Progressives Today Don't Understand Their Roots

Frequently humans get to learn from the loom of history; unfortunately the opportunity is often squandered and the spiral begins again.  The progression of man in relation to government, defined by Economists Alexander Tyler, 1770, is "as a movement from bondage to spiritual faith, faith to great courage, courage to liberty, liberty to abundance, abundance to selfishness, selfishness to complacency, complacency to apathy, apathy to dependency, and dependency back to bondage -a spiral which sets the stage for the 21st Century's complications. 

One time in history was the relationship between man and government set right. That event, the revolution in America, established a Constitutional Republic with property as the actual source of freedom and a structure to support liberty, freedom and pursuit of happiness for citizens.  There have been several movements to reclaim the foundation of our Constitutional Republic in the midst of Alexander Tyler's descriptive downward spiral, most notably in Andrew Jackson's era and then the Progressive Era.  The decline scenario is a multi-decade process of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness always inverted into Capital over Property as the driving force.  The decline results in tyranny, usual defaulting to a form of Monarchy.  And what is the source of the decline?  I believe it is a loss of historical knowledge, a failure to maintain and inculcate the values, analysis, criteria and processes defining who we are and ensuring the particulars of how we became that single nation based on liberty and freedom for all will continue to pass from generation to generation.  The Founders had examined the history of man with a serious eye to the constant problem government represents and the various forms it had unsuccessfully taken.  Andrew Jackson did not; the Progressives did not!

In the 1890's, after the Muckrakers had revealed meat packing industry horrors, long-haul/short-haul railroad pricing inequities, the human squalor of packed tenement housing for those who sustained industrialization, the drunkard labor force that procreated and abandoned families, Progressives arose to beat the inhumanity and  enslavement back.  Progressives of the 1890 to 1915 period, i.e. Lafollette, Roosevelt, Justice Oliver W. Holmes, William White, Lewis Brandeis, many others, believed strongly in a return to the founders Constitutional Republic - defined by them as restoring freedom, liberty and justice to the people from an out-of-control Government. They perceived political combine organizations like 'Tammany Hall, The Chicago Machine' were ripping the Constitution's fabric and guarantee of freedom.  The corrupt combines had implemented a ward corruption system, operating through ward heelers and back-room deals to create a pyramid of power that captured the Senate and led into the House of Representatives.  Both parts of the Federal Legislature represented a 'bought' location from which money flowed from "We The People" and into the pockets of the artificially positioned, manipulative elitist lawmakers, combines and their railroad backers

Progressive's believed the process to accomplish the return to a Constitutional Republic lay in regaining control of the Legislative Branch; the Executive Branch had been re-captured earlier by replacing Legislative candidate selection with direct election and the Electoral College.  In the 1890-1915 period, their advocated action establishing direct election of Senators, imposition of Recall-Referendum-Initiative, imposition of campaign finance reporting, expense account filing, contributor list submission, secret vote/fair count, they imagined would return the Legislature, i.e. 'People's House', to the people.

Does the above sound familiar?  It should.  Historically, capturing the government from corrupt elitists and combines was the reformers key, whether Jacksonian or Progressive.  The problem, for Progressives, resided visibly in corrupt railroad money influences on State Senators abetted by corrupt political combines (Tammany Hall-Chicago Machine, Public Service Corporations).  This was their source and cause of Government out-of-control.  One cannot ignore they also spoke out for humane labor conditions but that is not the issue of this analysis.   Earlier, even Andrew Jackson, 1829 - 1836, not a Progressive, believed the corrupting influence of elitists was his era's cause for Governmental out-of-control and, through "Jacksonian Democracy", attempted to set things in balance, though in a different manner.

Up stepped Progressives who would, through 'hope and change', rid political machine corruption.  How one asks?   They did it through re-establishing their perceived Constitution principles in the following fashion.

......The Seventeenth Amendment - direct election of Senators; now, no longer could Railroads fund combines that continually put their bought Politicians into seats of power;

.....'Trust Busting' - breaking down the financial combines that colluded to control prices, industries and the labor force for strictly personal gain;

.....Establishing Centralized Government as the regulatory source, advocated by Woodrow Wilson to strengthen the Executive Branch into a "Great Administrator".  The "Great Administrator" would lead centralized "Big" Government, who would act to solve the problems of men by controlling the workings the Legislative Branch which had sunk into graft and corruption, failing to solve problems;

.....Extensive regulation and interventionist controls by Regulatory Bodies, e.g. The Federal Trade Commission, Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Clayton Act, US v. Standard Oil, penalizing success beyond reasonable, The Elkins Act of 1903, and more.

.....The Thirteenth Amendment - 'direct tax' to remove some accumulated wealth and initially reel in the power brokers of industry;

....."League of Nations vis-a-vis United Nations" - an action of Progressive Ego which would rotate the gaze from inward and turn it outward, to the World, as a place out-of-control and inhumane.  Europe and its wars could be controlled by manpower, right ideas, replacement of Monarch with Unitary Republics or Confederated Republics, simply operated as "Democracies", but never the concept of the Constitutional Republic which had been invented in America but now diluted.

One might ponder why Progressives, through the above activities, failed to achieve their dedication "to fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our founding fathers.....by the people and for the people".  In actuality, they promoted the loss of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial to the octopus of power by relocating the railroad corrupting influences into an  expanding Centralized Government; the financial backers shifted accordingly.  They ignored the advice of Robert LaFollette who said "the farmer, the business man, the consumer is hamstrung by regulations which is non-competitive, not price neutral, and imposed by a Government no better than the 'Trusts' it was attempting to manage in the era of industrial development".

The fundamental error of Progressives was orchestrating Constitutional alteration without the use of man's history as their sounding board.  They did not understand nor consult the founding fathers principles, documents and critiques.  They could not see government was simply an organization that would replace railroad corruption with centralized bureaucratic corruption. And the altering device was the tools established by President Van Buren in 1820, originally designed to manage the inhumanity of slavery through the morality of man in Government; it represented the essential bureaucracy structure from which "Big Government" could grow. With the Progressive changes, graft and corruption relocated into Big Government as it expanded to supply the needs of  a  government/political class  who espoused they were assisting the common man obtain the 'People's House', for the people.  And railroad capital became the Capital Markets on Wall Street who collaborated with Big Government.

The Progressives felt they must "reaffirm the respect for public opinion not seen in their days political groups, right or left.  The judgment of the people of this country formed slowly and nobody was superior to it", so Progressives thought, excluding themselves.  The public respected property rights, business and individual, and well knew the potential of commercial-industrial prosperity.  The implemented Income Tax to 'redistribute wealth' from pockets that had developed, intended to be limited, became unlimited.  Progressives ignored the wisdom of Melancton Smith who observed "..that all governments find a use for as much money as they can raise.  Indeed, they have commonly demands for more...Congress will ever exercise their powers to levy as much money as people can pay.  They will not be restrained from direct taxes by the consideration that necessity does not require them."

And so it goes in the 21st Century.  Big Government spawned trusts we know as ENGO's, NGO's, e.g. California CARB, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Pew, Rockefeller, Hewlett, Tides Foundations - the list is endless that pretend to service public need.  They serve not individual or business property rights; they serve Capital.  While the Progressives struggled against the false subterfuge of "Trust damage claims, switching charge, midnight tariff, demurrage change, milling management", in the 21st Century the people struggle against "eminent domain, regionalization, infill, social equity in lieu of equality under the law, re-distribution of wealth" and taxes which are leveled "tribute" against citizens, not for citizens.  The subterfuge is further evident and in disguise as "sustainable development, ICLEI, 'tribute' laws like AB32 which condemns CO2 , the essential gas of plant growth, as a threat to be taxed based on foreign thinking and failed policy re-hashed from European sourcing that is currently struggling with "Democratic Socialism" in failed Greek, Spanish, Irish, Portuguese, French and United Kingdom Big Governments. Government is the Monopoly of the 21st Century.

In the 21st Century, we are in the presence Big Government's concept of Democracy as a function of political machinery.  Democracy resolves to the tyranny of the majority whereas a Constitutional Republic works through a balanced process to ensure property, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Government is a natural gravitating entity toward monopoly, vis-a-vis tyranny, excluding the form known as a Constitutional Republic.  And that part which moves the Constitutional Republic of the founders actually toward tyranny are the changes implemented by Progressives in the early 1900's.  The legal convictions of public officials in municipal, State and national government is but a suggestion of the potential influence of the combination of Big Government, regulatory control and Wealth, i.e. Wall Street, the Fed, IRS Taxation, special privilege for elected officials, etc . 

The United States Senate and House of Representatives must fix and maintain its own reputation for fidelity to the public trust.  The question - How do we overcome the constant historic governmental slide to Tyranny, e.g. Monarchy or the Tyranny of the French Revolution?  Perhaps some or all, improved or as is, suggestions would assist:

-We must implement the 'Liberty Amendments' as articulated by Mark Levin.

- No special privileges for the elected; they live by the same laws they enact.   From the founding generation Edmund Randolph, Wilson Nicholas, Theodore Sedgwich, Christopher Gore, and Andrew Johnson, in contemplating the question "how the people should elect wise representatives", observed that "in order to secure that people against the abuse of this power, we have the best security we can wish for: if they impose taxes on the people which are oppressive, they subject themselves and their friends to the same inconvenience and to the certainty of never being confided in again".

-Lavish, extravagant pomp and circumstance is not an authorized expense for Government events, actions and behaviors.  The President may have transportation, military staffed and operated.  No civilian contracts or workers.

- The seat of Government will move on a rotating basis to each coast and the center of America, using facilities constructed for such purpose.

- The President will represent the people 365 days per year; Congress shall meet quarterly for 45 days to conduct  present business.

-All Government Departments authorized in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, will receive operational direction from the Secretary, not by Presidential Executive Orders; no other Departments shall continue to exist and will revert their activities to the power defined in the 10th Amendment.

- Any law enacted will pend for six (6) months prior to implementation to allow consideration of unforeseen consequences and it will cite the authorizing paragraph from the Constitution (suggestion of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President).

- No bill may have more than one rider from each party and the riders will not be opposed once examined and validated as necessary and proper for national use, not in contradiction to the 10th Amendment States responsibilities.

-Presidential Line item veto is available for execution on each bill; can be over-ridden by a 2/3rds majority in each house.

- Congress may contract for Technical Information on any proposed legislation; citizens may be contacted at any time for input.  All other judgments will  be based on purchased research from multiple sources to ensure thoroughness other than party affiliates.

Have we actually failed to notice the basis of the Constitution in the Declaration of Independence - the 'Laws of nature and of Nature's God", the truths we hold to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."   

Borrowing from the Declaration, In the 21st Century, "Big Government" has become:

- an obstructer; the administration of Justice, has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent higher swarms of IRS Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance;

- is creating a standing army among us by contravening law enforcement officers from their local purpose;

- has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution through unsanctioned UN treaties;

- for imposing taxes upon us without our consent through issuance of regulation upon regulation by unelected bodies (ENGO/NGO);

-  forbidden his Democrat Senators to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance till his Assent should be obtained;

-  has failed to protect the population of these States by obstructing the enforcement of Laws of Naturalization for Foreigners;

- and the list goes on, and on, and on. 

Now is the time to stop creating a governing elite by continually sending the same individuals back to Washington DC, year-after-year and, replacing them when they retire with their sons and daughters.  Now is the time to begin a focused, personal study of the Constitution and its component parts to the ends that we understand its workings and how those in Congress fail its workings.  Now is the time to control revenue from taxes, sales and transactions of $2.5 Billion monthly by requiring "Big Government" to live within its means.  Now is the time to stop "Big Government" from expending $3.4 Billion monthly with apparent zero interest in control of graft, corruption, mismanagement, funds misuse or recognition of impending fiscal collapse through debt buy-back, money printing, and continuous 'kicking the can down the road'.  Now is the time to strip 'Big Government' of that which is truly provenance of the State (10th Amendment).  Now is the time to rise up against government elitists who sanction Administration's Free market frustration of oil, fishing, energy, and job development.