Things We Read Today: Holy Prophets Edition
This weekend, I picked up an out-of-print book on the Great Depression by Dixon Wecter. Said volume opens with opposing quotes from Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt which remain quite timely. First, Mr. Hoover:
It does not follow, because our difficulties are stupendous, because there are some souls timorous enough to doubt the validity and effectiveness of our ideals and our system, that we must turn to a State-controlled or State directed social or economic system in order to cure our troubles. That is not liberalism; that is tyranny. (August 11, 1932 - his renomination acceptance speech)
Dead familiar, right? He could be talking about our current debate about health care and unemployment, and no doubt there are many would would agree with him. Now the rejoinder from FDR, delivered, ironically, six years later, when the New Deal was just about over:
History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government. We are a rich Nation; we can afford to pay for security and prosperity without having to sacrifice our liberties in the bargain.
As I keep saying, we’ve been having the same danged argument about philosophy of government for more than three-quarters of a century. Whichever way we come down on it, we need to get past it and get on with the business of running the place. I suspect that given the endurance of things like Social Security and Medicare despite the Ike, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush I & II administrations and various Republican congresses, the debate was settled long ago, but somehow the shooting goes on long after the war ended. We ain’t going back to the way things were before, but somehow we ain’t going forward either.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:23 am
Very interesting quote. I think the Tea Partiers would be struck by the phrase “a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.” A possible defintion of the Tea Parties is that they represent people who are concerned that they’re losing sovereign control over our government.
Many health reform critics were irate that they did not know what was in this bill before it was passed. Many were irate that a bill so unpopular with the public was passed on a party line vote by the use of legislative shenanigans. The use of thousands of earmarks to reward friend of those those in power disturbs Tea Partiers. It will be interesting to see whether their efforts eventually lead to citizens gaining greater control over the government.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Where have these Tea Partiers been for the last ten years?
“Many PATRIOT ACT critics were irate that they did not know what was in this bill before it was passed.”
“Many were irate that a HUGE TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY bill . . . was passed . . . by the use of legislative shenanigans.”
And so on and so forth . . .
March 29th, 2010 at 10:45 am
And, for the record, I don’t know about the Tea Partiers, but I was a critic of the health care reform bill too, and I knew what was in it. I took time to read various sections that interested me and I paid attention to reporters (Ezra Klein and Jon Chait among others) who were studying this bill day and night for months.
It wasn’t that hard to know what was in the bill.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Good point about the Tea Partiers in regards to the Patriot Act. I really think the country was completely blown away by 9/11 though and it was sort of the perfect storm. I’m very, very conservative (also live in the NYC region) and I blew it with the Patriot Act. I was all for protection (after all, according to the Constitution, that is the main job of the government) because we just got messed up big time. Your head isn’t read when something like that happens.
However, in regards to health care reform, there was no big calamity to cloud our minds. I could see clearly it was the wrong way to go. I just wish I had had that clarity back in the days of the Patriot Act.
March 29th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I do feel though that that first sentence of the FDR quote is a bit misleading. Dictatorships grow from evil people. They’ve grown from extraordinarily strong governments (i.e. Nero) and completely devastated governments (i.e. our favorite villain Mr. Hitler). Granted he’s tooting his own horn because he’s a president, but I just can’t let that one go.
Also, he says “we are a rich Nation.” That’s kind of ironic because at the time of these words, the Federal Deficit was at record levels and at the highest percentage of the GDP it’s pretty much ever been. I guess if my daughter has a credit with no limit and I have a credit card with a $10,000 limit, she’s richer than I am in some weird way.