Quote of the day - H.L. Mencken

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

H.L. Mencken

Quote of the day - Garet Garrett

We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire. If you ask when, the answer is that you cannot make a single stroke between day and night: the precise moment does not matter. There was no painted sign to say: 'You are now entering Imperium.' Yet it was a very old road and the voice of history was saying: 'Whether you know it or not, the act of crossing may be irreversible.' And now, not far ahead, is a sign that reads: 'No U-turns.'

Garet Garrett (1952), [from The People's Pottage]



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Quote of the day - Garet Garrett

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.

Garet Garrett, [from The People's Pottage]



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Classics of Conservatism - part XIII - Garet Garrett - Salvos Against the New Deal

Click here for previous editions of Classics of Conservatism.

This month's Classic book recommendation has been featured on the sidebar since the early days of this blog. "Salvos Against the New Deal" is one of several books featuring compilations of the writings of Garet Garrett. [I first recomended one of Garrett's books in December of 2004.]

[Click here for my Garet Garrett blog.]









"Salvos Against the New Deal" features a compilation of Garrett's articles from the Saturday Evening Post from 1932 through 1940. This compilation was edited in 2002 by Bruce Ramsey, today's leading expert on Garet Garrett. As I wrote at the Garet Garrett blog:

Garrett was an early to mid 20th century conservative writer whose books and articles challenged the New Deal policies of Franklin Roosevelt. He also did much more than that. As a novelist, essayist and editor for the Saturday Evening Post, Garrett provided a remarkable advocacy of capitalism and freedom.

"Salvos" is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that the rediscovery of Garrett's works signals possibly the end of a long retreat, during which conservatives have refused to challenge the basic assumptions underlying the New Deal. Conservatives have tried to challenge leftist policies on the basis that they were not "practical" or that today's policies go beyond the original intentions of the New Deal creators (e.g. the Social Security debate).

But Garrett challenges the original New Deal policies themselves. He gives conservatives reasons to be proud of their conservatism, especially when it comes to domestic policy.



"Salvos" provides a clear picture of how our government came to be ruled by bureaucrats and how Congress surrendered its constitutional authority to these unelected rulers.

Almost as importantly, Garrett provides descriptions of some of the labor battles of the 1930's. We can see the roots of how unionization eventually brought down the American automobile industry and the steel industry. The fruits of these battles loom large over our lives today.

Garrett prophetically discusses the New Deal's exercise of pharoah-like powers in building the pyramids of our time.

Most importantly, Garrett describes what the government did to our money. No domestic policy can be rationally discussed without understanding what money is and how government manipulates and destroys its value. [And the best part is, the discussion is written in layman's terms and is quite gripping.]

Once I discovered Garrett's writings, I discovered that any attempt to discuss modern economics, government, spending, taxing, regulating, business, etc. is useless without the background that Garrett gives us.

The worst in people

Governor Blanco and the MSM/DNC outlets have summarized their feelings on the looting in New Orleans by saying that disasters "bring out the worst in people." In fact, it isn't disasters that have brought out the worst in people, it is the following:

- 70 years of a welfare state that has taught people that something for nothing is possible.

- years of MSM/DNC propoganda that advocates class warfare.

- years of race hustling by demagogues who use their constituents as weapons and cannon fodder.

- generations of corrupt big city political machines that exist for the sake of their own power and cannot handle the power and duties they have grabbed for themselves.

The "worst in people" was created by our welfare state and accompanying propaganda machines. The hurricane is just the excuse.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned...Protection of property was a major casualty of the Revolution of 1937…Rights were reordered and property acquired a second class status...It thus became government’s job not to protect property but, rather, to regulate and redistribute it. And, the epic proportions of the disaster which has befallen millions of people during the ensuing decades has not altered our fervent commitment to statism.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

[Federalist speech at 12, 13]

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country’s founding. The New Deal, however, inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document...1937...marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution...Politically, the belief in human perfectibility is another way of asserting that differences between the few and the many can, over time, be erased. That creed is a critical philosophical proposition underlying the New Deal. What is extraordinary is the way that thesis infiltrated and effected American constitutionalism over the next three-quarters of a century. Its effect was not simply to repudiate, both philosophically and in legal doctrine, the framers’ conception of humanity, but to cut away the very ground on which the Constitution rests... In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned [Federalist speech at 8, 10, 11, 12]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

The left has the Supreme Court that it wants

Much of the talk regarding the Supreme Court now focuses on leftist attempts at compromise. Specter wants O'Connor to be the Chief for a year or two. Harry Reid wants the President to appoint another Earl Warren. Moveon.org claims to want a moderate.

The leftists have not openly advocated the appointment of a leftist. They advocate the appointment of a "moderate" - and for good reason (and no, it is not simply because they know they will never get an admitted leftist nominated during the Bush administration).

The left already has the Court that it wants and the laws that it wants. The Constitution has been so eroded by decades of New Deal nannyism that the remaining erosion will happen almost on its own. Runaway government has its own momentum - like a tractor trailer with no brakes. Special interest groups will continue to demand more government giveaways and more power - without the old constitutional restraints to limit that power. Government will continue to grow, spend, tax, regulate and oppress.

In order for the destruction of Western Civilization to be complete, the Court need only do nothing at this point. As long as the Court preserves the rulings of the past seventy years, the government's own momentum will lead us to socialism and tyranny. A moderate would preserve that journey toward socialist utopia on which we are embarked.

That is why it is important for us to point out that the government (protected by the Court) is on an extreme path right now. The extremist position is the protection of socialism and government power that has seen our government grow to levels unimagined by our founders. Kelo was one such exercise of those powers. The limitless expansion of the "commerce clause" so as to justify limitless Federal regulation is another. Our headlong rush to a secular society (except for a maniacal sensitivity toward and protection of all things Islamic) is a third example. The absence of any limits on abortion - even at the moment of birth, the expansion of Federal spending and regulation into areas nowhere enumerated, etc. etc. etc.

For Bush to appoint a strong conservative that would curtail some of the government's power would not be extreme. The appointment of a strong conservative would be the only moderate course. We have to redefine the issue. The government has been extreme for far too long. The leftists, despite losing so many elections, want to keep it that way.

The status quo will continue to produce more Kelo type decisions. And that is just the way the left likes it.