by Allen West
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. This one is easy. Ever heard of the “death tax” or, as some term it, the “estate tax”? Estate (property) was one of the unalienable rights, endowed by our Creator, identified by Locke. But I guess in a secular state the state is the creator, as Rousseau promoted, and individual accumulation has to be minimized.
4. Confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels. Need to be careful here, because I believe one of our First Amendment rights is to petition our grievances to government. Heck, that was the whole point of the Declaration of Independence. But here’s the key point: who decides what constitutes a rebel? the IRS? local government? There are thousands of cases of “eminent domain” where the local, state, or federal government takes property from one private owner and hands it to another, simply because the government thinks the other party will make better use of it.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. During Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, at about the same time that personal income tax was created, the Federal Reserve Bank was founded. Another brilliant idea? A national bank, which conducts monetary policy irrespective of overall national fiscal policy—how’s that working for us? It’s a reckless approach for short-term gain at the expense of future generations. Just check out Ben Bernanke and his “quantitative easing” policies of printing money and lowering interest rates, which create in effect an artificially robust economy … using taxpayer dollars. It may look fine now, but this house of cards cannot stand forever. Reality has a nasty way of biting.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state. We have the Federal Communications Commission, established in 1934 under progressive Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the US Department of Transportation established in 1967 under Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Anyone see a trend here?
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. This would be the nationalizing of production and the injection of the state into the free market/private sector, à la the Community Reinvestment Act, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and auto manufacturer and bank bailouts, as well as the creation of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, and the Interior; the Bureaus of Land Management, Reclamation, and Mines; and the National Park Service.
8. Free education for all children in government schools. The US Department of Education has practically become a propaganda arm of the federal government, and a highly politicized teachers’ union, the National Education Association, controls the education process. Remember, it was Rousseau who advocated state education to enlighten the populace as to what the “community” or the “general will” wanted. This Rousseauian view has permeated our colleges and universities and explains why there are even educators against school choice, charter schools, and home schooling. Don’t forget that your taxes are used to pay for these “public schools”—another means by which the state can minimize the property of some in order to promote the design of the state. Over the last thirty years, public education has gradually morphed into public indoctrination.
There is one “unofficial” plank that becomes essential in the Marxist/socialist movement: state control of the press. To control the population, you must control the message, which reinforces the “general will” that must be obeyed. What a surprise that liberal outlets like MSNBC employ former Obama administration officials who are perfectly placed to ensure every story gets the preferred progressive spin. A complicit national media willingly allows the state to control the narrative by focusing on those stories that fit the state’s agenda and ignoring other perspectives.
Did our founders advocate for no government? Absolutely not. They were far from anarchists. But what they did construct was a system of limited government with defined roles and responsibilities. Following Locke’s design, they wrote the Constitution to place restraint on government; they did not adopt Rousseau’s plan to place the restraint on the individual. Our founders embraced Locke’s classical liberalism, and their beliefs built the foundation of modern conservatism.
So what is today’s liberalism?
First of all, contemporary or “postmodern” liberalism isn’t liberalism in the classic sense at all, because today it has no true relationship to the ideals of Locke. It grows from the theories of Rousseau, who gave birth to Marxism and socialism—clearly the antithesis of our American constitutionalism. That’s why we were told there was a fundamental transformation a-comin’. It’s happening right under our noses.
But I keep coming back to one simple question: why is the danger of progressive liberalism so difficult for people to comprehend? It’s obviously not being taught, at least not without some blatant bias. To answer that question, there is one more mystery to explore: what the heck is a progressive?
Most historians agree Progressivism was a political reform movement that began in the late nineteenth century and continued through the first decades of the twentieth century. The movement counted among its members leading intellectuals, social reformers, and political leaders such as John Dewey, Theodore Woolsey, John Burgess, Herbert Croly, Charles Merriam, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt. Progressives wanted to address the economic, political, and cultural issues that had arisen from the changes of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of modern capitalism in America. Individually they may have differed in their assessments and solutions for these problems, but they all agreed that government had to be more actively engaged at every level, thereby departing from our traditional notion of limited government.
Early in the twentieth century, American progressive ideology was influential in shaping policies such as the direct elections of senators, open primaries, and the ability of the electorate to bypass the legislature with initiatives, referendums, and recalls. Since an expanded government needs revenue, Progressives were influential in the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment: the progressive income tax.
It’s easy to see the correlation between progressivism, Marxism, and socialism, and many historians believe progressivism was simply an exercise in “rebranding” in order to make European Marxist and socialist ideas more palatable to Americans. Today you can call it socialism, communism, progressivism, or “statism”—the term used by constitutional scholar, radio host, and “Great One” Mark Levin—the fundamentals are the same.
Whether out of good intentions or a conscious repudiation of America’s founding principles, there can be no doubt that the followers of progressivism transformed American politics. But no matter the intent, the result is that progressivism, now modified and assimilated into contemporary liberalism, is the predominant view presented in America today by means of education, media, popular culture, and politics. This does not mean it represents the perspective of the majority, but it is the prevailing perspective being promoted.
What does that mean for our country?
Our classical liberal founders believed in the natural rights of man and the law of nature, as bestowed by our Creator. Jefferson wrote that we are obliged “to respect those rights in others which we value in ourselves.”
But Progressive John Dewey said, “Freedom is not something that individuals have as a ready-made possession.” For Dewey our freedom was nothing more than a quaint ideal, and he stated: “Natural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology.” That’s quite a departure from the fundamental concept of unalienable rights as laid out in the Declaration of Independence. You see, for progressives there are no permanent standards of rights. Instead they support the idea of historical relativity.
The original constitution written for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1780 states that “the body-politic is formed by a voluntary
association of individuals: It is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.”
But less than 150 years later, Progressives were rejecting the idea of a social compact. Political scientist Charles Merriam (no relation to the dictionary Merriams) wrote, “The individualistic ideas of the ‘natural right’ school of political theory, endorsed in the Revolution, are discredited and repudiated.” Merriam believed natural rights had “no proper place in politics.”
As such, today’s progressives have no use for religion either. And why should they? After all, who needs God when, as Hegel said, “the state is the divine idea as it exists on earth.” Is it any surprise that when there was a vote to reinsert the word God into the Democratic platform at the 2012 convention the proposal was met with boos and disdain? I guess that’s what it means to fundamentally transform America.
For the Founding Fathers, the expressed purpose of government was to protect private individuals and their industrial nature. According to Jefferson, “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
But Progressive President Woodrow Wilson completely disagreed. As part of Rousseau’s intellectual political elite, Wilson believed Jefferson’s type of government was unjust, “because it leaves men to the mercy of predatory corporations. Without government management of these corporations, the poor would be destined to indefinite victimization by the wealthy”—which sounds an awful lot like Marx and Engels to me.
I don’t deny there is a need for some market regulation. A great example is the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which kept a prudent separation between commercial and investment banking. Unfortunately Glass-Steagall was repealed during the Clinton administration, leading to larger banks getting involved in mortgage-backed securities—and we all know how that ended in 2008. When the state believes it should intervene in the private sector, it never ends well. We get crony capitalism and governmental venture capitalism like the Solyndra debacle, where the government invested half a billion dollars of taxpayer money in an unproven energy company only to have it go bankrupt two years later.
In terms of domestic policy, the founders wanted to encourage an independent, hardworking populace with laws and educational institutions that promoted values such as honesty, moderation, justice, patriotism, courage, frugality, and industry. As the new government sought to expand the territory of the United States with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, it was written that “government should promote education because religion, morality, knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”
But for Progressives, there were two priorities of domestic policy: protecting the poor and other victims of capitalism through redistributive policies, and state control of commerce, production, manufacturing, and banking.
Regarding foreign policy, the Founding Fathers believed that the best way to defend the security and property of the people was with deterrence, not aggression. Alliances were to be sought not to engage in quarrels with other nations but solely for our own defense.
How interesting that Progressives believed in promoting the dominance of a political idea by force. In fact Charles Merriam openly called for a policy of colonialism on a racial basis: “The Teutonic races must civilize the politically uncivilized. They must have a colonial policy. Barbaric races, if incapable, may be swept away.”
In 1899 Theodore Roosevelt wrote his own vision of imperialism in his essay “Expansion and Peace,” saying, “every expansion of a great civilized power means a victory for law, order, and righteousness.”
A final distinction between progressive ideals and our founding principles is in the area of leadership. James Madison believed our leaders “should not be experts, but they should have the most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.”
In contrast, Progressives disregarded what they considered amateurism in politics. They did not believe in the liberally educated statesman. According to that view, if nineteenth-century frontiersman and soldier Davy Crockett had been born a hundred years later, he could never have been effective in Congress, because politics clearly was too complicated for a man of his common sense. Damn, they would have gotten that one wrong! Today’s progressives follow in the same vein, believing that only those educated in top universities are capable of governing. Needless to say, they believe in a political elite class (and I thought they just didn’t like my round-rimmed spectacles). For progressives, it’s all about a strong central governing authority and an extensive bureaucratic administrative apparatus.
So here we are, America.
The Wilson period, the Franklin Roosevelt New Deal period, and the Johnson–Carter periods reflect previous eras of progressivism in America. I believe we are currently in a new and more dangerous period, one begun by George W. Bush and accelerated by Barack H. Obama. In 2008 we were just five days away from fundamentally transforming our nation. It’s now five years later. Are we going to stop it?
America survived the first great battle for its soul, the Civil War. Will we be able to survive the second battle between our constitutional founding principles and those of ever-encroaching progressive statism?
I know for which I stand, and against which I fight. Do you?
PART III
CONSERVATISM IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY
Chapter 8
THE SOUL OF OUR SOULS
The Negro should acquire property, own his own land, drive his own mule hitched to his own wagon, milk his own cow, raise his own crop and keep out of debt, and when he acquired a home he became fit for a conservative citizen.
—BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Boy, don’t ever see your color as a handicap, and never use it as a crutch.
—HERMAN “BUCK” WEST SR.
In this chapter I’d like to speak to my fellow Americans who also happen to be black. There are many among the liberal Left who seem to think being black and conservative is some type of affliction, a racial anomaly that has only recently appeared in America. They could not be more wrong in their assessment, because they fail to understand the soul of our souls.
I remember back in January 2011, on day one of the 112th Congress, when I was waiting for the Congressional Black Caucus swearing-in. Boy howdy, for some people, the atmosphere could have been cut with a knife, there was that much tension and apprehension. In walked Representative John Lewis, civil rights icon, and I shook his hand. I explained how I remembered my parents voting for him and explained that I was an alumnus of Henry Grady High. He couldn’t believe where I came from. You see, during the 2010 election cycle, Congressman Lewis had vocally opposed me without a clue who I really was.
My parents, Buck and Snooks, were registered Democrats, like most of my family. But regardless of party affiliation, I was raised with very conservative principles and values. Conservatism in the black community was not so much about political inclinations as it was a way of life that we called “old school.” Old school was a cultural phenomenon; it put the “soul” in our souls. It was all about walking down the street and graciously greeting the old folks, because that reflected on the way your parents were raising you—and trust me, you did not want to bring shame upon your family. As with the ronin, position in the community was all about honor. Regardless of how old you were and whether your parents had passed, you carried their name and their reputation.
As I mentioned before, I never, ever wanted to disappoint my dad by not greeting my elders with sir or ma’am. After that first time, it was a whuppin’ I vowed never to repeat. That lesson has stayed with me to this very day, which is why, when perfect strangers come up to me anywhere, I still address them as sir or ma’am.
; Conservatism in the black community was written about as early as 1908 by Kelly Miller, the first black scholar to graduate from Johns Hopkins University and, later, dean of Howard University. In his essay titled “Radicals and Conservatives,” Miller was one of the first to classify followers of Booker T. Washington as conservatives.
For the black community, the fundamental basis of conservatism, as rooted in the classical liberalism of John Locke, was individual liberty. Who better to seek true freedom and liberty than those who had suffered under the yoke of slavery? If America and the dreams of the Founding Fathers were to have any meaning, slavery had to be abolished. Once it was, the blessings of liberty would have to be secured for those who hadn’t previously enjoyed them. I believe—and will gladly argue this stand against anyone—that black conservatives have always seen individual liberty as the prerequisite true justice, not government-manufactured economic or social justice. One of the premier conservative thinkers, Sir Edmund Burke, said: “Liberty has strong foundations in the people’s religious faith and social institutions.” Burke called these institutions the “little platoons” of society.
The little platoon of the black community is the church. Our Christian faith is based on individual freedom from sin and the personal decision to find spiritual liberty that leads to a better life here on earth and for eternity. On Sundays in America, the most conservative people can be found in black churches. But what happens to that conservatism during the rest of the week? What causes the split in our values between holy day and every day?
The roots of this dichotomy were formed in the fifty-odd years after the abolition of slavery and solidified in the contrasting viewpoints of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois as examined in Kelly Miller’s 1908 essay.
