New Americanism

Change has come!

2009-01-21T04:49:00.000-08:00

Being at work it was difficult to see President Obama's speech. However I did get to hear some sound bytes of it. After eight years of less than stellar oratory it was refreshing to hear someone intelligent address the American people.

Leadership is the ability to inspire people to accomplish great things. I think leadership has returned to the White House.

My Time Off

2008-12-30T09:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays!

I apologize for my absence I have been on a self imposed blogging ban until after the New Year. I promise to make daily posts between Monday and Friday if for no other reason then to vent.

Thanks and see you in the New Year.

The First Amendment.....

2008-11-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There is no mistake that the founders added this amendment "first" to the Constitution. It is absolutely essential that Citizens have the ability to express how they feel about their Government. To that end the "First Amendment" prohibits the Government from stifling reasonable and open debate.

However the abuse of such freedom could lead to unintended consequences. Immediately after the election there have been a lot of instances where violence has been threatened against President-elect Obama and/or Democratic Members of Congress:

Such as:

The U.S. Secret Service is being asked to review a sign a Bonner County landowner put up which suggests a "free public hanging" of President-elect Barack Obama and several other political figures.

or:

Madison County, Idaho.......elementary school children allegedly started chanting "assassinate Obama" on the school bus.

or this gem:

Obama, he's a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns...

These people have wrapped themselves in the protection of the First Amendment mistakenly. Although Free Speech is protected, threatening or violent speech is not. I'll cite Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
Schenck v. United States in 1919

Clearly the advocation of harm to someone or the inciting thereof is not protected speech. I am confident the authorities will give these incidents the attention they deserve.

Joe the what?

2008-11-06T13:52:00.000-08:00

Most Americans agree when asked do you mind paying a little more in taxes to fund some social safety nets that catch people who have fallen on hard times. Some of these social programs are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and Welfare.

The generous spirit of America is boundless. What American in their right mind wouldn't want to help children, the elderly, or those of us down on their luck? However there are a few who neither have the compassion or generous spirit and would like to see these programs ended. But how do you ask someone to de-fund a program that has popular support and moral authority? You change the framing of the question!

Since the term was introduced into the lexicon by Ronald Regan "Welfare Queen" has had a largely pejorative connotation. Regan painted a picture of women taking illegal handouts from the government while they "made babies" and drove around in Cadillacs. The idea that people would sit at home and cheat hard working Americans understandably infuriated people. As his example he used a "woman" from the South side of Chicago, which is largely black portion of the city. This further deepened people's resentment since there was a widely held generalization that blacks are "lazy and shiftless" Regan never produced the name of this woman and it has been widely regarded that she was a fictional character. Not unlike "Joe the Plumber"

As most of you know by now Joe is not a licensed plumber, is not buying his bosse's business, is not named Joe. However none of this has stopped him from debating tax policy or endorsing candidates. Joe is a cartoon, and resembles the working class as much as Gayle Quinnell represents "all" McCain supporters.

However the truth about Joe is....his real name is Sam.....he's booked a publicist...is trying to get a record deal, and he was once a "Welfare Queen" himself! Oh my God....a Republican Hypocrite?

So it turns out that when Plumber Joe was a child, he was on welfare, not once, but twice, and he credits it with helping his family ultimately lead a middle-class life style. He defends having received welfare by saying that he's subsequently paid into the system.

Also "Joe" is living off the sweat of others because he hasn't paid his fair share of taxes.

Fortunately in this election "Straw Men" like "Joe the Plumber" and "The Welfare Queen" were largely ignored!

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...

2008-11-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

These lines from the Yeats poem are descriptive of our recent political environment. After the historic election of Barak Obama the fight for the center has begun. The "Right" has decided that we are still a right-of-center country and he better keep that in mind while making policy.

Barak Obama was elected with a significant majority in the Electoral College and by the widest margin in the popular vote relative to the elections of 2000 and 2004. Yet we are a right-of-center country.

I think our Elected Representatives are right-of-center. As demonstrated by the graph below Conservative Representatives vote further to the right than their constituents views. On the Liberal side of the curve the the divide is not that great.

In fact another interesting fact that can be gleaned from this graph is it seems that there are more people who are center and center-left than center-right. So why are our conservative friends claiming we are a right-of-center country?

Well to intimidate and limit what they see as Obama's "Leftist Agenda". However with the facts clearly demonstrated by the graph and the Election results Obama's "Leftist Agenda" is far more Main Stream than they are.

I'll borrow another line from Yeats to close:

The falcon cannot hear the falconer......

Nieman Marxist!

2008-11-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

I am not much for gossip but the more I hear about this woman the more I think she's like George Bush.

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported.....According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement......An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

read more

Another thing about her that reminds me of "Dubya" is her incoherent ramblings....

I don't think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit, that I would trump an economic time in this nation that occurred about two months ago, that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain's loss to me,"

read more

That's right! She's referring to herself in the third person and not making sense in the same sentence.....now that's talent!

Some people are floating the idea that she is the face of the "New Republican Party". If the Republican Party makes this mistake AGAIN they deserve to go the way of the Dodo.

I have a dream......

2008-11-04T20:21:00.000-08:00

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King Jr.

I have not been blogging long but I have been committed to this cause as ardently as anyone.....I have renewed faith and hope in my country. People have looked beyond the petty hatreds of the past and put the best interest of the country first.

As the election results continue to come in it is becoming apparent that there is a landslide in the making. Many people will begin to dissect this loss. However this tide has been rising for sometime. It is nothing short of a repudiation of the failed policies of the last eight years.

But more importantly people have not seen a man of mixed race running for President they only saw a man.

We have once again fulfilled the promise of this country.......

God Bless us all!

In humor there is truth

2008-11-04T10:47:00.001-08:00

This cartoonist has nailed it! So I won't sully it with my poor wordsmithing.

EDIT Just one thing please GO VOTE!

Found on teh internets....a series of tubes!

2008-11-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

As most of you know I am ADDICTED to Stumble Upon. I found the following while I was stumbling, I know it's not new but with the election around the corner it's more relevant than ever!!!!

What it means to be Republican!

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with
China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

Supporting "Executive Privilege" for every Republican ever born, who will be born or who might be born( in perpetuity.)

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

http://forums.theledger.com

Couldn't have said it better myself!!!!!!!

Some things to consider part 1

2008-10-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

With less than 5 days to go until the election I have decided to give you a point a day to consider before you cast your ballot on November 4th. Todays point is the Tax Policy of both candidates.

Conventional wisdom states in order to get elected you need to offer tax breaks! So what do both candidates do? You got it offer tax breaks. According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center both plans will raise the national deficit. John McCain's will add 4.5 trillion dollars and Barak Obama's will add 3.3 trillion dollars.

McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 % to 25 % he wants to not only make the Bush tax cuts permanent he wants increase them for the rich. He does not propose any investment in infrastructure or renewable energy. He also will tax your health insurance benefit for the first time possibly causing you to pay more in taxes and increasing the amount of people who are uninsured.

John McCain proposes to offset this by eliminating earmarks. However earmark spending accounts for 16 billion out of a $2 trillion federal budget. So if John McCain succeeds, which is unlikely, he will recoup 160 billion out of 4.5 trillion in the nest 10 years. Allowing for that he would still add 4.3 trillion to the debt.

Barak Obama will add 3.3 trillion still no small number but he will increase or preserve tax breaks to those making less than 250,000 dollars a year. He will also invest in renewable energy and infrastructure. He will make health insurance more accessible by regulating the Insurance companies and lower costs. He will raise the capital gains tax from 15% to 20%, that's the tax rate Paris Hilton pays on her "income" what do you pay?

So if we are going to deficit spend anyway shouldn't we put it into projects for the public good rather than the pockets of the rich and corporations.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

2008-10-29T10:53:00.001-07:00

That is one of the most memorable lines from the movie "The Princess Bride". It is Inigo Montoya's response to Vizzini's oft exclaimed phrase "Inconceivable!". Lately the term Socialist and Marxist has been bantered around quite a bit. Most notably during an interview conducted by Babara West of Orlando's WFTV with VP nominee Joe Biden.

Ms. West asked,
"How is Sen. Obama not being Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

Have we been reduced to name calling in our national debate? Jospeh McCarthy employed similar tactics from 1953-1954. His technique of using libel to besmirch the character of good citizens and muzzle dissent with the threat of accusation earned him Censure in the Senate in 1954.

I am going to preface my next statement by saying that the people accusing Obama and Biden for being Socialist or Marxist have no inkling of what either are. However for argument's sake lets assume they are correct. This "Socialist/Marxist" idea about "redistributing the wealth" as some alien and seditious act that will undermine the very "American Way of Life"......Heaven forbid!

So in the interest of fairness allow me to use the definition of Socialism/Marxism that is currently being used to tar Obama and Biden. The "Earned Income Tax Credit" is perhaps one of the most effective redistributions of wealth in recent years.

As David Gergen explains in a recent interview,
"It's [Earned Income tax Credit} a program whereby, if you're a working person, a working couple and you're below the poverty line, the government will actually give you money. That's a redistributed program. It's a program which takes money from the upper classes and gives it to the lower -- to the working poor."

Who is this far-left, rabidly anti-rich, anarchists who dares to use government to aid the poor or downtrodden?

I'll let Gergen tell you,
"Now who started that program? The earned income tax credit? Ronald Reagan. It was one of the -- it was an achievement of the Reagan administration that Bill Clinton then built on."

Some advice to my conservative friends. Stones and glass houses don't mix.

The end of an Error

2008-10-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Last week Alan Greenspan the heretofore unassailable Architect of the Free Market, the acolyte of Ayn Rand and rabid Libertarian said in not so many words I'm sorry. I'm guessing in some small way this "Act of Contrition" will assuage the guilt he feels for bringing us this mess. But did he really say he was sorry? Or caution us against repeating the steps that led us down this path. Not exactly.

It is inaccurate to say that Greenspan did not rely on any regulation. The problem was he relied on "Market Forces" or "Voluntary Regulation" by means of sound decision making. However most financial officers reasoned that before these sub-prime loans became a liability they would be sold and the origination and closing fees where theirs to keep. A lot of money was made doing this very thing but a lot of banks loaned 30 dollars for every 1 dollar they had on hand. This was clear violation of one of the few regulations that was still on the books. But what did Wall Street do? They created these complicated financial instruments to clean up their balance sheets know as Credit Default Swaps (CDS). However since the instruments where new and investors where doing well the CDS's were not regulated. This combination of weak, voluntary, and non-regualtion was a toxic brew which the taxpayer is now being forced to drink.

So what did Greenspan say? It's not my fault that I followed a flawed philosophy it's the fault of the loan officers, the hedge fund managers, and the mortgage holders for not making sound decisions. That is the problem with ideologues they never question why their philosophy doesn't fit reality but why reality doesn't fit their philosophy.

Greenspan does call for more regulatory oversight but that rings hollow when up until recently he decried that very notion.

"Apology" if that's what you call it, not accepted.....

You can read Greenspan's testimony here.

Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

2008-10-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest? So said Henry II "rhetorically". How rhetorically has been the subject of some debate. Yet there is plausible deniability for Henry's innocence. Regardless Henry was over heard by two of his knights who went straight away to Canterbury and assassinated Thomas Becket while he was at his prayers.

So whether Henry intended for his knights to carry out this act or not, it occurred and Thomas Becket was cruelly murdered. Which brings us to today.

John McCain and especially Sara Palin have been using some pretty inflammatory "rhetoric" of their own which has incited some on the crowd to yell "terrorist" and "kill him". For now it's just hate speech but what if someone acted as those knights did? Am I suggesting McCain and Palin want someone to assassinate Obama or Biden? Not at all. But what I am saying is that if harm comes to Obama or Biden as a result of their rhetoric then the guilt lies as hevaily on them as of they committed the crime.

Pre-Game

2008-10-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the final of the three Presidential Debates. As people already know Obama has been calm and cool and it seems to be working for him as evidenced by his poll numbers. I'm guessing that McCain will finally go on the offensive. But what will he attack with?

If the undecideds are anything like the base of the Republican party then the Bill Ayers and Jerimiah Wright issues will be the wise course. Unfortunately, for John McCain, the undecideds are more concerned about the economy. So you would expect McCain to focus on his plan for the economy. Again unfortunately, for John McCain, all he has to offer is the same tired Republican ideas.

"If I am elected president, I will help to create jobs for Americans in the most effective way a president can do this - with tax cuts...."

He has said he wants to cut the coporate tax rate from 35% to 25 % giving some of the biggest coporations huge tax reductions at a time when we are running record deficits. This weakens the dollar and it's buying power...therefore cost of goods and services go up. Furthermore where are we going to get the money for this tax cut?

"McCain called for reducing the maximum tax rate on long-term capital gains by half, from 15 percent to 7.5 percent in 2009 and 2010 -"

Ok this maybe the most ludicrious of all the proposals. Lets cut the tax rate on "gains" made outside of earned income. Has he even been looking at the stock market? Whose making any gains? So let me get this straight 7.5% of zero is exactly the same as 15 % of zero. This one is nothing more than window dressing

"McCain called for lowering the tax rates on withdrawals from IRA and 401(k) accounts to 10 percent, the lowest rate, in 2008 and 2009."

I thought part of the point of the bailout was to shore up the mortgage backed securities which are included in most money-market funds and discourage shortselling. This proposal would encourage people to take money out of their retirement funds which are largely made up of money-market funds thereby "short-selling". This in turn would drive the value down which could cause a panic in retirement funds encouraging others to "short-sell" negating any and all positive effect of the bailout. Really does this guy have any idea what's going on?

I've criticized John McCain for his negative attacks but with an economic plan like this I commend McCain for diverting attention from it.......

I was for John McCain before I was against him.....

2008-10-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Three weeks before the Presidential Election and Obama has maintained his 6-11 point lead, depending on the poll, over John McCain. As the campaigns prepare for the last mad dash for the finish line the McCain campaign has some surprising critics.

The McCain campaign(s),... combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic.

Bill Kristol

This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza ...

George F. Will

Sarah Palin is a "fatal cancer to the Republican party"

David Brooks

These three may seem devastating enough but the list goes on and only gets more critical. So what's going on here? Did the pundits/bloggers on the right all of sudden become burdened with a conscience?

Well the short answer is no. The longer answer is it seems that the right thinking members of the Fourth Estate are having their cake and eating it too. With very few exceptions they are tarring a beaten candidate in the interest of establishing their non-partisan "cred". Does anyone in their proper senses believe that these criticisms would be aired if McCain were winning with his cynical strategy? In fact most of the critics were the authors or advocates of that very strategy.

He also has radical associates in his past.The most famous of these is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and I wonder if Obama may have inadvertently set the stage for the McCain team to reintroduce him to the American public.

Bill Kristol

Palin is as bracing as an Arctic breeze and delightfully elicits the condescension of liberals whose enthusiasm for everyday middle-class Americans cannot survive an encounter with one.

George Will

Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do battle with the corrupt establishment.

David Brooks

So to say they are disingenuous is to be kind but since I am a kind person I'll leave it at that......cynics, liars, or hacks would do as well........

Only in America! ...and China, and the Soviet Union, and Cuba...

2008-10-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Around the time that the press exposed the fact that the Federal government was violating our Fourth Amendment rights I struck up a conversation with someone reading the George Orwell classic 1984. I asked him".....wow how about the government listening to our conversations?" His answer surprised me"....you have nothing to worry about if your doing nothing wrong." Shocked by what was cognitive dissonance personified I was speechless.

Conservatives had long advocated limiting government intervention in the lives of it's citizens. In fact Barry Goldwater, considered to be the Godfather of the Reagan Revolution, believed that government had no right banning homosexuals from military service saying"You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight." So with such mistrust of government how can they stand by and allow this attack on a constitutionally guaranteed right?

To further prove that point it turns out the NSA wasn't only listening to suspected terrorists but to private conversations. These law abiding citizens apparently did have something to fear.

I am not claiming that our conservative friends don't like the Bill of Rights in fact the vociferously defend the Second Amendment. So I'll paraphrase a popular argument of theirs,"If you take away the right against illegal search and seizure then only criminals will have that right."

Glass Houses!

2008-10-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

As the attacks continue about Obama's relationship to Bill Ayers it seems Governor Palin has a few domestic terrorists in her closet.......

In the interest of fairness I think just by associating with someone doesn't necessarily mean you share their views. However when you sling mud make sure none of it will stick to you.

Palin Watch

2008-10-09T19:49:00.001-07:00

Added a clock keeping the time that Palin has not spoken to the press. After she muffed the softball interview with Katie Couric I don't blame them!

The insurgency is in it's last throes......

2008-10-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

Remember when Dick Cheney said this in regard to the heightening violence in Iraq?

Today the Dow Jones Index closed at 8579, from a high of 14164 in October of 2007, and the Stock Market has lost 4 Trillion Dollars since January of this year. Think about that, that's a 4 with twelve zeros. I'll write it out 4,000,000,000,000. Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2007 was 13.87 trillion. The loss is 28.8% of our 2007 GDP!

Some will argue that most of those losses came from the devaluation of derivatives which never had real value like manufactured goods or services. However the fact remains over a quarter of our country's wealth has vanished into thin air.

The "Free Market" house of cards is finally collapsing around our ears and what are the Republican candidates for President and Vice President talking about? Senator Obama's tenuous connection to a reformed militant, Bill Ayers, who committed his crimes when Senator Obama was 8 years old. Are they serious? Is this what people want to hear?

At this point in the election most people have decided who they are going to vote for. However there is a portion of the voting populace who have not decided. A smart candidate would target this group.

In effort to peel away some of these non-committed voters they are preaching the politics of fear and distraction which was used by Bush/Cheney in 2004. This comes as little surprise since McCain has employed many former Bush/Cheney campaign staffers .

But it does not seem to be working this time, non-committed voters seem to be more concerned about what the candidates are going to to do about the economy rather than who they knew. So why talk about Bill Ayers...because their party caused this mess and they have no answer for it.

So I think the McCain/Palin "insurgency" is in it's last throes........(Hopefully I'm better at this than Cheney is!)

Country First?

2008-10-09T06:29:00.000-07:00

How politically craven was John McCain's choice for VP? It's been called McCain's McGovern Moment . Even though Thomas Eagleton was a "flawed candidate" because he sought medical help for his nervous exhaustion he was more highly qualified than McCain's choice.

So why did McCain do it? Why place the country at risk by possibly handing over the reigns to someone so evidently out of their depth? What about "Country First"?

John McCain has said he would rather lose an election than lose a war, explaining he's seemingly stubborn conviction that we are winning in Iraq. Yet General Patreaus has hesitated to use the word victory. The latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states that things aren't that stable in Iraq.

Now either John McCain is lying or he really has no idea what's going on. He choose a highly under qualified candidate for VP. He tells us that the Surge is working. In fact at the begining of the week that Lehman Brothers collapsed he told us that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

Having been lied too the last eight years has gotten us into an illegal war, stripped us of our civil liberites, and may cause the collapse of the World's economies......we can not afford to make that mistake a third time....

What no boot straps?

2008-10-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

First McCain's, then and possibly current, economic advisor Phil Graham claimed the recession was a psychological one and we are a nation of whiners. Now press secretary Dana Perino says that the White House will not help Americans already down on their luck by extending jobless benefits.

So now it's regular Americans fault again that they are not working. I'm guessing that the 700,000 jobs shed by the economy this year has nothing to do with it.

So pick yourself up by your boot straps ......oh you don't have a pair? Get a job and buy a pair.

What did we just do?

2008-10-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Bailout has been called the worst collapse since the Great Depression. However all we have heard from our government is that"...foundations of our economy are strong." So whats going on here?

Well in a misguided belief that the market was correcting itself our Representatives were waiting for this to blow over. They attempted to restore investor confidence by telling us that everything is fine and we will pull through. Some of them may have truly believed that as well. However this is nothing more than the disastrous policies of the "Free Market" The laisez-faire attitude re-introduced during the Regan revolution has spawned not just this fiasco but an earlier Savings and Loan crisis, in the 1980s, which required a bailout as well. A common definition of insanity is the act of repeating the same activity while expecting a different result.

The enormity of this insanity is yet to be fully realized but it's clear that de-regulation is not the answer. This is why I don't understand why there was no provision for oversight placed in the bailout bill that recently was signed into law. In fact a provision was stuffed into the bill easing accounting standards, called mark to market, to allow companies to skew their earnings reports.

It's not clear what the outcome of this provision will be but it's more of the same.....

My First Post

2008-10-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

"The stoutest and truest Americans are the very men who have the least sympathy with the people who invoke the spirit of Americanism to aid what is vicious in our government or to throw obstacles in the way of those who strive to reform it."

This line is extracted from a speech given in April of 1894 by Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a member of the Republican Party but his legacy differs greatly with the party's platform today.

Roosevelt was a clear champion of labor and the labor movement.....

"Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

"It is essential that there should be organizations of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize."

He advocated the conservation of wildlife and natural resources.

"I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."

He favored governmental regulation in business....

"Such increased supervision is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy on the other."

He also endorsed equal rights for women.....

"Viewed purely in the abstract, I think there can be no question that women should have
equal rights with men.... Especially as regards the laws relating to marriage there should be
the most absolute equality between the two sexes"

All of these positions place him squarely in the Progressive Camp which today is diametrically opposed to the Republican Party's platform.

So why do Republicans claim to be the benefactors of his legacy? Theodore Roosevelt is considered to be one of the most successful Presidents in history.As such it lends legitimacy to the Republican Party, a legitimacy which recently has been eroded by misguided ideology. Their claim to Lincoln is similarly ridiculous since his policies do not square with their party's disastrous policies toward minorities. So it is insincere for Republicans to claim both
Roosevelt and Lincoln because by today's standards they would be called "far-left radicals"

The speech True Americansim defines the conduct required of each American. New Americanism is a re-dedication to these principles and the purpose and name of this blog. I hope in the coming days and weeks that my view of current events through the prism of New Americanism will inspire a few of you to thought and possibly action.

The Founding Father's established this country on the principle that governments are established for the benefit of its citizens and to that end the citizens have a duty to be involved in their government.