserve act of 1913. those who know our history, know that the founders were dead set against central banking and for very good measure. We fought wars to keep the central banks off these shores.
Without the ability to expand the money supply, the wars and the welfare programs would never have been possible without taaxing the populace into oblivion. Which, would have made both of these terrible policies extremely unfavorable with voters and would likely have kept the authoritarian creep at bay.
otherwise, perhaps debatable on your third point (as I believe the 60s counterculture was actually a reaction, verse a stand alone problem), I'm in complete agreement with that assessment.
Good points. However, I think if Teddy Roosevelt had been challenged and stopped when he began federalizing the free market and manipulating the system--he was far too popular and admired to challenge I suppose--then Woodrow Wilson, two administrations later and sometimes thought of as the father of modern progressivism, would never have been able to create the Federal Reserve. Probably neither of them were able to see what monsters they had given birth to though. I don't think either of them intended to harm the country, but unless power is checked, it seems to almost always careen out of control.
As for the cultural revolution, it of course began as a protest of the insanity of the Vietnam War. And then it morphed into its own thing, sucking in the young by the thousands, and lulling them into complacency and full rebellion by unlimited access to booze and mind altering drugs. And much of it was utilized and absorbed into the progressive moment started under Wilson.
"As for the cultural revolution, it of course began as a protest of the insanity of the Vietnam War. And then it morphed into its own thing, sucking in the young by the thousands, and lulling them into complacency and full rebellion by unlimited access to booze and mind altering drugs."
1. No doubt the war was a factor.
2. That said, it is easy to forget the huge numbers of babies born after WWII,...and there is a case to be made that the society could not assimilate same as far as values and attitude.
a. The sixties was a pivotal time in the formation, or reformation of this culture. One interesting explanation involves the
huge 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.
see chapter one of Bork, "Slouching Toward Gomorrah."
b. 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. Would it surprise anyone if this culture was opposed to that of their parents?
“Rathenau called [this] ‘the vertical invasion of the barbarians.’” Jose Ortega y Gasset, “The Revolt of the Masses,” p. 53.
3. As far as a reaction to 'the insanity'...no, it was the creator of insanity.
a. The unrest of the sixties was born in June of 1962 at the AFL-CIO camp at Port Huron, Michigan.
Some prior rumblings had been heard in a nascent civil rights movement, and from the Free Speech movement at Berkeley- but it was the Port Huron meetings that represented the heart of Sixties radicalism.
b. Port Huron was an early convention of SDS, a small group of alienated, left-wing college students, 59 from 11 campuses.
c. One member gave this prescription: “
four-square against anti-Communism, eight-square against American-culture, twelve-square against sell-out unions, one hundred and twenty against an interpretation of the Cold War that saw it as a Soviet plot and identified American policy fondly.” Todd Gitlin, “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,” p. 109-110
4. A draft of the meeting can be found at
Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962.
It sets forth
an agenda for changing human nature, the nation, and the world. In it, one can hear the ignorance and arrogance so inherent in adolescents: the euphoria due to being convinced of their own wisdom, moral purity, and ability to change everything.
5.
Did you notice the hallmark of totalitarian thought, mentioned earlier in this thread, "agenda for changing human nature..."?
