Mudrat
The Forgotten Man [color=darkred](It's a historical comparison, so it a bit lengthy)[/color]
[u][i]By Robert Ringer[/i][/u]
Why have the combined mudslinging voices of the media (so called), Congressional Democrats, and the thin-skinned boy wonder who occupies the Oval Office not been able to turn the tide against the tea partiers? If you look at the poll numbers, the answer is obvious: Most Americans are tea partiers.
However, most of them are not yet in enough pain to skip a day at the ball park and stand in a crowd of thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) and listen to tea-party speakers. That's a shame, but it doesn't change the fact that they identify with the tea-party movement.
So, what is the common bond with which they identify? Taxes? Healthcare? Financial regulation? I thought about this question as I was rereading Amity Shlaes' landmark book, The Forgotten Man. In it, she quotes [color=darkred][i][b]Yale philosopher William Graham Sumner[/b][/i][/color], who, clear [color=darkred][u][b]back in 1883, explained the crux of the moral problem[/b][/u][/color] with progressivism as follows:
''As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine ... what A, B, and C shall do for X.''
Shlaes goes on to add: ''But what about C? There was nothing wrong with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C to the cause. C was the forgotten man, the man who paid, 'the man who never is thought of.'''
In other words, C is the guy who isn't bothering anyone, but is forced to supply the funds to help the X's of the world, those whom power holders unilaterally decide have been treated unfairly and must be compensated.
FDR, however, did a switcheroo on Sumner's point by removing the moniker of '‘The forgotten man'' from C and giving it to X - ''the poor man, the old man, labor, or any other recipient of government help.'' Very clever ... very Obamanistic. As I recall, FDR originally used the phrase the forgotten man to refer to the victims of the dust bowl in the 1930s. Zap! Just like that, Sumner's forgotten man was transformed into the opposite of what he was meant to be.
Today, I believe it is the tea-party people who represent Sumner's Forgotten Man. They are taxed and told what they must do and what they must give up in the way of freedom and personal wealth every time a new law is passed. I believe it is this reality that bonds the tea-party people together.
Put another way, it is not healthcare or any other single issue the tea-party people are most angry about. It is all of the issues combined that have to do with impinging on their individual liberty. Above all, they are outraged by the fact that immoral politicians and bureaucrats not only violate their God-given right to live their lives as they please, they dismiss them as ''extremists.'' Collectively, the tea-party people are today's Forgotten Man.
In his essay ([url]http://mises.org/books/forgottenman.pdf[/url]), Sumner went on to say:
''All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others. It is true that, until this time, the proletariat, the mass of mankind, have rarely had the power and they have not made such a record as kings and nobles and priests have made of the abuses they would perpetrate against their fellow-men when they could and dared.
''But what folly it is to think that vice and passion are limited by classes, that liberty consists only in taking power away from nobles and priests and giving it to artisans and peasants and that these latter will never abuse it! They will abuse it just as all others have done unless they are put under checks and guarantees, and there can be no civil liberty anywhere unless rights are guaranteed against all abuses, as well from proletarians as from generals, aristocrats, and ecclesiastics.''
Sumner was a man of great insight. He saw the absurdity of assuming that the poor man is morally superior to the rich man. This is where I believe that sincere revolutionaries go wrong. While their initial intentions (to help ''the poor'') may, at least in their own minds, be well-meant, they begin with a false premise (that the misfortunes of those at the bottom of the economic ladder are a result of the evil actions of those who are more successful) and, from there, leap from one false conclusion to another.
Which is why politicians who pose as conservatives to get elected so often take the Mush McCain-Lindsey Graham-Charlie Crist route and continually rush to the aid of their progressive Democratic pals. I believe that these philosophically lost souls do the bidding of the intimidating left because they have never given any serious thought to the possibility that the very premise of progressivism is morally wrong.
As a result, they have no feeling for the (perceived) rich man. In plotting their do-gooder schemes, he is easy to forget. They see nothing whatsoever wrong with society's sacrificing his liberty for the ''public good.'' Bring out the guillotine! As Montaigne said, ''Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.''
What gave birth to the tea parties is that the Forgotten Man syndrome is like a metastasizing disease. As politicians long ago realized, there aren't enough rich people to support all of the X's. As the number of X's (i.e., those who live off the surpluses of others) increases, a lot of A's and B's must, by necessity, be reclassified as C's. And that is when they become candidates for joining the tea-party movement.
Put simply: When A's and B's are transformed into C's, they mysteriously lose their enthusiasm for new laws to help out X. Put even more simply, they suddenly realize that they are now the Forgotten Man. And that realization is what automatically qualifies them as tea-party people. No recruitment necessary, thank you.
TEA Party = [size=6][color=darkred][b]T[/b][/color][/size]axed [size=6][color=darkred][b]E[/b][/color][/size]nough [size=6][b][color=darkred]A[/color][/b][/size]lready
Old Rugged Crosser
Bravo! Thanks Rat for that essay.Now the important thing is that we do not forget to vote. That is the way we fire those who just look out for themselves. I too am sick of how today's politicians say what the public wants to hear then when elected to office all they do is whatever it takes to keep themselves in power and in office. They soon forget about the needs of those who put them in office in the first place. They are involved in making a class of society who is dependent upon them for every facet of their lives; a dependent voting constituency.
We were treated to a front row seat to watch that in action on this oboma care or as I call it the abominable care atrocity. Time after time the tea parties made it clear that they did not want the government involved in their lives in this manner. The polls made it clear that the greater majority of the people did not want it. They made it clear to their congressmen that they did not want it yet they did not listen and voted it in anyway. Voting directly counter to the will of the people, flaunting it in our faces.
Not only was it a vote against the will of the people but it was a blatant vote against the Constitution. It is maddening that when they take office they swear to uphold and defend the Constitution, then do everything in their power to destroy its governance as the founding fathers had intended when they I believe were guided by the hand of God to come up with such a Republic democratic government guided by this Constitution that no society ever has ever been able to equal.
The real sad part is that oboma now has a chance to pack the courts with judges that will turn their backs against the guidance of that magnificent rite. That is already a big problem today and it won't take much to really kill the society that we have known. That is exactly why no one can win a case with the IRS, which is one of the most egregious offenders of the US Constitution. If the courts were following its guidance and mandates the IRS would have been put out of business a long time ago. As it is the courts have given the government the license to steal.
Another offender that allows this to go on is the Press or Media. They are supposed to be the watch dogs that are to keep the politicians, congress, and courts honest yet now are in bed with them in stead, not doing what the Founding Fathers had intended. Today there is absolutely no pressure from the Media on oboma's government. They are completely giving him a pass. BIG TIME!!!
LIKE I SAID ABOVE: DON'T FORGET TO VOTE! Every vote does count. Our government is supposed to be "by the people, for the people." If you don't vote then you have no right to bitch when the government goes wrong.
Let's not get so involved with our toys that we forget to make room for God in our lives, and to be good citizens and patriots. Let us not make Christ the Forgotten Man in our personal lives and our government. One day our "Green" friends 8) 8) may be coming for our toys too!! The wolves are already nipping at our heals. :sa:
