The Fascist On The Dime

Certainly FDR falls into the fascist category. An alliance of the private corporations and the state is with an expansion of centralized power is exactly what Roosevelt pursued in the 1930s and what Obama is doing today.

FDR...was a total and complete disaster [as President] on absolutely every front. Of course one can argue FDR was just a man of his time – his contemporaries were Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mussolini, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Peron, and Franco, among others. All of them, and other world leaders at the time, were cut from basically the same socialist/fascist cloth. FDR just cloaked most of his depravations in traditional American rhetoric – "reforming" capitalism in order to "save" it and similar nonsense.-FDR: Just A Man of His Time

For seventy-plus years, the case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt has vexed people of a libertarian bent. His policies, extending war socialism based on Mussolini’s economic structure, expanded the American State to an unthinkable extent, and prolonged the Great Depression through the horrific World War II.

Normalcy did not return until after his wartime controls were repealed and the budget was cut. Lasting economic recovery began in 1948.

And the guy that made all that happen is a hero? His picture is on the (depreciated) dime.

Libraries of books have appeared about his presidency, most celebrating his cockamamie schemes, and this is the example that has inspired the whole of American political culture. Everyone tries to be like him, and the way they try to be like him is by ramming through even more cockamamie schemes using high-blown rhetoric. Bust the budget and be "great": this is the lesson of FDR.

George W. Bush was a case in point. After 9-11, he did the best impersonation he could, but in the end he was completely discredited. Clinton tried something similar with his goofy health-care plan, but he failed. Obama took some steps in this direction, but they never amounted to much.

The problem here is the example of FDR and the lessons that the American political class has learned from it. The big-government left loves the example, and urges everyone to go thou and do likewise. The neoconservatives have taken the approach that we should just stop fighting about FDR and learn to love the New Deal. Newt Gingrich and his friends have pushed the most implausible thing of all: heralding the greatness of the New Deal while also proclaiming their opposition to big government. Huh?

In the end, it turns out that everyone has learned the wrong lesson, and not only stemming from the mistaken view that the New Deal somehow got us out of the economic Depression. The main wrong lesson here might be political.

As Mark Thornton has shown, the big legislative change that FDR made at the start of his presidency, the decision that affected every single American citizen from one coast to the other, was the repeal of the thirteen-year Hell of Prohibition. He campaigned to repeal Prohibition (which Hoover supported) and cut government (which Hoover expanded). He kept his main promise merely two weeks after the inauguration. Later that year, he basked in the glory of an amendment to the Constitution that repealed the Prohibition amendment of 1920.

These actions had an immediate effect that dramatically changed life for everyone, drinkers and nondrinkers alike. The speakeasies and their corruptions came to an end. The cops cleaned up their act as bribes and payoffs were no longer the main part of the daily grind. Local government budgets were suddenly flush with revenue. There were new markets for grains. There were meeting places for people. The young were no longer lured into the drunken underworld with its forbidden-fruit attractiveness. For heavens sake, people could have a glass of wine with dinner!

If you think that this is no big deal, consider the absolute despotism of the 18th Amendment that FDR killed:

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Yeah, sure, this is the land of the free! FDR's response was the 21st Amendment:

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Here is drama. Here is greatness. Here is what it means to set people free. By comparison, everything else that FDR did – nefarious and awful – paled by comparison, at least from the point of view of the average person. Having taken credit for repealing Prohibition, FDR had tremendous legislative leeway, which he used to the maximum extent for one, two, three, four terms in office. This is what big actions on behalf of human liberty can bring.

Since then, we've had a long string of politicians who tried to emulate FDR's horrible programs without having done anything positive for the cause of liberty. It doesn't work. They keep going down in flames. And why is this? Because, for the most part, the main impulse of American politics was always and still is essentially libertarian.

The songs we sing, the pledges we make, the stories of our founding, all have liberty as the main theme. Despite all the horrors of the presidencies and the vast expansion of government power, liberty remains the overriding impulse of American political culture. The welfare and warfare states are out of control, and yet, it remains true that the most politically effective themes in American life revolve around liberty. Liberty is what unites us. Liberty is what we want.

FDR understood this. This is why he changed his position from dry to wet to get the nomination. This is why he made the repeal of Prohibition a priority.

So why haven't we seen this before? We tend to separate economic and social policy and forget the way they play off each other. Good economists have condemned the New Deal, but they might forget how the repeal of Prohibition had a huge economic aspect. The other thing is that the historians are liars. They want us to believe that FDR was loved for all the horrible things that he did. This is why they keep pounding into our brains the glories of the New Deal.

The results of this misconstruing of history have been disastrous for human liberty. Now with a new understanding of why so many people loved him, we have a better example of political success. The next president, from whatever party, should learn. Bring the troops home. Cut taxes. Legalize marijuana. Eliminate restrictions on any and every industry.

Reagan understood this, which is why he immediately cut taxes and broke the power of a government union – and this is also why his catastrophic deficits, later tax increases, and government expansions were not regarded as the betrayals they were.

Freedom is the theme. The president who pushes it succeeds. The cautionary aspect of this story is that not even the president should be trusted. FDR used his great action as an excuse to get away with many evil actions. The first lesson for politicians is to push freedom first. The lesson for the rest of us is never put your trust in a president, even one that has done something good.


Lew Rockwell: The Mystery of FDR Unraveled

Which President Was the Best of Your Lifetime?

We're talking US Presidents here, my worldwide audience of faithful Skeptical Eye fans. Some of you Russians may think Putin is the be all and end all of Presidential Leadership (and maybe he is) but America is still the big empire on the block and who the POTUS is matters more to the rest of the world's citizens than most other world leaders.


So, who was/is the best (or least harmful) of the lot? I'm going to start by assuming that you are not one hundred years old (and forgive me if you are, my centenarian friend) but instead somewhere in the middle; middle aged, shall we say? With that assumption, we'll start with John F. Kennedy, who would have been President when someone as old as 49 today was born. JFK was also in a sense the first President of the modern era of the Presidency (the first real television president, the first president to hold live press conferences, the first president to have a nationally televised debate with his opponent -now a regular feature of our farcical national elections, and the President whose assassination ushered in the end of American innocence and the beginning of the age of cynicism and distrust of the government).

So, let's nominate and eliminate. Starting with JFK, we have a president considered by many as overrated. He was too young, too inexperienced, too much of a womanizer, his indiscretions even possibly leading to blackmail down the road if he hadn't been murdered in Dallas. The public, however, still loves the man, rating him consistently as one of the best Presidents ever. A result of the myth-making echos of assassination still reverberating nearly 50 years later? Or is there real merit in that popular assessment after all? We'll leave Kennedy aside for a moment and go on, in chronological order, to his successor.

Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee for president, had a negative view of Lyndon Baines Johnson. He saw Kennedy as a political opponent but also as a friend, and told many times of their plans for debates in 1964 and even the possibility of campaigning together around the country.

Goldwater’s rising popularity in the South in the early 1960s helped him win a tough bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. Goldwater had been looking forward to running an issue-oriented campaign against his friend and political rival, President John F. Kennedy. An avid pilot, Goldwater had planned to fly around the country with Kennedy, in what the two men believed would be a revival of the old whistle-stop campaign debates.

Goldwater was devastated when those plans were cut short by Kennedy’s death in late 1963, and he mourned the president’s passing profoundly. Nevertheless, he won the Republican nomination in 1964, setting up a showdown with Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, who he despised and would later accuse of “using every dirty trick in the book.” -A Profile of Barry Goldwater

Kennedy could also deliver a speech, while Johnson was a dud at public speaking, dull, uninteresting and completely uncharismatic (not necessarily bad things in and of themselves, but in LBJ's case, another indication of his complete unworthiness to hold the highest office in the land).

Compare JFK's inaugural address with Johnson' 1965 inaugural:






Johnson, of course, gave us the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the disastrous expansion of the Federal Government with his vision of a "Great Society". He was also an outright crook (long before he became president). I'm therefore putting him in the bad/worst category.

Then we've got Richard Nixon, who was the "comeback kid" long before Bill Clinton. Defeated in 1960, possibly as the result of a stolen election, Nixon next went on to challenge Governor Edmund Brown (father of former governor Jerry Brown, now again the Democratic nominee for governor of California) in California in 1962, losing and then declaring that the press wouldn't have him to kick around anymore. Nixon then did the seemingly impossible and went on to win the White House in a close 1968 election.

Vietnam, Watergate and an endless list of other offenses removes Nixon from consideration as the "best" of recent presidents.

Then you've got the first "president by appointment", the once Leslie King, known to us as Gerald Ford. He is the only US president to gain the office without ever being on the ballot on a national ticket as either a presidential or vice-presidential nominee, having been appointed to the vice presidency by Nixon after Spiro Agnew's resignation in 1973. An non-entity and pardoner of the criminal Nixon, he can't be seriously considered as the best or even least harmful of recent presidents.

Then came Jimmy. Elected due to the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the peanut farmer and former one-term governor of Georgia was victorious against non-elected incumbent Ford in 1976.



Carter actually had many good points, and might be in the running as best only because he was less awful than his immediate predecessors. Let's set James Earl Carter, Jr aside as well.

Ronald Reagan brought us morning in America, though some might say mourning in America, spending insanely with his cold war military build-up and leaving us with the wonders of an escalated "war on drugs", among other anti-freedom policies. On Reagan's good points, one can only say that Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had much more to do with the economic recovery of the 1980's than Reagan did. And what was up with that dye-job on his hair?

George H.W. Bush, of the criminal Bush family, is not even in contention. A total fiasco from start to finish (though even he doesn't look too bad compared to his lunatic son).

Slick Willie aka William Jefferson Clinton is starting to look pretty damn good, even though his reign over the boom of the 1990's was based on an economy built on sand, at least we had relative peace and prosperity for a few years while he was in the White House.

The two most recent fascists presidents to "lead" us are Baby Bush and his black carbon copy, Obama. The crazy out-of-control deficit spending, bailouts for banksters and big business, wars and erosion of civil liberties under both of them make them the two worst presidents not only in our lifetimes, but possibly for all of U.S. history. I'm certainly crossing them off my list as potential candidates for the best of a bad lot.

That leaves us with only three to choose from: Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton.

The economy was not bad or (seemingly) very good under two of them. Carter can't really be blamed for the stagflation of the late seventies, and deserves credit for things like deregulation and not being a total warmongering mass murderer like most 20th century presidents. His character was better than Clinton's, but it was no doubt better than Kennedy's as well, but we're not talking personal morality here, but how harmful or not each was to the country they presumed to guide. Therefore it's hard to give Carter points for that.

Clinton might have been a rapist, and is just a very good, deceitful politician, but that very desire to be popular and be president may have made him a fairly good Chief Executive.

Finally, let's consider again that tragic figure of romantic history we started with, JFK. If he had not been assassinated there is no guarantee we wouldn't have escalated in Vietnam, but think about where the young John Fitzgerald Kennedy may have been going late in his short presidency by listening to his June 1963 commencement address at American University:

"What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time."

"Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles—which can only destroy and never create—is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task."

"First examine our attitude towards peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."

"For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

"I'm taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard. First, Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking towards early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hope must be tempered -- Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history; but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind. Second, to make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on this matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not -- We will not be the first to resume."-John F. Kennedy

I think the choice is clear. All things considered, John F. Kennedy was the best president of the last 50 years.

How about you? In both your own lifetime and these last 50 years or so, who do you
think deserves to be called the best President of the United States of America?

Presidents Day Dream

Why did I have to work yesterday? It was a holiday, wasn't it? Children were off from school, the banksters had locked their doors along with their allies, the government offices of the land, and people everywhere were frolicking about in great joy over not having to deal with the evil parasites (no, I don't mean to include the children in that designation).

I dreamed I asked the higher ups (well, the assistant higher up, the only one who was there and not taking the day off as a paid holiday) if it made sense to stay open on a day when most everyone was having Presidents Day barbecues and picnics, exchanging Presidents Day presents, and eating hollow chocolate Washingtons and Lincolns.

And then I had another dream, a dream of a President who actually promised hope and change, and guess what? He was chocolate, just like those little Georges and Abes that the kids find in their baskets on Presidents Day morning. We believed he would end two wars and bring all the troops home and fulfill the dreams of the anti-war movement. But then the chocolate President was really in the White House, and as I watched in horror his outer chocolate coating began to crack, which might not have proved fatal to our hopes, if, that is, we hadn't discovered that beneath that crack he was hollow inside.

And then the true horror of the dream revealed itself, as the chocolate of the new President's head also began to crack and fall away. Would we have a headless President? But no, it was far more terrible than that. Underneath the smiling chocolate face was another one, a grinning, stupid looking face made of white chocolate, and as the last of the real chocolate dropped to the ground, I stared in horror and disbelief. It was George W. Bush!

I woke up screaming.

No more hollow chocolate bunnies for me before bedtime.

Another sickening "holiday"

President's Day is perhaps the most disgusting "holiday" of the year--even worse than Memorial Day and Flag Day. Yes, yes, let's honor all the power-hungry tyrants, warmongers, thieves and mass murderers who usurped power in the US and dismantled its Constitution (not that I'm pro-Constitution, but following it would be preferable to the current dictatorship).

A "president" is simply the head of the criminal gang we call "government" (the band of thugs that has arbitrarily monopolized power over a certain geographical area). Screw the presidency and its boot-licking apologists.

Shut up, Bush!

America liked Ike, but as it turned out the World War II hero was not so fond of the military establishment. When he spoke to the nation from the Oval Office on the evening of January 17, 1961, Eisenhower had presided over the early years of the Cold War and the growth of the US-Soviet arms race—and the defense contractors who built those arms. His worries about those companies' growing power is what made his farewell address famous. "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience," he said. "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex …. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." The following year, the international construction firm Brown & Root, which would win contracts with the US government during the Vietnam and Iraq wars, would be acquired by Halliburton.

Presidential Goodbyes