Teddy Roosevelt's SECRET letter proves progressivism was always headed to THIS



On July 4, the $450 million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opened its doors to the public — a public that, according to a letter in a library exhibit, Roosevelt felt was similar to cattle.

In the letter written to Charles Davenport at Cold Spring Harbor in his own hand, he explained that “society has no business permitting degenerates to reproduce their kind.”

Roosevelt wrote in the letter, “We have to refuse to apply human beings the same elementary knowledge every farmer applies to his own stock. And that’s madness.”


“The farmers who let all the increase come from the worst stock would be threatened as fit inmates for an asylum,” he added.

Roosevelt also wrote that the “inescapable duty of the good citizen of the right type is to leave his blood behind him in the world.”

“We have no business permitting the perpetuation of a citizen of the wrong type,” he said.

Like most progressives, Glenn points out that Roosevelt made it clear that he believed in “categories.”

“This fight is about categories,” he says. “It’s about, you know, the collective and not the individual in his own hand to the director of the Carnegie-funded scientific institute. This was not the fringe. This is the cutting edge. This is the settled science that you must pay attention to of the time.”

“Theodore Roosevelt believed in the science and in the expert and in the government strong enough and clever enough to act upon what the experts knew. That’s progressivism all in one letter,” he explains.

“Now, was he great with the national parks? Yeah, he was great on national parks. Was he great on the individual and the man in the arena? Yeah, he was brave. He was funny. He read a book every day. A book every day. He took a bullet in Milwaukee and finished the speech. He set aside 230 million acres. That’s not the argument,” he continues.

“The argument is what he thought the American government was for,” he adds.

Glenn explains that Roosevelt also believed that “property is subject to the community’s right to regulate its use” and that government officials were the “stewards of the public welfare” rather than “servants of the law.”

“In a speech he called a 'Charter for Democracy,' he proposed when a court strikes down a progressive statute, the people should be able to vote to overturn the court. Former president of the United States in 1912 proposing a popular recall of judicial decisions. That’s not constitutional. That’s not how it works,” Glenn says.

“Theodore Roosevelt is exactly what we’re seeing. He’s just dressed up in prettier clothes. He’s not a despicable man where Woodrow Wilson is just a despicable man,” he says, adding, “And I don’t think he actually saw what was coming.”

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Glenn Becks warns: The founding document the far left has hated for 100 years is more important now than ever



America is in a “living battle for sovereignty and independence,” warns Glenn Beck.

And the stakes are higher than ever. With the Supreme Court’s recent rulings expanding presidential authority over independent agencies while reinforcing core constitutional protections like warrants, the battle lines are now clearly drawn.

“The agencies and the global pressures constantly pushing for more control and nuanced compromises in our founding liberties — it's got to stop,” Glenn declares.

“Independence was never meant to be negotiated down into something comfortable — never. Freedom is uncomfortable. Freedom was meant to be declared and defended without apology or amendment.”

Glenn recalls the letter John Adams penned on his deathbed to be read at America’s 50th Independence Day celebration. He wrote, “A memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined, in future history, to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind."

“It’s remarkable how the founders understood human nature and what could happen to the United States,” says Glenn.

Not even 100 years later, Woodrow Wilson — a president Glenn pulls no punches about hating — openly denounced the Declaration of Independence, criticizing people who he thought were stuck on the founding principles and resistant to embracing the “progressive” changes he wanted for America.

“[Wilson] completely inverts the Declaration. He says, ‘You don't have inherent rights until government puts you in a position to claim them,”’ says Glenn. “That is the heart of the disease called progressivism, which is now known as democratic socialism.”

Unlike Wilson, who desperately wanted America to distance itself from the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln revered it as timeless and paramount.

“He wrote that these truths are ‘applicable to all men at all times ... that today and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression,”’ Glenn quotes.

He warns, “We can't assume that this radical idea of freedom will always be embraced by Americans, because we're losing it now.”

“The fundamental principles of the Declaration are under attack from the left. They want you to forget about it, which makes it so important that you learn it.”

Glenn recalls an iconic John Adams moment from 1826. Shortly before his death, Adams requested that a toast be given in his honor on July 4. The words he wanted were simple: “Independence forever.”

When asked if he wanted to add anything else, Adams replied, “No, not a word.”

“That's the spirit we need today,” says Glenn.

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Don’t let Trump derangement ruin Flag Day



A UFC Freedom 250 event on the South Lawn of the White House — with a 5,000-seat temporary stadium and 85,000 tickets for viewing on massive screens on the Ellipse — has sparked controversy. The event is unprecedented, and it falls on President Trump’s birthday.

Put aside what you think of Sunday’s extravaganza. There is still a good reason to embrace June 14: Flag Day.

Those allergic to all things Trump should remember that Flag Day existed decades before he was born and, God willing, will endure for generations after.

Flag Day has a long tradition. Yet if not for its coincidence with Trump’s birthday, it would likely pass with little notice. That is a mistake. This is not a call to worship a colorful banner. It is a call to remember that Americans — left, center, and right — are united by founding principles from the Declaration of Independence, represented by Old Glory.

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution establishing a uniform national flag. The 13-star flag, commonly associated with Betsy Ross, became a rallying banner and a source of pride. It was not yet revered as it would be later, but it symbolized the freest nation in world history.

Then came the Civil War and the lowering of the flag over Fort Sumter. That image triggered an outpouring of love for Old Glory.

Jonathan Flynt Morris, a banker and strong Republican Unionist, urged Charles Dudley Warner, editor of the Hartford Evening Press, to write about the need not merely to respect the flag, but to revere it. On June 10, 1861, Warner followed that advice and proposed a new holiday: Flag Day.

“This flag is our dearest symbol of nationality,” Warner wrote. “It stands for civil liberty on this continent. To keep it full high advanced is our highest pride; to strike at it is to arouse all the passion of the nation to defend it, and to punish the perpetrators of the outrage.”

Flag Day celebrations began in Warner’s home state of Connecticut. They slowly spread to schools in Wisconsin in 1885, New York schools in 1889, and then to Philadelphia and public buildings in New York state in 1894. An American Flag Day organization was created to further the movement.

President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, issued the first federal recognition of the holiday on May 30, 1916. Wilson’s proclamation called for patriotic exercises that would “give significant expression to our thoughtful love of America” and our understanding of “the great mission of liberty and justice to which we have devoted ourselves as a people.”

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He also called Americans to rededicate themselves to the principles of “independence, liberty, and right,” which no person “can corrupt” and no influence could draw away from their ideals. Finally, on Aug. 3, 1949, President Harry S. Truman, also a Democrat, signed an act of Congress designating June 14 of each year as National Flag Day.

Flag Day exemplifies our shared American creed. It was the brainchild of Republicans, spread outside party politics, and was instituted nationally by Democrats. Its purpose is to recommit us to the founding principles declared in the Declaration of Independence and embedded in the Constitution: equality, limited government, the rule of law, unalienable rights, the social compact, and the right to alter or abolish oppressive government.

America did not fully live by those principles in 1776, and we do not perfectly live by them today. But belief in those principles has inspired generations of patriots to move us closer to their fulfillment. Abolitionism, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movement all called upon America’s first principles to push the country toward its promise. At its best, our flag stands for liberty and equality.

Those allergic to all things Trump should remember that Flag Day existed decades before he was born and, God willing, will endure for generations after. It is not about one man. It is a call for all Americans to unite around the principles that made the country possible.

We should answer that call.

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Democracy promotion is dead: Good riddance



What passes for intellectual heft at the Atlantic is any criticism of President Donald Trump. In the Atlantic’s pages and its digital fare, you can read the now-discredited musings of David Frum, who helped bring us the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the inane foreign policy arguments of Max Boot; the interventionist prescriptions of Anne Applebaum; and now, the democracy promotion of political science professor Brian Klaas, who, in a recent article, blames President Trump for killing “American democracy promotion.”

If Klaas is correct, that is one more reason that Americans need to thank President Trump.

Klaas’ first priority is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights.

One would have thought that the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq would have humbled our nation’s democracy promoters — but they haven’t. One would have thought that the failed foreign policy of Jimmy Carter would have humbled those who wish to make “human rights” the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy — but it didn’t. One would have thought that the chaos facilitated by the so-called “Arab Spring” would engender prudence and introspection among the democracy promoters — but it is not so.

Professor Klaas wants the world to become democratic and for U.S. foreign policy to lead the effort in bringing the globe to the promised land.

Rewriting history

The Trump administration, Klaas writes, has “turn[ed] against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion.”

Perhaps Klaas has never read George Washington’s Farewell Address, in which he counseled his countrymen to conduct foreign policy based solely on the nation’s interests. Or perhaps he missed John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address, in which he cautioned against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and reminded his listeners that America is the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own.

Perhaps Klaas believes that Wilsonianism is a “long-standing” American tradition, but in reality, it is mostly limited to starry-eyed liberal internationalists and neoconservatives.

Klaas mentions the “democracy boom” under President Bill Clinton, which was nothing more than a temporary consequence of America’s victory in the Cold War. Yet Klaas thinks it was the beginning of “shifting international norms” where freedom and democracy triumphed in “the ideological battle against rival models of governance” and “had become an inexorable force.”

Here, Klaas is likely referring to Francis Fukuyama’s discredited theory of the “end of history.” We have since discovered, however, that history didn’t die and that democracy is fragile, especially in places and among civilizations that have little democratic experience.

Fukuyama was wrong, but Samuel Huntington was right when he wrote about the coming “clash of civilizations.” One wonders if Klaas has read Huntington or Toynbee — or Spengler for that matter. Or, even more recently, Robert Kaplan’s “The Tragic Mind.”

Authoritarianism disguised as ‘democratic’

Klaas criticizes Trump for praising dictators, but President Woodrow Wilson praised Lenin and President Franklin Roosevelt praised Stalin. Klaas says that Trump is indifferent to democracy and human rights. No, Trump simply refuses to make them the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, which is a “long-standing” tradition that stretches back long before Wilson to our founding fathers.

However, neither Wilson nor FDR wanted America to right every wrong in the world, as Klaas does. Klaas wants his “human rights” and democracy agenda “backed by weapons.” He laments that authoritarian regimes no longer need to fear the “condemnation” and the “bombs” of the American president.

Klaas’ leftism is revealed when he condemns the United States for helping to replace Mossaddegh with the pro-American shah of Iran, overthrowing the Marxist regime of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, helping to overthrow Allende in Chile, and cozying up to other authoritarian regimes.

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The professor also might want to read Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards” to learn that sometimes doing these things is in America’s national interests. Klaas’ leftism jumps off the page when he refers to the illegal aliens removed by the Trump administration — many with criminal records — as “foreign pilgrims.”

Some of those “foreign pilgrims” raped and killed Americans. But Klaas’ first priority is not America or its citizens; it is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights. He is anti-Trump precisely because Trump’s foreign policy is America First. Let’s hope Klaas’ style of democracy promotion is dead.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.

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