If TR were alive today, he would be in the forefront of those seeking to change the status quo, just as he did in his own day. Today's Republicans bear no resemblance whatever to Theodore Roosevelt. They have no policies and no ideas except "No."
When Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919, Republican progressivism died with him. The party lurched almost immediately to the right, and, with a few notable exceptions, it has been moving farther right ever since.
Theodore Roosevelt would not recognize today's Republican Party, and it most certainly would not recognize or welcome him.
Nearly all Americans realize that we are beset by domestic crises: health care, energy, and the environment, to name just a few.
If TR were alive today, he would be in the forefront of those seeking to change the status quo, just as he did in his own day. In fact, he advocated universal health insurance in the campaign of 1912, almost a hundred years ago. Dealing with climate change and renewable energy sources? The great conservationist would be leading the charge.
Today's Republicans bear no resemblance whatever to Theodore Roosevelt. They have no policies and no ideas except "No."
Health care? Do nothing. The status quo is fine; obstruct change.
Energy? Do nothing. The status quo is fine; obstruct change.
The environment? Do nothing. The status quo is fine; obstruct change.
Large financial institutions and laissez-faire capitalism? The status quo is fine; obstruct change.
These professional obstructionists should learn a lesson from the elections of 1936. Franklin Roosevelt won re-election by an electoral vote of 523 to 8. Republicans held only 16 of 96 seats in the Senate, and only 189 of 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
American voters punished Republican obstructionists, and the party almost never recovered.
We should not be in favor of this happening again. The nation needs a strong Republican Party. However, arrogant talk show hosts, "do nothing" politicians, conspiracy theorists, and quite an assortment of philanderers, prima donnas, and egomaniacs have become the public face of the Republican Part today, and make it look like a collection of hypocritical crazies. They are a disgrace to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
The party must change, and change swiftly. Otherwise, 2012 will make 1936 look like a Sunday school picnic. The Republican Party is in on life support. Unless a new generation of idea and solution-oriented Republicans emerges, the Republican Party may well go the way of the Whigs. It is a sad thing to watch a major political party fall victim to its dark side.
The right-wing fringe is leading the Republican Party over a cliff to its destruction. When people actually say that President Obama does not have a valid birth certificate, and that Sarah Palin is remotely qualified to be president, can it be taken seriously about anything?
We should all hope for drastic and rapid change in the Republican Party. This country deserves a strong two-party system, where creative thinking and concern for the people are present in both. The Republican Party is on the verge of committing politicide and going down the drain of history. Will any brave Republicans step forward to rescue it? Let us hope so.
Obstructionism is a legitimate, in fact essential, strategy when the country is being destroyed! The strength of conservative principles lies in the flexibility in responding to new problems and situations resulting from the decentralizing of power and decision making into the hands of individual citizens.
Defying constitutional limitations of federal authority at the executive and legislative levels and recklessly dooming America to unsustainable public debt and possible hyperinflation for the next thousand years? The status quo is fine; obstruct change.
If obstructing change of that nature is not your desire, you don’t have any place in any Republican party that conservatives or libertarians would ever want to be a part of. There is already a party for you: the Democratic Party. That party happens to reflect the ideology for you: democratic socialism. America indeed needs a strong two (or more!) party system. A system in which both parties support your ideology is, in fact, a one party system. Coming from someone who thinks that the quasi-socialist, regulation-saturated, mixed economy we operate within in the United States is “laissez-faire capitalism”, I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference. You might try submitting this half page of tripe to the Daily Kos – you are likely to find an audience with a much lower threshold for poor argumentation and a sympathetic ear to your cause.
By the by, Ronald Reagan defeated the very FDR-esque Walter mondale 525 electoral votes to 13. Applying a bit of your logic, clearly this means that strong right-wing candidates are, in fact, the key to leading the GOP to absolute victory over its political opposition, right?
When you think that Barack Obama is more qualified than Sarah Palin (who actually ran for vice president, for those who are unclear) or, well, anybody else for that matter, to be president of the United States – particularly if you still think so after his first 7 months in office – can you really be taken seriously about anything?
Obstructionism is certainly valid. It is what the political left has done for years when faced with strong, principled opposition on the right. They only fail to obstruct when they are getting what they want.
However, the Republican Party has done more than just saying “no”. They have proposed changes in the way health care plans are handled, and in how coverage is administered but havereceived little or no coverage in the media.
On the energy front, they have been the ones working for change, proposing drilling at home, while working on other sources of energy that may become practical later, rather than going back to wind power.
Franklin Roosevelt may have won the election, but his policies during the previous years were virtually identical to those proposed and carried out by the Hoover Administration.
This column shows a lack of knowledge of history book, and a failed understanding of the current situation. it is out of touch.
BTW, a Harvard law degree is probably the last thing a president should have. As a lawyer, myself, I am very aware of the limitations that most legal educations place on people. What Americans need is someone who has practical skills, not ivory tower idealism lacking in any understanding of the real world. That’s where Sarah Palin fits in.
Wow, the author sounds exactly like a liberal Democrat. Every accusation leveled against conservatives is perfectly in tune with the kook left.
You know, when two parties agree on everything, one party is unnecessary.
If Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to be President, then neither is Barack Obama .
You are neither intellectual or conservative. This is an odd place for you. To say that Republicans have no plans alternative to those of the Democrats displays your ignorance. Many counter proposals have been made but it is very difficult to find the press on them. Somehow, I don’t think that you are interested in putting forth the effort.
Blah blah blah… what an illogical waste of time (including me commenting).
What do you call Edward Kennedy and his treatment of Robert Bork? Wait, that’s not obstructionism, that’s ‘borking.’
The left’s treatment of GWB’s surge in Iraq? “General Betrayus” – I suppose that didn’t come from the party of “no.”
Edward Kennedy’s collaboration with the Soviets while Ronald Reagan was in the process of defeating the Soviets?
More than half of marriages end in divorce, so I suppose if someone objected to a several billion dollar government plan to hire several thousand workers to administer some cockamamy plan would be a bad thing.
How about if the Catholic Church which is clearly running an exceptional private school system wanted to take over our clearly failing national school program? I don’t hear you coming up with a better plan.
45,000 people die in car accidents yearly. Something’s got to be done and I suppose it should be even more government.
Through collectivism we got rid of DDT and each year now 300 to 500 million people worldwide develop malaria and 1-1/2 to 3 million of them, mostly children, die! Nice government effort there.
How about Social Security, the Post Office, Amtrack?
What is it – new ice age (70s and 80s), global warming (until the past few years), or global climate change? I know it’s disturbing for these people that it’s been COOLING for the past 9-10 years.
The Director of the Congressional Budget Office regarding his testimony before Congress:
” Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. . . Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States.
Measured relative to GDP, almost all of the projected growth in federal spending other than interest payments on the debt stems from the three largest entitlement programs-Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. For decades, spending on Medicare and Medicaid has been growing faster than the economy. CBO projects that if current laws do not change, federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid combined will grow from roughly 5 percent of GDP today to almost 10 percent by 2035. By 2080, the government would be spending almost as much, as a share of the economy, on just its two major health care programs as it has spent on all of its programs and services in recent years.
In CBO’s estimates, the increase in spending for Medicare and Medicaid will account for 80 percent of spending increases for the three entitlement programs between now and 2035 and 90 percent of spending growth between now and 2080.”
We HAVE plenty of government involvement with healthcare – Medicare, Medicaid, FDA, National Institutes of Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Resources and Services Administration, Indian Health Services, Women, Infants and Children Program, Children Health Insurance Program – not to mention incredible amounts of regulation over the healthcare and medical insurance industries.
Approximately when does too much government become THE problem?
Sometimes the answer is no. I want what’s your’s, no? Obstructionist!
There is no greater ‘obstructionism’ than that of government. What else can you call the governing of 300-million people than obstructing their natural inclinations, sometimes for the better, though more often, just because you can. And, then, there is the obstructionism of myriad regulations.
Excessive taxation and money distortions are an obstruction on economic reality and vitality.
Intrusion of government into the private matter we call healthcare can only be to restrict (aka, obstruct) medical choices and access.
It is liberals (through their excessive abuse of government), not conservatives, who consistently obstruct the utilization of our best energy resources to our national detriment.
Environmentalism is mostly a mental aberration in which droves of people are conned into believing the sky is falling, when all that is really happening is normal variation.
Mr. Dennis can only guess what Teddy Roosevelt might do if alive today. It is as silly second-guessing Teddy as it is second-guessing Lincoln or Reagan. They are safely dead, so those who invoke them by reference merely expose their own argument as needful of propping up; at least without some greater basis than: Teddy would probably do such and such; e.g., would likely support environmentalism because he was the original ‘environmentalist’. Actually, though, he wasn’t. He was a conservationist (which is not at all the same thing). Moreover, the conservationism of which Teddy was so proud turned out a dud and mostly backfired. Attempts at preserving things in their natural state do no such thing, instead merely reshaping the constraints under which they must change. Nature isn’t something you can freeze in place (Heisenburg Principle: is it particle or wave, both or neither). Rather than conserving all, he created conditions favoring some species over others; resulting some serious yet unpredictable extinctions. I am guessing Teddy would have learned from such mistakes by now, and take a more hands off approach; or, perhaps, not (some obsessions simply refuse to yield even among intelligent folk). I can only say with any certainty what I might do – given the kind of power he wielded and knowing what he did not yet know regarding the uncooperativeness of nature to fit our clever theories.
PS,
If it was “American Voters” who punished Republicans, by replacing them with a bunch of radical-leftist whackos, then it is not just Republicans (and conservatives) they’ve punished. Look in a mirror and you will see exactly who else is getting punished. I don’t disagree those wascawwy Wepubwicans needed chastising, but giving nearly limitless power to radicals as the appropriate anodyne? That’s sick!