Robert A. Taft was a conservative Republican pushed out of the 1952 presidential race by the party’s liberal wing, which favored the political naïve Eisenhower. The Goldwater candidacy was the 1964 last gasp of conservatism among Republicans, and only one Republican candidate for president today presents conservative views that Taft would approve of.
Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
www.cfhi.net
“We can all agree that full employment at good wages for every man and every woman who wishes to work in the United States is a goal devoutly to be wished,” Taft told the National Industrial Conference Board.
But it could not be an absolute right; that notion was impractical. The Declaration of Independence “mentions only the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution, while promising to secure blessings of liberty, only proposes to promote the general welfare.” A guarantee of work would be impossible to fulfill, and was “wholly inconsistent with the very freedom which has produced and animated the machine which provides jobs at good wages.”
President Roosevelt, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations which backed this proposal, had talked of guaranteeing fifty or sixty million jobs. But, Taft inquired, “What is full employment and what is a good wage? Is there to be a guarantee of any job a man wants in any industry or is it to be such a job as the Government chooses to provide?...”
“It is clear to me that any direct guarantee of full-time jobs at good wages would involve the Government in the placement of every man and woman in the country, and ultimately the assignment by the Government of every man and woman to the job selected by the Government. This is exactly the system pursued in Russia today.”
Taft’s other arguments in this speech demonstrated that the concept of full employment could be realized only in a socialist state – and even there only at the cost of diminished production and of total direction of labor; it would be fatal to the character of the people, and contrary to the material interest of every wage-earner.”
(The Political Principles of Robert A. Taft, Russell Kirk & James McClellan, Fleet Press, 1967, pp. 115-116)
Monday, January 30, 2012
NC Gubernatorial Race – NC LS Analysis
“Sir…I owe no allegiance to any men or set of men on earth, save only to the State of North Carolina, and, so far as she has parted with her sovereignty, to the United States of America.” Judge William Gaston
The 11th hour declaration of Governor Perdue's intentions to not seek reelection has upended Raleigh and has potentially far reaching consequences in North Carolina politics. For the Democrats an uphill slog has been replaced by the chaotic process of finding a suitable process in 100 days before May 8. For the Republicans, this only heightens their excitement at the prospect of ending their 20 year hiatus from the Governor's mansion.
The Democrat's were rocked by Governor Perdue's decision to take a pass at a rematch with Pat McCrory just 3 weeks before the candidate filing period begins on February 15. The strongest possible alternative, Attorney General Roy Cooper, immediately took a pass on what would've been a true knockdown fight between two heavyweights. As of this writing two candidates have already declared their intentions to run: Lt. Governor Walter Dalton and Rep. Bill Faison.
Other potential candidates include Congressman Heath Shuler, Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines, former Congressman Bob Etheridge, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, Congressman Mike McIntyre, state Senator Dan Blue, Senator Kay Hagan, and maybe more. Whether any of these potential candidates hop in depends in large part on whether Erskine Bowles jumps in thanks to his name recognition and ability to self-fund.
For the Republicans all of this chaos means at the least that Pat McCrory will be free to raise money and gain traction while the Democrats wage an expensive and possibly divisive primary battle. It could also mean a free ride in the general election for the Republican Congressional candidates in the 7th and 11th Districts. And it could also give the Republicans on Jones Street the potential to move moderate Democrats in their direction on issues such as Voter ID and overriding Governor Perdue's other vetoes.
The next three months will be exciting as North Carolina shifts rightward. It is time for our members to use this shifting environment to take action on the issues we care about and ensure that members of both parties take us seriously. NC LS Legislative Task ForceReflections on Border and Internal Security Battles - An exclusive interview with Robert H. Goldsborough
Via Peter
RG: It’s election time -- throw the bums out!
Summary:
For more than 50 years, Robert Goldsborough has been involved in the immigration reform movement, particularly the vital link between protected borders and national security. He was appointed by Congressman Francis Walter (D-PA) as a staff investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, served as a speech writer for Gov. Louis Nunn (R) of Kentucky, and has headed up national organizations opposing illegal immigration from the mid-1960s until today. TSC Contributing Editor Peter Gemma recently interviewed Mr. Goldsborough.
For more than 50 years, Robert Goldsborough has been involved in the immigration reform movement, particularly the vital link between protected borders and national security. He was appointed by Congressman Francis Walter (D-PA) as a staff investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, served as a speech writer for Gov. Louis Nunn (R) of Kentucky, and has headed up national organizations opposing illegal immigration from the mid-1960s until today. TSC Contributing Editor Peter Gemma recently interviewed Mr. Goldsborough.
TSC: Bob, it’s so nice to get re-acquainted with an old friend and veteran activist. In the late 1950s, you worked with Congressman Francis Walter, who co-authored the important McCarran-Walter Immigration Act. Tell me about that legislation and the fight to get it enacted.
Thugs attack cabbie, passenger
Via Tom
Face hate-crime charges? Yeah, right.........
Police said the three teens were black and the cabbie and passenger were white. Police did not immediately know whether the teens would or could face hate-crime charges.
IN A HORRIFIC assault in Center City on Saturday night, three teenagers who were spouting racial slurs pulled a man out of a cab to beat him. And when the cabdriver intervened to stop the assault, the teens turned their rage on him, police said yesterday.
About 8:25 p.m., a cab was stopped at a red light at 15th and Chestnut streets when two 17-year-old boys and a 15-year-old boy approached and started calling the male passenger in the back seat racially derogatory names, police said.
The boys then threw an unknown liquid at the cab before they opened the door, pulled the passenger out and started to pummel him, police said.
When the cabbie got out of the car to see what was going on, the passenger ran away and the teens turned on the cabbie. They punched him in the face, kicked him and threw a liquid on him, police said.
Despite being outnumbered, the cabbie grabbed a tire iron from his trunk, at which time the teens ran away.Sunday, January 29, 2012
Official US stance on Iran—tough and stupid.
Except for Ron Paul
Our Peace Prize president lobbed some harsh words toward Iran in his long-winded pep rally last Tuesday night:
Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America. (Applause.)
He is referring to the drone war. Moments later, Obama turned his sights on the big enchilada:
Black is Gray: MS Rep. John F. Harris
Via SPOFGA
In Mississippi on February 1, 1890, an appropriation for a monument to the Confederate dead was being considered. A delegate had just spoken against the bill, when John F. Harris, a Black Republican delegate from Washington, county, rose to speak:
"Mr. Speaker! I have risen in my place to offer a few words on the bill.
I have come from a sick bed. Perhaps it was not prudent for me to come. But sir, I could not rest quietly in my room without contributing a few remarks of my own.
I was sorry to hear the speech of the young gentlemen from Marshall County. I am sorry that any son of a soldier would go on record as opposed to the erections of a monument in honor of the brave dead. And, Sir, I am convinced that had he seen what I saw at Seven Pines, and in the Seven Day's fighting around Richmond, the battlefield covered with mangled forms of those who fought for this country and their country's honor, he would not have made the speech.
When the news came that the South had been invaded, those men went forth to fight for what they believed, and they made not requests for monuments. But they died, and their virtues should be remembered.
Sir, I went with them. I, too, wore the gray, the same color my master wore. We stayed for four long years, and if that war had gone on till now I would have been there yet. I want to honor those brave men who died for their convictions.
When my Mother died I was a boy. Who, Sir, then acted the part of Mother to the orphaned slave boy, but my old Missus! Were she living now, or could speak to me from those high realms where are gathered the sainted dead, she would tell me to vote for this bill. And, Sir, I shall vote for it. I want it known to all the world that my vote is given in favor of the bill to erect a monument in HONOR OF THE CONFEDERATE DEAD."
When the applause died down, the measure passed overwhelmingly, and every Black member voted "AYE."
(Source: War For What? by Francis Springer)
Black is Gray: MS Rep. John F. Harris
Soros: Obama, Romney 'Not Much Difference'
Billionaire financier George Soros thinks that, if Mitt Romney wins the presidency, there will be "little difference" between him and Barack Obama in the White House.
Soros offered the reassuring news to liberals across Europe during an interview this week in Davos, Switzerland.
As policymakers from Hong Kong to Canada pressed Greece and its creditors to strike a deal to cut the nation’s debt, Soros pressed in on GOP presidential candidate Romney:
"Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in," Soros told Reuters in a videotaped interview.
"If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them."
Soros offered the reassuring news to liberals across Europe during an interview this week in Davos, Switzerland.
As policymakers from Hong Kong to Canada pressed Greece and its creditors to strike a deal to cut the nation’s debt, Soros pressed in on GOP presidential candidate Romney:
"Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in," Soros told Reuters in a videotaped interview.
"If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them."
Radically Changing the Historical Profession
The American cultural revolution of the 1960’s deeply affected our historical profession in much the same way as the earlier Russian cultural revolution altered their traditional institutions. The rigid cultural Marxism and speech codes predominant at American universities today appears related to the Russian pattern.
Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
“It is also well known that Stalin in 1931 personally intervened in the historical debate with his letter to the editors of Proletarskaia revoliutsiia…the writing of Party history constituted a form of power. The history of the Party was too important to be left entirely in the hands of historians.
[There emerged] efforts of rival groups of Marxist historians to win a mandate from the Party Central Committee to guide historical research and publication, to control the staffing of institutions, and to enforce professional norms.
But in the field of history, a local factor was also involved: the militance of the Marxist students. Almost simultaneously with this student campaign came a political fight within the Party organization of the Institute of Red Professors. In the course of 1928, an increasingly vituperative public campaign was mounted against non-Marxist historiography. By the beginning of 1929….[attacks began] on the institutional base of non-Marxist historians.
At the First All-Union Conference of Marxist Historians…a proposal to liquidate [the] Institute of History [was made] and create in its place a new institute under the Communist Academy. [Thus came the] Society of Marxist Historians, the forum for Marxist discussion in the profession and source of many of the attacks on “bourgeois historians.”
[After Stalin criticized many historians commitment to Marxism]…The Society of Marxist Historians demanded a review of all existing historical literature, and students of the Institute of Red Professors were formed into brigades preparing assessments of large portions of the existing literature for publication in the press. [Then], extermination of cadres of historians began. Many historians were slandered, then repressed. Many were compelled to admit “errors.”
The [Russian] cultural revolution…radically changed the historical profession. From the mid-thirties, all historians had to pay lip service to Marxism, just as they did (despite the contradiction involved) to the glories of the Russian national tradition. The old factions [of traditional historians] were dissolved, or went underground.
(Marxist Historians During the Cultural Revolution, George M. Enteen: Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Indiana University Press, 1984, pp. 154-168)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)