Anti-Capitalism and Liberal Professors!

 

 

 

I had never heard of the historian, Richard J. Hofstadter, or his essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, published in the November 1964 edition of Harper's Magazine, before I got into a political discussion by email with my youngest brother. During our exchange he cited the aforementioned article which shared Hofstadter's newly coined term for a political personality he called the “paranoid style.” And that stoked my interest.

Hofstadter admitted his use of a clinical psychiatric term to describe a political personality was "pejorative". Then he attempted to appear "fair and balanced" by allowing that someone on the left side of the political spectrum could be paranoid, but his actual focus was on labeling conservatives as such. He intentionally promoted the idea that the "paranoid style" is more aptly applied to right-wingers.

When I read the article it was obvious to me that Mr. Hofstadter was liberal and godless (which don't always go together). He wrote about "angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers".   Then he made the statement, "The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will."

In other words, he labeled a person as paranoid if  that person was mentally capable of drawing personal conclusions about the causes of "decisive events" in history. Hofstadter claimed that only a paranoid person (or group of people) could believe that "the stream of history" is affected by willful choices. Keep your eyes on the puppets, folks, forget about the puppeteers!

Whether he truly believed his own propaganda or not would be hard to say but Richard Hofstadter promoted the idea that in the political realm things just happen by chance! As I read the article, I noticed that he was just talking off the top of his head. His ivory tower speculations were without foundation. And later, when I read about his life, scholarly critics confirmed my observation.

Well, I happen to believe that God's will is done in heaven and sometimes on earth. And, I believe that Satan's will is never done in heaven but is often done on earth. And, I believe mankind is in the middle and has a huge part to play since he often facilitates either the will of God or the will of Satan being fulfilled on earth. Thus, I believe the "stream of history" is not the result of mere chance but is the outcome of willful choices. And, I do not believe my beliefs are paranoid!  

So, I decided to study Richard Hofstadter's life to learn more about where he was coming from and I found that he joined the Communist Party USA, as a young adult, hoping to bring that "dog-eat-dog" capitalism he hated to an end. Yes, I discovered that he was an American academic working to destroy America from within. (How did McCarthy overlook him?) 

His article, which labels conservatives as paranoid, was demeaning right-wingers because they actually believed in the destructive influence of liberal professors and politicos like him!

In his latter years when American students started practicing what their professors had been preaching and things got ugly and scary, he decided to moderate his views and got a little more conservative. You think, maybe, he didn't want to lose his capitalistic lifestyle and benefits?   

Let me share some quotes with you from the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter.

Richard Hofstadter (6 August 1916 – 24 October 1970) was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, an historian and ... Professor of American History at Columbia University.

(He) ...became the "iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus" 

(He) was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a German American Lutheran mother and a Polish Jewish father, who died when he was ten.

(He) was a Communist, and a member of the Young Communist League at university,

... In 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA, yet realistically qualified his action:

"I join without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation.... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don't like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking.... The party is making a very profound contribution to the radicalization of the American people.... I prefer to go along with it now."

 In late 1939, he ended the Communist stage of his life...  He remained anti-capitalist: "I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it".

...1944 published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a ...critique of late 19th century American capitalism and those who espoused its ruthless "dog-eat-dog" economic competition and justified themselves by invoking the doctrine of Social Darwinism...

The Progressive... Turner... said that, as an historian, Richard Hofstadter no longer was a useful guide, because his ideas were too isolationist, and too often had "a pound of falsehood for every few ounces of truth".

Consequent to the radical politics of the 1960s, and especially because of the student occupation and temporary closing of Columbia University in 1968, Hofstadter became more conservative.

His friend David Herbert Donald said: "He was appalled by the growing radical, even revolutionary, sentiment that he sensed among his colleagues and his students. He could never share their simplistic, moralistic approach". 

The sharpest criticism of Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 focused on Hofstadter's weakness as a research scholar: he did little or no research into manuscripts, newspapers, archival, or unpublished sources. Instead, he primarily relied upon secondary sources augmented by his lively style and wide-ranging interdisciplinary readings, this producing very well-written arguments based upon scattered evidence he found by reading other historians.

Hofstadter showed scant interest in his students. ... Hofstadter had few disciples and founded no school of history writing.

Conservative commentator George Will called Richard Hofstadter "the iconic public intellectual of liberal condescension", who "dismissed conservatives as victims of character flaws and psychological disorders — a 'paranoid style' of politics rooted in 'status anxiety', etc." 

"Conservatism rose on a tide of votes cast by people irritated by the liberalism of condescension."

Richard Hofstadter was an ivory tower extreme leftist. He seems to have lived in his own little world focused on promulgating unrealistic ideas which he didn't even want to live with in the end.

You may wonder why I shared this information with you and why it matters. I think it matters because it is a glimpse into the inner workings of the leftist elite academic cadre which is having such a deleterious effect on our nation. The anti-capitalistic mindset which is currently destroying this once prosperous nation has sprung from the treasonous seeds which have been sown for decades now by communistic/socialistic professors in our colleges and universities.

I experienced it personally when I took a government class at a Jr. College in Oklahoma City back in the early 1980s. I wanted to learn more about the country I was proud of. To my dismay, the professor ended the course with a lecture predicting that the USA would end up turning to Fascism or Socialism because Capitalism just wasn't working! (A self-fulfilling prophecy?)

No one in the class spoke up to disagree. We were just a bunch of clueless young students unprepared to hear such words-- much less to refute them. After gathering my thoughts, I wrote to the professor to share my disappointment and disagreement. I knew it was not likely to impact him, but I tried.

I thought about his words through the years and wondered why he was allowed to teach like that. I also wondered what impact his words were having on young malleable minds. I think it's clear now.

The stream of history is not the result of mere chance but is the outcome of willful choices. 

And it's not over. We still have some choices to make.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart 
and lean not on your own understanding;
 in all your ways submit to Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV

Footnotes:

1. Proverbs 3:6 Or will direct your paths

Cross references:

1. Proverbs 3:5 : S Ps 4:5
2. Proverbs 3:6 : S Job 33:11; S Isa 30:11
3. Proverbs 3:6 : Ps 5:8; Pr 16:3; Isa 40:3; Jer 42:3

 

Watch That Last Step, It's a Doozy by Daren Jonescu

As any mature radical will tell you, the great advantage of a gradual unraveling, as opposed to the more colorful sudden insurrection, is that in the latter case, everyone knows what is happening and, if so inclined, may resist, whereas the former method is akin to the stealthy burglar who steals your jewels while you sleep. You might wake up and carry on with your life for days before realizing you have lost your prized possessions and family heirlooms. And by then it is too late.

But the stealthy burglar is merely a metaphor. What are the real, practical mechanisms whereby socialists have co-opted most of the Western world over the past hundred years without awakening the majority of the population? No short article could hope to give a complete account of the process -- nor could any long book, for that matter, though many have explained elements of it with admirable clarity.

One invaluable tool in the radical's belt, however, is sometimes overlooked. This is the natural human weakness -- on display every day, everywhere -- for breaking a long process into its discernible stages, and then judging the significance of each stage relative to the whole, so that each stage appears less noteworthy than the preceding ones, as the growing whole proportionately diminishes each new part. This tendency of our thinking can prevent us from recognizing all sorts of gradual developments, both positive and negative. It allows us to observe incremental changes in our bodily condition over time without ever deducing that we have developed a serious illness, for example.

In the modern political context, this phenomenon helps to explain the blank stares or rolling eyes one meets when talking to people about the multifaceted catastrophe -- economic, social, and moral -- that looms just ahead of the Western world on its present path. "What are you getting all worked up about?" is a typical response, and a sure sign you are witnessing the psychological weakness in question. You, looking at the whole process, see an ever-expanding threat. They, focused only on the discrete stages -- each one seeming smaller than the last, compared to the whole -- see ever-shrinking dots against an amorphous gray background. "What's the big deal?"

An analogy: anyone with experience teaching a language knows that the special challenge with more advanced learners is to convince them that they really are progressing. For beginners, every new word or phrase feels like a great leap and engenders a sense of accomplishment. Advanced students, by contrast, are forever complaining that they don't see themselves improving. They may be progressing every bit as quickly as the beginners, but the distance between zero and one is inevitably easier to appreciate than the distance between a thousand and a thousand and one. The absolute rate of progress may be the same, but the relative rate -- which is how we experience the progress subjectively -- shrinks to indiscernibility.

The same applies to the West's gradual devolution into socialism, also known as "progress." The absolute rate of this "progress" fluctuates, but it has been accelerating of late. Progressivism's relative rate of change, however -- people's subjective perception of society's deterioration into authoritarianism and its accompanying material degradation -- inevitably shrinks each year. Once again, the distance between a thousand and a thousand and one feels insignificant compared to the distance between zero and one. Civilization has, through this trick of perception, long since ceased to notice that it is being forced to walk the plank, or even that there are pirates on board.

The problem is that as each generation's feeling of peril diminishes through this perceptual illusion, so does its real chance of averting the ultimate ends of "progress," which are now closer to realization than ever before. That is, there is an inversely proportional relationship between the real danger and the feeling of danger. This is a recipe for civilizational doom -- or, if you prefer a less judgmental description, for "fundamental transformation."

Seen in this light, the remarkable part of the West's decline was the early stage, when socialism progressed from zero to one, as it were. This was the hardest part of the process for the leftists; for during those first steps, their agenda was exposed, as everyone could see the nature of the changes they were proposing. It was as clear as the difference between knowing no words at all and saying "hello" for the first time.

These early progressives were true radicals, people educated in Marx and Lenin and inspired by the "workers' uprising" in Russia. Desirous of similar "reform" at home, despising "capitalism" for purely Marxist reasons -- exploitation of workers, unequal distribution of wealth, etc. -- they gradually realized that achieving their ends in the prosperous, democratically inclined West would require an arduous process of working to undo the evil system from within. They really had to "sell" socialism, exploiting (and falsely diagnosing) transitory conditions as grounds for permanent political "reform" (initially labor reform, in keeping with their Bolshevik dreams) in the hope of setting in motion a slow revolution. Since then, comparatively, and notwithstanding some bumps in the progressive road, their journey has been all downhill, in every sense of the word.

By way of a concrete example, consider Frances Perkins, FDR's labor secretary, widely credited as the driving force behind Social Security, along with other New Deal instantiations of the progressive agenda in America. An advocate of radical socialist reform, she evolved into a model for all leftists with an eye on practical goals rather than abstract theory. She grew to espouse the view that "venal politicians can sometimes be more useful than upstanding reformers." (For "upstanding reformers," read "doctrinaire Marxists.")

During the Senate Finance Committee hearings on Social Security, a Republican senator bluntly asked Perkins, "Isn't this socialism?" She flatly denied it, to which the senator replied ironically, "Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?"

FDR had to address such accusations directly. Those first teeny-weeny bits of socialism were the hard part, because every honest observer could see them as such. The s-word had not yet been banished from mainstream discussion. "Positive rights" had not yet been broadly accepted as rivals to Lockean natural rights. Property had not yet been excised from the lexicon of "freedom," or from international standards of human rights, as though liberty were somehow separable from the right to own the product of one's effort. Education had not yet been completely converted into a factory for building leftist attitudes. People in general did not yet feel "entitled" to things that could be guaranteed only by forcibly taking them from other people.

With each subsequent step, however, "progress" has become easier to implement, due in part to the increasing difficulty of seeing the discrete steps as a continuum of degradation. Each step appears smaller -- less "scary" -- than the previous steps, due to the relative perception of change.

Early victories such as those of Perkins represent socialism's progress from zero to one. The measure of their importance, and of the extraordinary power of the psychological mechanism of experiencing relative rather than absolute rates of change, can be taken by considering this obvious fact: Perkins, in her mature years, never advocated the degree of progressive policy that has subsequently been achieved in America. Later progressives have surpassed even her most ambitious efforts to convert leftism into legislation -- and yet only a small minority today see anything radical or extreme in the recent rapid advances of "progress."

This latter fact defines the "cognitive dissonance" that is often noted by people trying to understand how a self-described "progressive" like Barack Obama could ever have been elected -- toting all his leftist baggage, from communist mentors to communist appointees, with him -- in the land of Jefferson and Madison. The explanation seems to be that most people just cannot perceive the significance of the step from a thousand to a thousand and one. In fact, it should perhaps be regarded as surprising, and a triumph of reason, that any can still perceive it.

There is, however, in every plank walk, a final step beyond which one reaches the only logical outcome -- one must plunge into the shark-infested waters. No blindfold, however secure, can save you from this result. The thankless task of modern conservatives -- i.e., those still rational enough to perceive absolute "progress" -- is the race against inevitability to remove that blindfold from civilization's eyes before it is too late.

Word to the GOP campaign team: assiduously avoiding the s-word in defining the other side won't make this urgent effort any easier. "Playing it safe" with the rhetoric now will only ensure that humanity remains asleep long enough for the burglar to finish his work.


http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/watch_that_last_step_its_a_doozy.html#.UF4py0N_ams.blogger

The True "1%" Are the Political Elite

During his bid for re-election, Barack Obama talked of fairness, as he did in his State of the Union address to Congress. His talk is simply political rhetoric. He is not truly concerned about the depressed state of the economy, the middle class, the oppressed conditions of the poor, or even about basic economic fairness. If he is truly concerned about these issues, he would push to implement effective policies to deal with them.

 

In his State of the Union address he zeroed in on his polarizing ideological understanding of the cause of America's economic problems while offering no solutions applicable to a free society. He said,

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

How can Obama talk about everyone "doing their fair share" when many able bodied people don't work at all and nothing is required or expected of them (except voting for Democrats)?
It is not fair to take money from hard working American citizen taxpayers and freely give it to those among us who are willfully indolent? That is not fair or morally right!  

How can Obama even talk about "everyone gets a fair shot" and "everyone playing by the same rules" when he refuses to uphold the Constitution by enforcing laws he disagrees with, and by twisting government regulations and entire agencies (IRS) to punish his political foes and to reward his political supporters?

The true 1% are the political elite! They are rewarded with excessive salaries and retirement plans, unearned benefits and bonuses and extravagant vacations. They are not held accountable for immoral or even criminal behavior!     

Many sorrowful consequences await Americans and people of the world if this administration is allowed to continue implementing its destructive agenda. 

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when a wicked man rules, the people groan (mourn). Proverbs 29:2 KJV

Yahweh is our only hope. His arm is not too short to intervene but His requirements must be met. Sin calls for repentance which leads to forgiveness, healing and restoration.

I encourage you to trust God, pray and vote in 2014.

Maranatha! 

World Systems Fail: Put Your Hope In GOD!

Did you hear President Obama’s “Teddy Roosevelt” speech given in Kansas? He tried to gain credibility for his extreme, progressive policies by noting that a progressive Republican president’s policies were similar to his own. He disarmingly smirked as he admitted that Roosevelt was called a socialist for those policies! That was before political correctness had such a chilling affect on speaking truth. But, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

He has the audacity to claim that he has Kansas values (deep roots in Kansas)! You think they are as deep as his roots in Kenya, or Indonesia, or perhaps Hawaii? He said he got his name from his dad and his values from his mom. Have you checked into what those values might be? His mother was a world traveling ”free thinker” whose political and religious values were outside mainstream America. His values; therefore, are not the Heartland USA values found in Kansas.

Obama, following his mother’s lead, is a socialist. He believes the government should solve all problems. He believes the promise of “cradle to grave” security (even though it is unattainable) can seduce Americans into voting for him and forfeiting their basic freedoms. He believes in using legislation and Executive Orders to redistribute wealth, which allows the government to take the hard earned wealth of some citizens and give it to others at home and abroad (mostly to Islamic nations).

As a socialist, he believes in using class warfare to promote his causes. Even though as a candidate he told us he would bring America together, he has been the most divisive president of my lifetime. For example, he encouraged racial tensions by allowing Black Panthers to intimidate white voters at the polls and his administration refused to prosecute them. He encouraged racial tensions by falsely accusing the police of mishandling a case involving a black professor trying to break into his own home. He also encouraged resentment from and toward Hispanics when he accused the State of Arizona of racial profiling for attempting to enforce Federal Immigration Laws. He has recently been encouraging class warfare by blaming those wicked wealthy people (capitalists!) for the 2008 economic downturn (which was actually caused by socialistic government interference with banks and mortgage companies). He encourages class warfare by repeatedly saying, “The rich should pay their fair share!” And, he has encouraged class warfare by supporting Occupy Wall Street!

Obama’s progressive/socialist policies are destroying our economy and robbing us of our freedoms. How many regulations can we bear and have any freedom left? The government is broke. Obama has helped take this nation to the brink of bankruptcy by: creating new government agencies, hiring more government employees, and by pushing a new, uber-expensive socialist program known generally known as Obama Care. (He can’t blame that one on Bush!)

The government’s bills are being paid with money borrowed in the name of taxpayers, and we know, ”The borrower is servant to the lender.”

In the name of recovery, he has spent us into a bottomless pit of debt without bringing new jobs into our economy. He spent a lot of the so-called stimulus money in foreign countries! He used large amounts of money to pay off unions and others who helped elect him. (That includes the money he spent on financially unsustainable and environmentally dirty “green” projects like electric cars which only benefited a handful of people and will never help the overall economy. Not to mention Solyndra!)

He has used the EPA, Executive Orders, and “proposed” regulations like Cap and Trade to block countless American jobs and prosperity for our economy. By limiting drilling for oil; formulating regulations to halt investment in new, cleaner coal based utility companies; discouraging Nuclear Power plants; and also by blocking the Canadian pipeline: he has deliberately hurt our economy!

None of these “green” measures are based on true concern for the world’s environment because he supports drilling for oil in Brazil and continuing to buy oil from the Middle East which drills for it! He supports Nuclear Power in other nations. And, he supports exporting our coal to China where it is burned and affects the atmosphere as much as it would if we burned it here. His policies are not green, they are socialistic! And, they are hurting our country.

On his fourth day in office he used an executive order to fund abortions around the world with US taxpayers money–which most Americans oppose. Combine this executive order with his Senate voting record of support for partial birth abortion, and his three votes to force medical workers to allow aborted babies accidentally born alive to die without medical care, and Obama Care, which forces taxpayers to pay for abortions; and he is the most pro-baby-killing president we’ve ever had.

He has sued Arizona and other states for trying to enforce Federal laws within their states that he refuses to enforce.

He released the 10 Russian spies arrested by the FBI in June of 2010 before they could even be debriefed to reveal their objectives and their contacts in our government. Why would he throw away the results of a successful ten year undercover investigation of Russian spies? Would they have revealed the anti-American activities of socialists and communists in his administration?

He undermined the USA and NATO security by agreeing to a treaty with Russia which cancelled our missile defense system and limited our potential for maintaining our arsenals. He has also spent us into so much debt we’ll have trouble maintaining our conventional defense over time.

He refuses to use the words terrorist, Islamic Radical, and War on Terror, even when Muslims try to blow up US targets and kill people within our borders or around the world.

He openly embraces Islam although Islam openly hates America! (They call us the Great Satan.) He bowed to the King of the Islamic nation of Saudi Arabia, a nation so exclusive and supremacist that no churches may be built within its borders, no Jews may visit the country, and non-Muslims are prohibited from visiting its sacred cities! Islam is a political/religious system seeking to dominate the world. Not something freedom lovers can embrace.

He also endangers America by wasting money having the TSA harass patriotic citizens in airports while allowing Muslims to serve in sensitive Homeland Security positions and welcoming unvetted Islamist refugees into our country! (No practicing Islamist should be in a USA security position! Duh.)

Americans cannot support Obama if they truly believe in our Constitutional Republic. I urge you to keep his past record before you. Please don’t allow yourself to be fooled by any centrist appearing policies he may pragmatically proffer. Remember, he has no problem making promises he won’t keep!

In the Kansas speech he once again pitched the idea that he and those “compassionate” Democrats just want us all to work together (collectivism) to equalize (lower) everyone’s standard of living; whereas those hard-hearted Republicans think everyone should be left to make it (prosper) on their own (individualism) and play by their own rules (have freedom under the rule of law).

He believes capitalism (the way of freedom and individualism) has been tried and failed! So, what’s left? Socialism!

If socialism is so great and capitalism is such a failure, how did America become such a wealthy nation with such a huge middle class? Try naming a wealthy socialist nation with a huge middle class! You can't.

Well, the election is over now and we are facing another 4 years of devastating social and economic  policies under this anti-American president. We have an Executive branch which undermines the rule of law (TSA, NSA, IRS, Benghazi, etc.) while it spies on law abiding American citizens, a Supreme Court which refuses to uphold the constitution, and a Congress which ignores the clear wishes of the American people on taxes, healthcare, immigration, energy policy, etc.

I am proud of all the patriot warriors trying to preserve our freedoms. I am thankful for the Tea Party Groups around the country and every other conservative organization still fighting the fight for right! I applaud them but I know our only hope is in God so I'll close with His Word which is far more important than anything we have to say.  

 In you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;  guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. 

Remember, O LORD (Yahweh) , your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Psalm 25:2-3-6

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Romans 12:12

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13