Thursday, October 20, 2011

What They Think of You

You thought we were kidding about that "Ruling Class" monicker?  You think Codevilla doesn't know what he's talking about?

Herbert Croly, one of the founding fathers of the progressive movement -- read Liberal movement -- wrote in 1909 in his groundbreaking book The Promise of American Life, "To be sure, any increase in centralized power and responsibility, expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before the march of constructive national democracy. The national advance will always be impeded by these misleading and erroneous ideas, and, what is more, it always should be impeded by them, because at bottom ideas of this kind are merely an expression of the fact that the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat"

Slugs.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That quote is COMPLETELY taken out of context by the author to appear that Croly lacked the faith and trust of the individual American citizen. He is NOT making that assertion. Rather, an individualism that asked only to be left to one's own designs was
"morally obnoxious", and that the individualism of a rights-based political system co-opted the goals with which the Founding Fathers had set out to achieve.

Following the quotation highlighted in red is...

"An American national democracy must always prove its right to a further advance, not only by the development of a policy and method adequate for the particular occasion, but by its ability to overcome the inevitable opposition of selfish interests and erroneous ideas. The logic of its position makes it the aggressor, just as the logic of its opponents’ position ties them to a negative and protesting or merely insubordinate part. If the latter should prevail, their victory would become tantamount to national dissolution, either by putrefaction, by revolution, or by both."

Dad29 said...

an individualism that asked only to be left to one's own designs was
"morally obnoxious", and that the individualism of a rights-based political system co-opted the goals with which the Founding Fathers had set out to achieve.


Really? And what "goals" were those? Did they write the 10th Amendment simply to spill ink? What about the 9th?

Dad29 said...

Croly also would like to be the sole judge of "selfishness" and "erroneous."

SO would I. But that's not sufficient, you know.

Anonymous said...

So is Zero not signing his posts now...or is the truther suddenly writing like Zero?

David

Anonymous said...

Zero, that's hilarious! Regardless, anony's 7:40 p.m. post is spot on.

Zorro

Saint Revolution said...

..."spot on"...?!

Well, then, bloke, that bushwa belongs in the loo.

Pip pip, tally ho, and all that rot.

Cheerio.

Idiota.

Anonymous said...

Care to provide a counter-argument, SR, or continue with your Benny Hill impression. I await your commentary with eager anticipation.

Zorro