Old Thinker News – by Daniel Taylor
“The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation.” – Theodore Roosevelt
What should be expected of a citizen in a Democratic Republic? President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a timeless 1910 speech that sought to answer this question. Regardless of his politics, Roosevelt spoke undying truth in this speech. His words are shockingly relevant to our society today. As Roosevelt rightly stated; We – if our spirits are right – are the waters from which liberty and prosperity flow. Today, we must acknowledge that the waters have been poisoned; Poisoned by the natural tendencies of history, and by individuals seeking to push our society in a direction diametrically opposed to what our ancestors intended.
Roosevelt points out that under monarchies and systems of government consisting of few men, quality of character is vital for them; But for the average citizen who wielded no influence over his government, it mattered little if they were a saint or a scoundrel.
“Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness.”
Historian Alexis de Tocqueville also noticed this phenomenon. In America – unlike ancient hereditary rule – despotism no longer held lower classes in artificial societal cages. People seeking a new life were bound only by limits to endurance and willpower. Intelligence, self respect and good character were qualities that anyone could acquire, aiding in their progressive rise in society.
“When hereditary wealth, class privilege and prerogatives of birth no longer exist and each person draws his strength only from himself, it becomes clear that… anything that serves to fortify, expand, or adorn the intellect immediately takes on great value.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
This did not go un-noticed among the intelligentsia and elite ranks of society. When the United States declared independence, power monopolies were threatened unlike any other time in history. With the individual unchained in America’s great experiment, it would not be as easy to dominate the masses. Roosevelt keenly stated,
“A democratic republic such as ours – an effort to realize its full sense government by, of, and for the people – represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success of republics… means the glory, and our failure of despair, of mankind; and… for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme.”
In America’s open society, the pendulum can swing easily from good to evil. Natural historical cycles impact nations, but so do deliberate campaigns for revolutionary change. Whoever influences the masses changes the course of the nation at large.
Communist party goals, as outlined in 1963, have manifested systemically in the decades gone by. Whether or not you believe there is a conscious agenda behind the changes we are witnessing is irrelevant. As we can see with the examples below (of which there are many more), it is happening before our very eyes.
Just a few of the Communist goals:
- “Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.””
Despite your personal views on the matter; Faith, particularly Christianity, has played a major role in the historical success of America despite our flaws. Historian Alexis de Tocqueville, a man who lost his religious zeal at a young age, was forced to admit that in early Christian America, “There is no better illustration of the usefulness and naturalness of religion, since the country where its influence is greatest today [in the early 1800’s] is also the country that is freest and most enlightened.” Tocqueville adds, “Once men stop worrying about what is to come when their lives are over, they lapse easily into that state of complete and brutish indifference to the future…”
- “Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.”
The prevalence of pornography in today’s society is nothing short of shocking. Its impact on society is corrosive, which is why it must be promoted if a revolutionary group wants to alter the social landscape. According to the Washington Post, 1 in 6 women are addicted to porn. In 2004 Dr. Jill Manning testified before the U.S. Senate regarding the impact of pornography on marriage in the United States. She presented statistics gathered from lawyers around the country. She found that, “56 percent of divorce cases involved one party having an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.” As Kevin Skinner writes in Psychology Today, “If half of the people divorcing claim pornography as the culprit, that means there are 500,000 marriages annually that are failing due to pornography.”
- “Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.”
The Cloward–Piven strategy is going full force under the Obama administration. This socialist strategy, developed in 1966 by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, sought to push welfare on the masses in order to create division and economic crisis. A program of “wealth redistribution” is then presented as a solution. Under Obama, welfare is at an all time high. From 2007 to 2011 the number of food stamp recipients rose 70% to 45 million. A 1966 article published in the The Nation outlined the plan,
“A series of welfare drives in large cities would, we believe, impel action on a new federal program to distribute income, eliminating the present public welfare system and alleviating the abject poverty which it perpetrates… These disruptions would generate severe political strains, and deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the white working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor… a national Democratic administration would be con-strained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas. By the internal disruption of local bureaucratic practices, by the furor over public welfare poverty, and by the collapse of current financing arrangements, powerful forces can be generated for major economic reforms at the national level.”
Our system of government cannot function in the present day atmosphere of dependence and backwardness. This deliberately created decadent culture has facilitated and encouraged the evil side of humanity, and when it is expressed in all its horror – in mass shootings, food stamp riots, etc. – it is used to further erode our liberties. Roosevelt puts it another way “…if they [the people] grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.”
Activist Mark Dice has demonstrated vividly the decaying nature of American society. He successfully recruited people to sign a petition to include post birth abortion (infanticide) as part of Obamacare.
Another demonstration of societal decay happened this past Saturday. EBT cardholders in Louisiana raided Wal-Mart stores when they found out that they had essentially unlimited funds on the glitched cards.
My intention is not to paint a picture of a standardized “ideal citizen”. In a system of government that relies on the good character of its people to operate as it was intended, a certain standard must be voluntarily reached for by all. It must also be recognized that deliberate efforts have been and are currently being made to alter the character of our people in a manner that has negative implications for the entire nation, and in turn the world. In the midst of the current political upheaval and whispers of revolution, it is important to lay a foundation for future solutions.
Our solution starts with every individual in this country. Whether you are a high ranking businessman, teacher, journalist, or factory worker, you all can have an impact. For those in positions of leadership, it is hard to lift people up and enlighten them despite their flaws; It is much easier to permit total decadence and misery. The nature of the world enables this backward slide. Without any moral standing, the mega-banks and their acolytes have engaged in a deliberate campaign to drag the globe into a pit of despair while the elite have chosen to “manage” us and eventually eliminate us, rather than inspire mankind to a higher standard.
Ideas of individual integrity, self sufficiency and liberty weave the fabric of our solution. Private victory in our personal lives will lead to national success.