The History of Conservatism

April 16, 2016 /  jttexas  /  Blog

Conservatism in America began with its founding, however we will concern ourselves with the modern conservative movement which began in the early to mid 50s.

The modern American conservative movement is often identified by historians to be born in 1953 with the publishing of The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk and the founding of the National Review by William F. Buckley in 1955. The late William Buckley is considered by many to be the modern father of conservatism as he had a tremendous gift for articulating the modern views of the ideology. The movement did not gain enough in strength to field a presidential candidate until 1964 when Barry Goldwater ran against the incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson but lost in a landslide. However, that election showed that the movement had taken root, ala a grass root that appealed to a wide spectrum of voters who initially were composed of various fractious groups, namely disaffected Roman Catholics, some libertarians, anti-communists and a variety of other traditionalists. Conservatives would not field another candidate until 1976 when Ronald Reagan tried to take over the Republican Party from Gerald Ford. But again the conservative lost, this time in the primary and it was said the movement was doomed. But Reagan vowed to return and he did in sensational fashion when in 1980 he defeated the Democrat incumbent in an electoral landslide, the first elected incumbent president ousted since Herbert Hoover in 1932. Ronald Reagan was then reelected in 1984 by the largest electoral margin in history, cementing the conservative movement as a permanent force.

The conservative movement drifted toward a big-government bent with the election of George H. W. Bush in 1988. However, it was this era that the second coming of conservatism was reborn in the body of one Rush Limbaugh who became the iconic voice of the movement from the time of his national arrival in 1989 to present. Rush took the mantel from William Buckley to become the modern day “politiwonk of conservatives”. Even with Rush Limbaugh, the movement had to be content with maintaining a base of supporters without national leadership as Bill Clinton had ousted the moderate Bush in 1992. And so the hiatus continued for 8 long years but with conservatives controlling Congress for most of the period were able to moderate the progressive leanings of Bill Clinton. Finally George W. Bush tried to redefine conservatism by labeling his brand “compassionate conservatism”, which we found out just meant bigger-spending and bigger-government, perhaps in response to the mainstream media’s attempts to skew and obscure the ideology as “mean and stingy”. President Bush had upheld the conservative long-held philosophy of supporting a strong national defense but had failed on the domestic side and drove conservatives to the bunkers once again. Hence, Barrack Hussein Obama, the most liberal member of the Senate defeated the moderate of moderates, John McCain and buried conservatives again.

But as history shows, when political overreach exceeds voter expectations new movements are born. One such movement was born of this overreach, the “Tea Party Movement” which began with the idea from a CNBC business reporter suggesting ironically that we should hold a tea party in Chicago of all places. The Tea Party Movement possessed an amazing ability to avoid identifying with any single leader or leadership organization and concentrated on the broad electorate in the 2010 midterm elections with great success. As the newly formed Tea Party Movement gained strength the mainstream media began to fight back as they sought to define the new movement as “angry white racists” before it could lift off its grass roots. But the movement was so broad and non-centralized, the mainstreamers could not identify a single leader to demonize and were left with vague references and innuendos that thus far have been ineffective against its leaders, however they did succeed in driving the movement somewhat underground. The mainstreamers were aided by a politically active IRS who harassed and intimidated the Tea Party participants. The movement was further eroded by the emergence of Donald Trump starting in May 2015 who attracted some of the less conservative elements of its membership.

The conservative movement or what is left of it has now completely adopted its new leader in “Constitutional Conservative” Ted Cruz. It seems whenever movements begin to attach adjectives to their names, aka, “compassionate”, “constitutional”, “social”, “fiscal” is when we must admit we may be again on the decline. We think of Ronald Reagan as “conservative”, nothing more and nothing less, but it is the “Johnny-come-latelys” who just wish to be elected under the mantel of conservatism who corrupt our name. The measure of a true conservative according to Reagan is one must stand on all three legs of conservatism, i.e., ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, and NATIONAL DEFENSE. When judging one’s characteristics to meet Reagan’s guidelines who among the current movement leaders satisfy all three?

I have concluded that only Ted Cruz satisfies all the criteria to take over the mantel of conservatism. Rush agrees. In fact Cruz has redefined conservatism to such a degree that even Ronald Reagan would not measure up to the new standard.

The History of Progressivism

March 21, 2016 /  jttexas  /  Blog

One could write a book on the subject, but this will be a condensed summary of the events beginning with the birth of Progressivism in modern America. First we must ask, “What is Progressivism?” Progressivism is a belief in a strong central government to take a leading role in the shaping of the economic, cultural and societal disposition of it’s country and citizenry. That is MY definition. Progressivism has been around since shortly after the nation’s founding but did not take root until 1912 when the movement’s first president was elected.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson, elected as the 28th president of the United States is considered by most historians as the father of modern American Progressivism. Using his progressive agenda Woodrow Wilson was responsible for many progressive programs and ideas. He secured passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 which established the Fed as the proprietors of the nation’s banking concerns. Woodrow Wilson was the first to challenge the governmental orthodoxy with a solid progressive agenda and used his executive powers to extreme, most say illegally to further his cause.

Progressives such as Woodrow Wilson did not believe in civil rights for blacks. Woodrow Wilson believed that giving blacks the right to vote was “the foundation of every evil in this country”. He was the first president after the Civil War to re-segregate portions of the federal government requiring separate bathrooms for blacks in many government buildings. One of Wilson’s biggest heroes was Abraham Lincoln, but not as the Great Emancipator but for his reputational fortitude to impose his will on the country. Wilson admired Lincoln’s dictates to suspend habeas corpus, enforce the draft and his willingness to project power across the land. Wilson presided over World War I exercising what many historians consider the most dictatorial American presidency ever by imprisoning American citizens of German descent and suspending habeas corpus. Wilson took it a step further by actually imprisoning political prisoners, not just Germans. He believed in extreme venues some of which were adopted by Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini, such as eugenics, political propaganda, Socialism and the gas chamber. Indeed, Adolph Hitler got many of his ideas from Woodrow Wilson and American Progressives. Besides Adoph Hitler, Wilson had many admirers of his ideas on how “to groom a better society through eugenics and the social state” including the Founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells. Progressives of this era believed in a kind of eugenic hegomony to weed out bad human traits and were prone to the belief that certain races were inferior, especially of African descent and needed to be controlled through eugenic sterilization programs. These are things you will not find in the modern day history books, as liberals write the history books, but can be verified with a little digging.

By the pre-World War II era American Progressives were firmly entrenched in American society, not just in politics. They had taken over higher education and were working to secure control over elementary and secondary education. Progressive domination started in the universities primarily in the Ivy League schools and spread across the land until most university professors were considered mainstream Progressives. Indoctrination would proceed with teachers and professors at the higher level and descend with their teachings to the lower levels, a sort of TOP-DOWN then BOTTOM-UP approach, the bottom being the foot soldiers who would then support the progressive agenda. Book publishers and their editors were overwhelmingly progressive and controlled the print media almost in its entirety.

In politics, American Progressives were initially supportive of Benito Mussolini in his rise to power in Italy where he sought to bring economic reforms in the form of what we today call Fascism. But what is Fascism and why did Progressives identify with it? Like Progressivism and similar to Socialism, Fascism was a governmental system heavy in the use of central power to exert it’s influence and sometimes outright will on it’s citizens. Fascism sought to control all business and industry interests that were not outright nationalized by the government. It differed from Communism in that Communism sought to own everything. Socialism was just fascist or communist light merely seeking to control and/or own most of the business and industry interests using only as much power as necessary to achieve those ends. Just remember, Fascism is control, Communism is ownership and Socialism is some aspects of both. Mussolini was known by Progressives as the Father of Fascism. American Fascists, Socialists and Progressives were almost indistinguishable in the 1920s and 30s. Columbia University became the clearing house for budding Fascists in 1926 when it established Casa Ilaliana, a center for the study of Italian culture – fascist Italian culture. Mussolini had personally contributed to the school to promote his ideas in America as he was actually looking for allies and saw the United States as one possibility.

The rise of Mussolini was soon followed by the rise of Adolph Hitler, both of whom were Fascists who studied marxist and socialist doctrine from Russia and patterned their ideas after Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. By the start of World War II the world was dominated by the derivative cousins of Marxism, Fascism, Communism, Socialism and Progressivism. It wasn’t until Hitler began to slaughter the Jews that American Progressives began to turn on he and Mussolini. In those days Progressivism was just a softer version of Fascism seeking to control as much as possible without outright ownership. But Progressivism would later evolve to eventually accept some aspects of federal business ownership. Progressives supported eugenics to groom society, but believed it could be done more humanely than what was being practiced by NAZI Germany. Progressives gradually distanced themselves from Fascist Germany and Italy and at some point began to refer to themselves as liberals, same people, different name, as they’re progressive brand had been throughly damaged by Hitler and Mussolini mainly for their campaign against the Jewish people. History was rewritten to the claim that Hitler was modeled after right-wing ideology. Most Americans wrongly identify right-wing extremists as Hitler types. NAZI is derived from the German word NAtionalialsoZIalist a derivative of the German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National Socialist German Workers’ Party in English. Does that sound right-wing to you? Of course not!

Progressives continued to use the liberal label until 2008 when they were reborn again as Progressives in a primary debate with Hillary Clinton declaring herself a modern Progressive. Liberals had ruined their name like the Progressives before them and now must revert back to their former label to complete a 100 year cycle. But are they any less radical? No. Their ideas are still composed of elements of the same ole doctrine of the same ole Marxists, Socialists, Communists and Fascists. They still believe in Keynesian Economics. They still believe in programs to maintain the socio-economic status quo; that will keep a loyal voting block using government handouts. They still believe in a strong central government, a Federal Government with many unchecked powers. Eugenics has morphed into abortion, human genetic engineering and human euthanasia having adopted these new modern tools to “groom a better society”. Their latest tool, a semi-nationalization of health care can now be expanded to control and groom society through diet control, health care rationing and age care justification regulation. The same people who have been arguing for years for government to “get out of the wombs of women” now want complete control of ALL citizens’ bodies AND their body parts. Progressivism continues to evolve. That is the nature of it’s origin, that is to progress is to constantly change, but many of their new ideas are beginning to look very similar to the old ones. Some progressives are now arguing for government controlled sterilization programs and are open to the idea of genetic engineered reproduction. The only thing missing in bringing them full circle back to eugenics is the issue of race. But modern progressives now know they can get around this roadblock by applying social economic factors to any proposed regulations and obtain the desired results. Some Progressives have also recently proposed much more liberal abortion regulation arguing that babies can be legally aborted up to the age of self-awareness, of which they have arbitrarily set to 2 years old. Sounds crazy? It is, but most people thought of partial birth abortion as extreme. But many Progressives argued for it. And even crazier, very few, but some Progressives were supportive of the idea of letting botched abortive babies who survived the procedure die by withholding food and water. One such individual who supported that idea and argued against the Born Alive Protection Act is now President of the United States.

No matter what you call the extreme isms, Marxism, Communism, Fascism, Socialism, Progressivism or Liberalism, they all have one thing in common – a powerful central government that has ALWAYS led to and ALWAYS will lead to tyranny for the people. So it now appears that Liberals have now transformed themselves into the New Progressives and really have returned to their roots, their extreme progressive roots. Now the rest of us just need to catch up and learn about those roots so we will know where they are headed.

Capitalism and the Courts

February 17, 2016 /  jttexas  /  1 Comment  /  Blog

Capitalism is a democratic system composed of buyers and sellers who collectively create a market for goods and services for that of which the consumer may desire the benefit of. Capitalism is a democratic system since each buyer and each seller vote with their dollars as they bid up or down a price for a good or service. It is pure democracy in action. When the system is allowed to function without interference it works to bring the best prices for the best goods and services and the consumer benefits. When the system is distorted by special interests who lobby government and receive special favors then it is primarily the special interests who benefit. When politicians legislate unreasonable regulations it is the politicians who benefit. It is that simple. The federal government’s only legitimate function in the regulation of capitalism is to ensure an environment rich with players, that is, buyers and sellers to prevent an uneven playing field for which someone can set up a monopoly. The Commerce Clause is the only legal framework derived from the Constitution that gives any legitimacy to the federal government to regulate anything in commerce. But from the Commerce Clause the federal government now lays claim to powers far exceeding its intended constitutional limitation. So how did we get here?

There have always been those in government who since the founding of the nation have wanted more control over business and commerce. It started with Alexander Hamilton who persuaded George Washington over the objections of Thomas Jefferson to support the idea of a central bank. But other than the idea of a central bank those who desired a system of central planners were kept at bay until the aftermath of the Civil War when reconstruction was imposed on the South using expanded federal powers. The founders knew there was a natural tendency, a sort of entropy of power to expand federal control. This is why the Commerce Clause is only that, one short clause of the Constitution and does not appear as a basic tenet in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights were deemed superior to all other rights, hence all Ten Amendments are positive rights to and for the people and limitations to the federal government. The original intent of the Commerce Clause dealt with the power of the federal government to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign governments. It also was meant to deal with commerce and relations with the Indian nations. The Constitution was intended to put up a wall between the federal government and the states and the people so that most regulatory power would be reserved by the states and the people. These rights and the federal government’s limits were consummated with the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment thus precluded any federal regulatory powers over commerce beyond the limitations of the Commerce Clause. Over time that wall has been gradually worn down until 1942 when it was completely obliterated with the Supreme Court case of Wickard V. Filburn. A farmer by the name of Roscoe Filburn had been ordered by the federal government to destroy his wheat and pay a fine for exceeding a government imposed allotment based on the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, a part of FDR’s New Deal. Filburn was planning to use the excess wheat for his own use to feed his own chickens. Filburn’s actions was not interstate commerce. It was not even commerce. It was widely thought that the court would rule against the government thereby making the 1938 act unconstitutional, but for years the court had been under attack by President Roosevelt who had been threatening to take control of the Supreme Court by adding several of his hand-picked justices to ensure a loyal majority.  The case was purposely chosen for its flimsiness to showcase the newfound power of the Federal government. The Supreme Court ruled against Filburn and the wall was finally crumbled. That ruling is considered by many as the seminal moment in our history that has led to the unending expansion of federal power, that being if the courts can regulate the feeding of one’s own chickens they can regulate anything. With this expansion, capitalism itself has increasingly come under attack, for the only way to grow government ever larger is to take a larger share of capital for the federal government.

Now that the courts had opened up this new path for federal expansion, politicians and judges were free to go about the systematic destruction of the capitalist system. So how would they go about it? One way would be to allow special interests more power and influence. Check! Nationalize troubled industries. Check! Use the courts to undo contract law. Check! Use executive power to overthrow the hierarchy of debt in investment vehicles as was done to push GM bondholders down the food chain below equity shares held by privileged groups such as the unions. Check! Another way would be to insert themselves between the buyers and sellers so as to un-democratize the process and to over-regulate. Check and check! Insert regulators and special interests such as unions between market supply and demand. Check! Use wage and price controls. Check! Use government subsidies to support prices of their favorite industries and special taxes and excise taxes to punish out-of-favor industries. Check and check again! But the best way to destroy capitalism is to simply deny the system capital. This is traditionally done by imposing high taxes so as to remove capital from the private sector to be transferred to the public sector so that it can be re-disbursed by politicians, albeit just a form of wealth redistribution. Wealth confiscation and redistribution using the tax code has the additional benefit of pyramiding power upon those in government that spend or redistribute the money.

Power pyramids also occur in business where in poorly managed companies managers quickly learn the best way to grow their power is to increase head count thereby requiring ever larger budgets. In business these practices are curtailed or eliminated in bad economic times. But it is these very times that are ripe for government to expand their power base and unlike in business once expanded government rarely contracts. When business is threatened by higher taxes and regulation it simply hoards cash waiting for better opportunities. If these conditions persist beyond the bounds of survivability, business will invest elsewhere, that is in foreign countries. Capital leaves the country forever. This is the phase we currently find ourselves in. We have already seen this when states raise taxes beyond reason. Companies and individuals simply pack up and move to a more business friendly state. I must admit that unreasonable state income taxes in the state of Idaho was one additional reason that led to my family’s move to Texas several years ago where there was no income tax. But when federal taxation becomes unreasonable, capital must be redeployed to foreign interests. The idea of capital deformation was the very reason for the creation of the European Union. Several of the socialist nations in Europe were losing capital to other  European nations friendlier to business. In order to preserve the socialist system a loose union would regulate currency and stop the capital migration. Now we are seeing many European countries curtailing some of the socialist aspects in favor of more capitalism simply because they have not been successful at slowing the capital deformation. Quite simply, they are running out of money. We may be seeing the early phase of new capital growth in the economies of Eastern Europe, China, India, Brazil and virtually every developing nation while the United States remains stagnated as we pursue socialist policies. The next phase of capital redeployment involves the actual relocation of companies and their assets. When this phase kicks in, unemployment soars far beyond the current level. We are in the early phase of this. And now, you have the perfect political storm where the people can be rallied against big business or what is left of it and its final ouster and the eventual roll-up of the capitalist system. But the anti-capitalists want an insurance policy, so they continue to pursue additional attacks.

The anti-capitalists have learned that their best work is done behind the scenes. They seek to find others to do their dirty work without a vote being cast. Obama uses the “pen and the phone”. The Courts use personal edicts disguised as legal opinions. Let’s not forget how far they have come, or progressed as the liberals would say. A bad judge need only find one little loose thread in the text and he or she will pick at it a little at a time until the entire text comes unraveled. The Constitution is “evolving” they say, like they are God and hath given it life. This is what is meant by the “living and breathing document” without which they could not justify their new edicts. But let’s not be fooled. The phrase “living and breathing” is hyperbole, a way to contrast “living” with “dead” and so who wants to defend a “dead” Constitution. No, the Constitution is not dead, but neither is it “living and breathing” like a human being or an animal, lest it be one who consumes all manner of flesh in its path. Perhaps this is what they mean?

This is why with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia we find ourselves at a new and dangerous crossroads. Progressives just need one more of theirs to find newly hidden gems in the Constitution. We are one Supreme Court Justice away from losing our right to privately own a gun if the left can argue that only the “militia”, an army in their minds can carry guns, or if the courts recognize the “speech codes” already implemented and practiced on many of our University campuses as the new limitations on speech. And if they recognize the left’s practice of limiting “Freedom of Religion” and change one little word from “of” to “from”. It is not far-fetched. It is here. All they need is one more judge, one more pen and one more piece of paper for which to write the new meaning of the Constitution.

Remember poor ‘ole’ Roscoe Filburn? All he wanted to do was feed his chickens.