The Press: watchdog or partisan propaganda machine?

The death of objectivity

Consider some of these issues:
1. 'He looks.. black'
2. fast & furious
3. Benghazi
4. Irs targeting conservative groups.
5. 'If you like your doctor, you can keep him.'
6. 'They are nothing but domestic terrorists'
7. Solyndra
8. executive waivers to big business, unions, & executive staff on laws passed by congress & signed by the president..
9. Pick & choose law enforcement.. the prime directive of the executive branch.
10. Ordered 1000 boeing employees fired & shut down a plant in SC for union cronies.
11. BLM land grab in nevada

How many of these things have the media 'exposed' & covered, like a free press watchdog should? The american media has traditionally been part of our freedom process. Has it become just a partisan propaganda tool?

In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection is must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. ~Hugo L. Black

But what is happening now? The free press has become partisan. Most are shills of the democratic party, with a strong bias for the progressive agenda. A few are conservative, but balance of bias is NOT the goal, here.. truth & 'serve the governed' is the role of the press, not manipulation of public opinion by propaganda.

IMO, the corporatization of the press has led to this unholy alliance. They are shills of big money, the same as the politicians. TRUTH & PUBLIC INTEREST is not the mission statement of the press.. they are slaves to power & money, & are beholden to both.

[T]he administration of government has become more complex, the opportunities for malfeasance and corruption have multiplied, crime has grown to most serious proportions, and the danger of its protection by unfaithful officials and of the impairment of the fundamental security of life and property by criminal alliances and official neglect, emphasizes the primary need of a vigilant and courageous press, especially in great cities. ~Charles Evans Hughes

"There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press" ~Mark Twain

Money is always a motivating factor, in any human venture. Journalists are not immune.. especially their bosses. But i think it is clear to any casual observer that the press has changed over the last 50 yrs. At one point, there was pride in objective journalism. Cronkite or Edward Murrow would not show overt partiality.. they would not be a partisan shill. But now we have Rather fabricating documents to smear bush, & most (all?) of the broadcast media complicit in the administration's coverups. Since Reagan, i have seen a slow decline in the objectivity of american media.. Both in print & broadcast. Fox covers things from a conservative angle, but they are a cable network, not part of the mainstream broadcast media. They have grown, mostly as a reaction from the overt partisanship of the others.

The press hounded johnson in the 60s, even though he was a democrat.. they were not as concerned about partisanship, & many of the old journalists took 'unbiased' coverage seriously. They were a bit soft on jfk, & they really went after nixon. They were not that kind to carter, & his blunders in iran, opec, & domestic policy were scrutinized.. contrast that with the pro obama propaganda from the current media. They hated reagan, & took pot shots at him constantly. Clinton got softer coverage, & bush 2 was vilified as an incompetent war monger.

Consider Sharyl Attkisson. She resigned in frustration from cbs because they wouldn't allow her investigative reports into the benghazi coverup. ANY of the media outlets in the past would have licked their chops at any hint of corruption, & made it their cover stories. It was a feeding frenzy with nixon, & all he did was spy on the opposition's political tactics & cover it up. The obama administration has done MUCH worse, where 4 americans died for incompetence, & the ensuing coverup.

Chris Christie is another. Here is a governor, linked to some bureaucrat closing down a bridge for political purposes.. inconveniencing a few people, & the media howls over this like a pack of wolves! Yet fast & furious, the irs scandal, benghazi, & a host of other administration 'scandals' are virtually ignored. A passing mention, at best, from the broadcast media. Some of these people died! Yet no coverage.. no expose.. no barking from the watchdogs. They have become useless mutts, lazing about, biting their owners, instead of the intruders.

In times past, the print media in almost every city had alternate views from competing newspapers. You could get a different angle from a different paper. It seems to me this has been dead for years, & it is clear that print newspapers are dinosaurs from the past. The Az Republic is a liberal rag, that promotes the progressive view in its pages. There are none that i know of that print the conservative view.. and this in a fairly conservative state!

I think there are many reasons for this.
1. Education has become the propaganda arm of progressive ideology. Liberal arts education is not the goal, but indoctrination. Each year a new crop of journalists enter the market with progressive ideology in their hearts, & matching words on their lips.
2. The conservative view is vilified so much.. linked to racism, stupidity, superstition, & back woods reactionary opinions, that it is difficult to get a fair hearing on the issues. The narrative is that conservative ideology is automatically irrelevant, so no reason is needed.. just dismiss it & continue the drive to a socialist utopia.
3. News & entertainment have become blurred.. the morning 'news' shows are mostly celebrity based entertainment, & that is what they deliver. That same mentality has taken over the 'hard' news divisions.
4. Money & power. Power follows the money, & money follows the power. Many despots have used the power of propaganda to subjugate the masses. Through clever use of the media, with their full consent, they are able to manipulate public opinion, not only by what they cover, but what they don't cover.
5. The rise of anti science.  The concept of 'Truth' being something absolute, discoverable, & a goal to search for is becoming increasingly foreign. The trend now is to make the conclusions, first, then prop it up with supporting evidence, even if you have to fabricate it.

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief” ~Jacques Ellul
Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media. ~Noam Chomsky
The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - "indoctrination," we might say - exercised through the mass media. ~Noam Chomsky

Reformation + Indians = American Freedom

Why did America become a land of liberty? During the time of colonization many areas of the world were targets of European imperialism.
Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada.. all had lots of Europeans invading their shores. Why didn't america become like one of them? ..another European style statist system? They could be loyal to the king, and rule & oppress the native peoples. That is what most of them did. 

Here is my theory: 
The admiration for the honor and culture of the Native North American people.

1. The Native American would not be enslaved.
2. The Native American believed in dignity and honor. Their word was sacred and was something to be proud of.
3. They were utilitarian in their view of of war. War to them was to take the other guy's stuff, to take over their turf, and to carry off their children and women. It was an expansive tactic of coalition nation building.
4. Even though the European settlers brutalized the Native Americans, they admired them. The concept of the noble savage has been prominent in North American culture to this day. They learned how to survive in the New World from their native neighbors. They saw how they faced adversity with courage. They were sanguine about death. They were independent and self reliant from any central government.
5. They fought bravely, even when outnumbered. Courage and freedom were highly esteemed. ..More so than life in slavery or domination from another.

The Europeans however, had different roots.

1. For a thousand years or more, kings and popes and lords and masters had ruled the Europeans. They were used to being nannied, cared for and submissive and subservient. Independent living and thinking was not in their dna.
2. When they made war it was for genocide. They sought to wipe out their enemies, or any race they thought inferior, not to assimilate them. Or, they felt a manifest destiny to manage and manipulate other people as pets or inferior beings. They enslaved those who would submit to their tyranny.
3. The europeans would willingly enslave them selves for material things. They would sell themselves as indentured servants for years to gain passage on a ship or to gain partial ownership of some business.
4. They lived lives of quiet desperation & degradation with no honor, yet they accepted this as their lot in life.
5. The religion of Christianity was used to placate. The concepts of freedom, liberty, honor and self respect was not common in European church circles. They preached submission to authority and honoring the king.

Then, a reformation began. Law was seen as above all. The written law superseded the edicts of men. This blend of reformation theology, combined with the noble savage sense of honor, freedom, and dignity came together to form a new creature: The American. It was the perfect storm. This guy would fight with ruthlessness like a European but die with dignity, honor, & self sacrifice like an Indian. He saw freedom and liberty as the foremost things. It flavored his religion and his outlook on Law and his fellow man.
Of course, this American went on to brutalize and break the spirit of the noble man he admired. He did not appreciate the lessons or the freedoms gained from his neighbors' philosophy of life. But the white man assimilated the ideology of the indian, even though he didn't know it. He tried to follow his euro creed of non assimilation and genocide. He pushed the red man into reservations to keep him dependent, subservient and broken. But the genie was out of the bottle. The spirit of the North American had taken over and blended with the European settlers.
Then more people came & were infected.. They got the idea that all men are created equal. ..They are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights. Not long after a great war was fought to free the black man from his years of servitude and oppression.
All during this time aggressive men and statists worked tirelessly to empower the state and strip the people of their liberties. Freedom, though tentative, was always preserved.
But now, as usual, we are at a crossroad. American liberties we took for granted are being chipped away by an ever growing & expanding state. No longer content with securing our rights, they make war at will, steal our property, and try to nanny and micro manage us like we are their third world conquests.
Wake up America! It is time to rise up and put these scoundrels in their place. It is time to remember our heritage, & honor the native american who has helped us cast off the chains of imperialism & servitude. No more euro nanny state! We came here for freedom, & we should not let anyone take it from us.

I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. ~Thomas Jefferson

Race & Region. Artificial Unity, National Division.

Primary superficial traits:
1. race
2. region
3. education

These are the big 3. There are a few others.. gender, sexuality, culture.. but some of those overlap, or are functionally the same.

Race is the most obvious, has been with us the longest, & generates the most division. Region can include dialect & even culture, & stirs local loyalties. Education is supposed to be a healing agent, that exposes the artificial contrasts, but it has become a source of division itself. Instead of being a tool for enlightenment, it has been hijacked into a tool of propaganda, to indoctrinate, not promote critical thinking. Education now promotes this division, rather than heal it, as it used to.

Sports are a substitute for national division & rivalry. You can root for your regional team or hero, & feel pride for their accomplishments. After the game, the sportsmanship that the games teach *should* cause us to shake hands of congratulations, knowing our deeper national loyalties override any feelings of resentment or division over the sports teams. But the division runs deep, & some humans find their loyalties conflicted. They do NOT show sportsmanship, but let their resentment grow to hate, & build artificial divisions. The 'fan' is the poster child for this malady.

America has governance as its source of national pride, or it used to, historically. We are a govt of, by & for the people. Our unity is based not on similarity of culture, race, education, region, or any superficial trait, but our common govt, which has been a source of great pride & patriotism for americans over the centuries. But when other factors upstage the primary loyalty of the nation, national division results. The secondary superficial allegiance overrides the broader national identity, & a shallow pool of parochial devotion divides us.

Lincoln made his famous 'house divided' speech running for the senate in 1858, which he lost.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."

It illustrated the division of the day: Slavery. It was a major division, & a very heated issue, which eventually erupted in the civil war. That is the most common 'solution' for man, in our disputes with each other: War.

Man has always been a conflicted, divided creature. Today we have race baiters, regional loyalists, & other dividers pitching us against each other based NOT on our ideology of freedom & self governance, but on race, education, & regional or cultural differences. The detractors of american freedom constantly fan the flames of division, distracting us from the deeper issue of human freedom & self reliance. They mock the less educated, or impugn those they deem inferior intellectually, or they ridicule the snobbish elitism of the educated. They promote absurd differences in race, pounding drums of suspicion & mistrust, based only on skin pigmentation. And these dividers are trying to build a coalition of grievance.. pitting all the big 3 against a trumped up opponent. They try to paint the divisions as these artificial traits, to rally their side against their ideological opponents.

But the real struggle going on is ideological. Will we be a govt of, by, & for the people, or will we promote an elite ruling class? Will we defend & secure individual rights of sovereignty & responsibility, or trample them with redistribution & nanny state solutions? Will we be a nation of free people, or a state centered bureaucracy? THIS is the real choice before us, not the phony superficial divisions the race baiters & dividers try to portray. People of ALL education, region, & racial backgrounds need to wake up to the fake wars over superficials & see the bigger picture.

Once we lose our sense of national identity, & let the dividers run rampant with superficial loyalties of race, region, or anything that distracts us from the central truth of american liberty, we are finished as a nation, as a house divided cannot stand.

Exceptional or Multicultural.

Whenever i hear the race baiters carry on about the supremacy of the {insert race here} man, or a 'manifest destiny' kind of attitude, i remember what made america. It was not the cream of the crop.. the elite, superior specimens of human evolution. No, it was the dregs.. the misfits.. the castoffs.

America is an argument AGAINST any racial or cultural superiority. We cannot claim thousands of years of racial or ethnic purity. Mongrelism is the norm, here. Yet what the purists despise is our greatest strength. Most of european race & culture was highly esteemed, especially early in the last century. They ruled the world.. dominating every other culture & race, occupying their lands with superior armies & technologies. Their smug superiority found a climax in the nazis, who made a religion out of racial & ethnic superiority. But they were just openly expressing what most europeans already felt.

A significant contribution to the psyche of america was the native people. They were not ruled by a central, powerful state, but by small, independent tribes. The values of the 'noble savage' were revered, & continue to be to this day. They could not be enslaved, like some conquered peoples, but were very defiant & independent. This trait infected the nannied europeans who came, even though they possessed superior technology & eventually, numbers, & who in general, looked down on the 'savages'. But by & large, the native american tribes were much more individualistic in their basic ideals than the euro settlers. The europeans had to learn that.. sometimes just to survival in the new, wild world, but it carried over to the rest of their lives.

Some americans tried to jump on the bandwagon of racial superiority, but it just didn't work. Maggie Sanger got the nation fired up about eugenics, & tried to bring us into euro cool, wanting to bump off inferior races & hasten the evolution of the Perfect Man, which was all the rage back then. But the message was so similar to what the nazis preached that it fell into disrepute. So multiculturalism has pretty much ruled western ideology since ww2. It is now, however, becoming a pariah in europe, as the social engineers in the various countries seem bent on not just accepting other cultures & diversity, but actively destroying the culture of the indigent population. Europeans are not inherently multicultural, like the US, so forcing american parameters of culture has backfired. The success of america was a boon for the concept of multiculturalism, but it has been perverted & is used to destroy the long, rich cultures of the individual euro states.

The 'exceptional' part about america is its multicultural diversity. But that is the nature of america, & those dynamics cannot be forced upon other cultures. Other cultures & ethnicities should not despise their own culture, but embrace it.. it is YOUR heritage, accept it! That is your strength. Americans should do the same. We are a melting pot & a rag tag group of misfits & cultural rejects. Embrace it! It is our strength.

But the success of america should dispel any notion of individual cultural superiority. It is the core ideals.. the basic idea of america that has built our own success. Freedom. Responsibility. Self reliance. Opportunity. Hard work & intelligence pays off, here.. or it did. It was not something racial. There was not an evolving Man rising to perfection & prominence. No, it was the ideals of america.. individual sovereignty, personal freedoms, independence & self reliance.... THESE things were the major factors in building the new world hegemony, not any claims of racial superiority, as was done by most throughout history. That is why people are confused.. they are programmed to think that cultural & racial superiority is what makes a people great. Many people live in the past, coasting on dreams of past glories in their culture. They console themselves in their current state with memories of greatness & power, when THEY ruled the world.

The Ten Cannots...

The Ten Cannots...

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. ~William Boetcker 1916

Much of this was rooted in Lincoln, & was over the long running debate over collectivist govt, & the Great Fiction that Bastiat talked about, earlier. I am amazed at the relevance of the '10 cannots'.. even 100 years later.. almost all of them are the mirror of the progressive wish list. Each 'cannot' is a 'Yes we can!' to obama & his leeching hordes. It is old fashioned collectivism, modern progressive thought, & it has never worked, & never will. Boetcker was pretty clever, & had some other nice quips. He also had another list:

Seven national crimes:
1. I don’t think.
2. I don’t know.
3. I don’t care.
4. I am too busy.
5. I leave well enough alone.
6. I have no time to read and find out.
7. I am not interested. ~William Boetcker

So, do we learn from history, & preserve the goal of human freedom & individual liberty, defending it from the grasp of executive power? NO!! Why should we do that? What is the fun of being free? How about a nice rousing era of oppression & statist dominance to bring a little spice to our boring, sovereign lives? That's the ticket! Some old fashioned statist oppression is just the thing we need to help us appreciate the humdrum of old liberty.

We've got the anarchists on one side, clamoring for the total dissolution of the state, & the progressives on the other, wanting total state control of everything. Why not return to a proven winner? Why not return to a people's governance.. a system of, by, & for the people? We know where the others lead.. always to oppression. Neither anarchy nor statism can provide liberty to society, but only a people centered, people controlled system where WE control the state, & hold the power to secure OUR OWN RIGHTS. No king or party or caliph or dictator will do that. We must do it ourselves.

What a different world this would be if people would listen to those who know more and not merely try to get something from those who have more. ~William Boetcker

A hand up, or trapped in dependency?

This is how some people like to frame the argument: 'We should help people!' they cry, 'Those who are unfortunate should be treated with compassion!' This appeals to the natural herd instinct. In a successful society, like 20th century america with strong moral values, it resonated. On the surface, it sounds good. I agree with it, too. But here are the problems with it:

1. 'Help' is not defined. The liberal idea of 'help', the welfare state, is NOT helpful, but destructive. It traps people in dependency & strips them of their self respect.
2. Forced charity is not charity. It is theft. Redistribution, under the guise of 'helping people' is a deceptive, destructive method to encourage charity. Society can be rewarded for charity with tax breaks, recognition, or other ways, but forcing it, especially when it supports something filled with corruption, fraud, waste, & graft like the american welfare state, the result is as far from 'charity' as you can get.
3. If a society is generous & charitable, let them do it, & even encourage it. If they are not, forcing it only makes them resentful. Let the culture & society evolve naturally, and allow human virtues to naturally rise to prominence & importance. Forced charity kills real charity, & degrades the truly virtuous part of it, & DISCOURAGES real charity. Forced charity is a negative in a society & breeds resentfulness, selfishness, & dependency.
4. Pain & discomfort are not always bad things. If you have a wound, & do not address it with antiseptics, it will worsen. The application of antiseptics is painful, but necessary for healing. People wound themselves & others with irresponsible behavior. If we let it fester, it only worsens things for them & everyone around them. If we insist on healing processes, it is better for all, even though it is painful for those wounded.
5. True charity is more skeptical of fraud. They may be fooled once, but they see through the scam & end it. Forced charity is run by bureaucrats who don't care. They even join with the corruption & profit by the scams.
6. It is a false face for political manipulating. The welfare state has become an instrument for buying votes. Politicians promise free stuff from the public treasury if people vote for them. It is a destructive force in a democracy, & once it begins, it is difficult to eradicate. But if the nation is to survive, it must stop this plunder & tool of ambitious men.
7. It is a guilt induced motivation. People know they are greedy & selfish, but by promoting the welfare state, they think they are exempted from helping their fellow man. But they are only supporting theft from others to redistribute to questionable characters with destructive results. It is a false guilt assuagement. People deceive themselves into thinking this is compassion & charity.
8. It strips people of their self respect, & breeds a culture of dependency. This kills the american dream of independence & individual sovereignty, & grows the statist rise of control & dominance. It is building a culture of subservience, & slowly destroying the dream of america. Statism will once again swallow up the movement toward freedom & independence.
9. It is a negative in society. It produces NOTHING, & costs the producers increasingly more every year, with no improvement in reducing poverty. It is a system of leeching, & sucks the life blood of the culture.

Some people think finding fault with the welfare state is a racist thing. But that is a deflection, because if you look at the root of the welfare state, it reveals racism as it's motivation. Our own govt has DRIVEN the black race into a culture of decline & corruption. There are great black churches, & hard working black people, who are smart, responsible, & like the idea of america. But there are too many who have drunk the progressive kool aid, & have entered the gulag of govt dependency, the breakdown of the family, moral relativism, entitlement, & blame. It is not just the govt.. it has been progressive ideology from the media, hollywood celebrities, the judicial system, & especially, academia. They are the driving force behind the cultural decline & glorification of violence, drug use, familial irresponsibility, blame & entitlement.

In phoenix, az, most of the problem areas are not black ghettos, but hispanic barrios, which are going the same direction, & confirms to me that the policies & destruction of the culture are the central problems, not race. Hispanic communities traditionally had strong family & religious values, but those are being undermined & the moral relativistic, violent, irresponsible, entitled, blame filled values are growing. Our cities are the petri dishes of the social engineering experiments, & they prove the ideals are a total failure for society. Places like LA, detroit, & chicago only emphasize the destructive results of progressive ideology. Americans are so dense & deceived.. we see where the progressive kool aid has been drunk for decades.. where they have had free reign to preach their gospel of moral relativism, blame, & entitlement.. & those cities are urban wastelands, unable to support themselves, or even survive without massive subsidies from the responsible taxpayer communities. They revel in mismanagement & dependency, but instead of seeing it & correcting it, they double down on stupid & demand MORE subsidies & aid for their corruption.
And it is not like it has no effect on white culture (whatever that is). Plenty of whites are lured into the same ideology. They are entitled, glorify violence, drugs, & irresponsibility. They get a bit awkward when the racial blame starts going around, so they'll either act as champions of the oppressed victims, or they'll talk in gangsta ebonics to try to fool the race hustlers.

I think these trends can be reversed. We can wean people off of dependency, require & reward responsibility. It will not be easy, & many people will suffer, but that is put right at the feet of the progressive ideologues, who have brought this destruction upon them.

1. No reward for children out of wedlock. Teen pregnancies can be handled the old fashioned way, either give the baby for adoption, or find someone.. parents, the father, charity homes.. to support the irresponsible childbirth. Society should not reward this behavior. It is the main cause of the breakdown of the family unit. Irresponsible behavior should be accountable to the family unit, not bailed out by the taxpayers.
2. Eliminate the welfare state. People will have to go where the jobs are, as they have done for millennia, instead of sitting in a progressive zoo, waiting to be fed, housed, & cared for as entitled pets. It will take a while, as the liberal zookeepers have built extreme dependency & these people will have trouble adapting in the wild world of reality. No govt housing, food stamps, or any of the 'war to stamp out poverty.' They lost that war years ago.
3. End affirmative action. This propagates the sense of injury & grievance, & facilitates blame, rather than initiative.
4. Protect ALL civil rights. Make it a real law, with blind enforcement.
5. Strict, consistent law enforcement. America should be safe for people to walk the streets. There should be law & order, & severe, strict punishment of lawbreakers.

These things would destroy the ghettos & barrios, where this culture of dependency & corruption is rampant. This ideology is one of respect, not handicap. Other humans should be treated as sovereign individuals, not disabled, incapable dependents. The progressive zoo has done great damage to the psyche of the black community & is spreading to others. That is the root rottenness of the ideology.. it kills any sense of independence & self reliance. It is demeaning to humans, constantly telling them they cannot care for themselves, but need a benevolent 'massa' to handle them. It is the pinnacle of subtle racism.. the soft bigotry of low expectations. These are fellow humans, & they CAN take care of themselves. They don't need the progressive benefactors to tell them they are inferior to others, & cannot survive on their own. This is the most diabolical, racist, & destructive ideology on earth, & it is a slap in the face of people's self respect. It is contrary to the american ideal, & should be opposed & exposed at every opportunity.

Of all the destructive forces in our culture, the welfare state is near the top. The ruling elite & deficit spending are probably the only things worse. The insidious thing about the welfare state is it pretends virtue & compassion, but delivers destruction & death. It is a diabolical system, that is corrupting our culture & tearing up the fabric of society.

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” ~Benjamin Franklin

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." ~Sir Alexander Fraser Tyler

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. ~Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. ~Thomas Jefferson 

Carpetbagger promises

This 'list' is the basis for progressive thought.. it is a 'wishlist' of the progressive agenda, from FDR's state of the union speech in 1944.  But what basis does it have in reality? Can these things be provided by a benevolent govt? NO! It is a carpetbagger promise.. a con for votes, even if the purveyors of the con really believe it, unlike most con artists who know they are scamming people.

That is the appeal. Free stuff! No more hunger! A nice home for everyone! 5 acres & a mule! Carpetbaggers have done this scam for centuries. Just because people can be duped, does not make the promises valid. SOMEONE needs to examine the claims, & scrutinize the promises, to see if they are even possible.
Here's the list again.. the 'second bill of rights' from FDR,

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

Seriously.. no jaded eyes, here? No skepticism for these 'pie in the sky' promises?
Free food? Free homes? Free healthcare? Guarantees for job, investments, labors, & future economies? What planet is he from? This is not now nor has it ever been on earth. There are 4 ways to get the necessities of life:
1. work & earn them for yourself.
2. Steal them from someone else.
3. Depend on someone else to provide them for you.
4. Luck. Find gold, win the lottery, etc.

3 & 4 are hard to depend on. Other people may quit doing it, or you might not win the lottery. 1 & 2 are proactive. You can do this yourself, & control your own destiny. 2 is a bit risky, since those you steal from may resist you with violence. 1 is the only sure, morally valid way to provide the necessities of life.

'Economic security' is a fantasy. No one is 'economically secure'. Riches come & go, even for the rich, & the basic needs in life have NEVER been a given. Every human who has ever lived has had to work for his survival, or depend on someone else to help them. IF our basic needs could be met by opening up some infinite warehouse & dispensing food, shelter, protection, etc, then sure, survival would be easy. But that is not how life works.

The problems of income disparity are exacerbated by progressive policies, not fixed. The rich get richer, on the backs of the workers, while the progressive, elite ruling class shuffles stolen money around. Their cronies are not rich from production, but theft. What i want from govt is consistent, fair rules, & a level playing field, not someone changing the rules & changing the score so everyone wins a trophy.

If i cannot work & enjoy the fruits of my labors, even if they are modest, but what i make is taken by a nanny & given to others, it offends humanity's sense of fairness. Especially when those doing it divide it among themselves, & trickle a pittance down to those they pretend to help. They are not robin hoods, they are thieving hoods! They divide their plunder for their own enrichment, & live in lavish luxury. How has the income gap done under the current redistribution administration? It's gotten worse! It always does. Statism & redistribution do NOT provide opportunity for self improvement, but make EVERYONE slaves to an oppressive taskmaster. The producer is not rewarded for his labor, but punished, as what he makes is stolen by the state & divided among the propagandists, with some set aside to buy votes.

If you can come up with another option, or find a magic genie or a golden goose, we humans have fantasized about those for millennia, & always enjoy the stories.