Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Friday, March 30, 2012

Guardian Mary Silver: President Franklin D. Roosevelt- Great Depression Fireside Chat

Source:Guardian Mary Silver- from a film about the Great Depression. Perhaps a left-wing propaganda film.

Source:FreeState MD 

“AP US History Assignment.

7th Hour

Great Depression/Unemployment

By: Riah Countryman, Kevin Islas, and Hector Mirelez”


“President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in early 1933, would become the only president in American history to be elected to four consecutive terms. He would lead his nation through two of the greatest crises in its history—the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II (1939-45)—and would exponentially expand the role of the federal government through his New Deal reform program and its legacy. From March 1933 to June 1944, Roosevelt addressed the American people in some 30 speeches broadcast via radio, speaking on a variety of topics from banking to unemployment to fighting fascism in Europe. Millions of people found comfort and renewed confidence in these speeches, which became known as the “fireside chats.”
Source:History- Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat, New York) President of the United States (1933-45)

From History

The fact that President Franklin Roosevelt was speaking about a recession in America in 1938, is pretty good evidence that five years after becoming President of the United States, that we were still not out of the Great Depression yet.

The economy was getting better in 1938, but we slipped back into recession in 1936 or 37. We were still looking 20-25% official unemployment. Maybe half of the country living in poverty. By the time the United States got involved in World War II in 1941-42, we were still dealing with the Depression, Recession and high unemployment. And it was really World War II that moved the country to full-recovery from the Great Depression. With all the money that was spent financing our involvement in that War.

What the New Deal deserves credit for, is establishing a public safety net that the country could turn too, when they are unemployed, or don’t have a large enough retirement account, to protect people’s savings in banks. And the New Deal did put some unemployed workers back to work through infrastructure investment.

But the Great Depression was so deep which is why it was labeled the Great Depression with so many people losing all of their money and jobs at the same time. With so many banks and business’s all failing at once. What the New Deal did was help sustain the country through the Great Depression, so things couldn’t get worse, but it didn’t bring us out of it.

It was World War II that brought the United States out of the Great Depression and back to prosperity and an economic power, as well as a world power, where we’ve remained ever since with the millions of people it employed, either in the Defense Department, or working with private contractors that did business with DOD. Making all of our equipment and the American auto industry did very well during World War II making all of those tanks And President Roosevelt deserves a lot of credit for this as well.

The New Deal, served as a buffer from the Great Depression. Put in the floor that the American economy could cash on and buy it time to recover. But it didn’t get us out of it and back to full-recovery.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Nation: David Cole: 'Why President Obama’s Healthcare Law is Constitutional'

Source:The Nation- columnist David Cole.

Source:FreeState MD

“What is at stake in the case challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), scheduled for oral argument in the Supreme Court in March? The challengers maintain that the case is about fundamental liberty, specifically our freedom not to be compelled to purchase things we don’t want. But that frame, while undoubtedly appealing to the radical libertarian strain in the Tea Party, is misleading. In fact, the only “liberty” that would be protected by a victory for the challengers is the freedom of insurance companies to discriminate against sick people.

The case is principally focused on the “individual mandate,” the law’s requirement that people who are not insured and can afford health insurance must buy it or pay a tax penalty. The federal government is a government of limited powers, and although Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, the challengers concede, if it can force people to “enter into commerce” in order to regulate them, then its powers are in effect unlimited. The reason Congress has never imposed such a mandate, they maintain, is that the power does not properly exist.

The Supreme Court deems the issue sufficiently serious to schedule an almost unprecedented five and a half hours of oral argument (it usually schedules a single hour). But the argument against the law is remarkably flimsy. Two of the country’s most conservative judges, Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit and Laurence Silberman of the DC Circuit, were unable to find a valid argument against the law and voted to uphold it. Harvard law professor Charles Fried, Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general, has also said the law is plainly constitutional. It’s always dangerous to predict Supreme Court rulings on controversial cases, but if the Court applies its precedents faithfully, it should be a victory for the administration.”

From The Nation 

The Welfare Clause: 

"The United States Constitution contains two references to “the General Welfare”, one occurring in the Preamble and the other in the Taxing and Spending Clause. The U.S. Supreme Court has held the mention of the clause in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution “has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States or on any of its Departments.”[3][4]

The Supreme Court held the understanding of the General Welfare Clause contained in the Taxing and Spending Clause adheres to the construction given it by Associate Justice Joseph Story in his 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.[5][6] Justice Story concluded that the General Welfare Clause is not a grant of general legislative power,[5][7] but a qualification on the taxing power[5][8][9] which includes within it a federal power to spend federal revenues on matters of general interest to the federal government.[5][10][11] The Court described Justice Story’s view as the “Hamiltonian position”,[5] as Alexander Hamilton had elaborated his view of the taxing and spending powers in his 1791 Report on Manufactures. Story, however, attributes the position’s initial appearance to Thomas Jefferson, in his Opinion on the Bank of the United States.[12]

These clauses in the U.S. Constitution are an atypical use of a general welfare clause, and are not considered grants of a general legislative power to the federal government.” 

From Wikipedia

Commerce Clause: 

"The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas of commerce as a separate power granted to Congress.[1] It is common to see the individual components of the Commerce Clause referred to under specific terms: the Foreign Commerce Clause, the Interstate Commerce Clause,[2] and the Indian Commerce Clause.

Dispute exists within the courts as to the range of powers granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause. As noted below, it is often paired with the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the combination used to take a more broad, expansive perspective of these powers. However, the effect of the Commerce Clause has varied significantly depending on the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation.[citation needed]

During the Marshall Court era (1801–1835), interpretation of the Commerce Clause gave Congress jurisdiction over numerous aspects of intrastate and interstate commerce as well as activity that had traditionally been regarded not to be commerce. Starting in 1937, following the end of the Lochner era, the use of the Commerce Clause by Congress to authorize federal control of economic matters became effectively unlimited. Since United States v. Lopez (1995), congressional use of the Commerce Clause has become slightly restricted again to be limited to matters of trade or any other form of restricted area (whether interstate or not) and production (whether commercial or not).[citation needed]

The Commerce Clause is the source of federal drug prohibition laws under the Controlled Substances Act. In a 2005 medical marijuana case, Gonzales v. Raich, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the argument that the ban on growing medical marijuana for personal use exceeded the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause. Even if no goods were sold or transported across state lines, the Court found that there could be an indirect effect on interstate commerce and relied heavily on a New Deal case, Wickard v. Filburn, which held that the government may regulate personal cultivation and consumption of crops because the aggregate effect of individual consumption could have an indirect effect on interstate commerce.”

From Wikipedia  

I’m honest enough to tell my readers that I’m not a lawyer and nor do I play one either on TV or online. But to me the debate about the 2010 Affordable Care Act is not a debate about whether the law is a good law or not. That’s not for the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. The debate is about whether the ACA is constitutional or not. The people, the President of the United States, and Congress get to decide if the law is good or bad and whether it should stay in place or not. Not unelected judges, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

To me again as as non-lawyer, I believe the ACA is clearly constitutional under at least two sections of the U.S. Constitution: the Welfare Clause and the Commerce Clause:

The U.S. Government obviously has a role to look after the welfare of the country. Not run our lives for us, but to see to it that everyone’s basic needs are met and even help people in need who can’t help themselves. Otherwise what’s the point in having a Federal Government if can’t look after the welfare, as well as to protect the defend the country?

And as much as leftists (democratic and otherwise) might hate hearing this, health care and health insurance is a commodity. It’s something that people buy on the market in America. And under the Commerce Clause, the Federal Government has a role in regulating commerce in America.

So you might not like the ACA or you might love it, or you are like me and wish the law went further with a public option for Medicare, but this is not about the quality of the law, but about the constitutionality of it. If you don’t like the law, you can always lobby Congress with your First Amendment right to get the law either repealed or amended. But the U.S. Supreme Court can’t throw out laws simply because they don’t like them. Only when they believe they are unconstitutional.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Salon: Alex Pareene: Rick Santorum: ‘Liberal Penn State Punished Me For Being Conservative’

Source:Salon Magazine- Rick Santorum, goes from being high school nerd, too tall, dark, and handsome.

Source:FreeState MD 

“Rick Santorum hates college. The former senator from Pennsylvania and current presidential candidate has lately taken to declaring that Barack Obama’s promotion higher education is both elitist snobbery and a insidious attempt to “indoctrinate” the children of America’s hardworking conservative parents into socialism. His crusade against the ivory tower took an even weirder turn last weekend when he told a radio station that he was discriminated against at Penn State for his conservatism.”


If Rick Santorum is a Conservative, then Ron Paul is a Socialist and Ron Reagan was a Communist. Oh by the way I’m Santa Clause, right now its 100 degrees in Boston and it’s snowing in Houston. And before you take any of that seriously, keep in mind right now its March. And you want to know why Rick Santorum is not a Conservative, I’ll tell you anyway.

Conservatism in a political sense, forget about religion right now, but in a political sense conservatism is about conserving individual liberty. Not subtracting individual liberty or conserving a way of life from the 1950s and never modernizing. And it’s about limited government, especially the Federal Government, spending no more than you take in and always try to spend less than that. And devolving power back to the states and to the people. And a foreign policy that’s very limited and based around only protecting national security interests.

Political or constitutional or classical conservatism, is not about: “I and people who ally with me, know best how free adult Americans should live their lives. And if you don’t take our friendly advice on how you should live your own life, even though we have no idea who you are, we’ll get our friendly advice passed through law. And then if you don’t comply on how we believe you should live your individual lives, we’ll arrest you for your own good for living an immoral life. Even if your lifestyle is not hurting anyone else with how you are living.” Which is sort of Rick Santorum’s political philosophy.

On all counts of what conservatism actually is from a political sense, fiscally and socially especially Rick Santorum doesn’t qualify as a Conservative. Not on social issues, fiscal policy or foreign policy. He has a record as a borrow and spender, porker, empowering the Federal Government in his sixteen years in Congress. (House and Senate)

On social issues, Rick Santorum has a record of wanting to outlaw things that are currently legal. Limiting our personal freedom and has even added to that in his presidential campaign, coming out in favor of a constitutional amendment to empower the Federal Government to define marriage. Nothing Conservative about that and what happened to States Rights? The distinguished Senator is also in favor of outlawing pornography, gambling and birth control.

On foreign policy, Senator Santorum voted for preventive war, hard to see either Barry Goldwater or Ron Reagan voting for the 2nd War in Iraq.

So in a political sense, Rick Santorum doesn’t qualify as a Conservative and never has. He meets the qualifications of a religious theocrat. But those are different from conservatism and on the Far-Right, where Senator Santorum is in American politics.

Rick Santorum or perhaps Ricky or Slick Rick (at least when it comes to trying to convince people who know better of his conservative credentials or the serious lack of them) is a Big Government Republican. A right-wing statist, the ultimate big brother or big government, or better yet Uncle Sam, no real Conservative’s favorite uncle. And he believes he knows best how free people should live their own lives.

I mean if Rick Santorum is a Conservative, the Queen of England eats Burger King whoppers for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. And when Burger King is unavailable, she gets her meals from McDonald’s. And it never rains in Seattle and a lot other nonsense that is simply not believable.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

James Miller Center: ‘FDR Fireside Chat 6- On Government and Capitalism’

Source:James Miller Center- President’s Herbert Hoover & Franklin Roosevelt, at FDR’s 1933 presidential inauguration 
Source:FreeState MD

“An edited version of President Roosevelt’s sixth fireside chat, delivered September 30, 1934.

Full presidential speeches and transcripts available at:James Miller Center." 


President Franklin Roosevelt, did not become President of the United States, to destroy American capitalism. As some Conservatives and Libertarians have suggested. But he became President to save it, by changing it.

Before 1933, when FDR became President, we were essentially a libertarian society, economically, where we were all on our own and if we needed help, we were basically at the mercy of our families, friends and private charity. Had we had a functioning safety net pre-1933, the Great Depression, which essentially lasted for ten years, wouldn’t have been as bad. Because all of those unemployed workers would’ve had some public assistance they could count on. I’m not saying this as a fan of the New Deal, because I’m not.

A safety net, should be designed to empower people to get themselves off of public assistance. Not just pay people while they are on public assistance. But if we had a safety net back then and we had an FDIC with the Stock Market Crash and we were regulating Wall Street and Corporate America properly, not trying to run it, we could’ve saved ourselves a lot of pain from the Great Depression.

So FDR basically ended up trying to create a safety net while people needed it the most. And creating these programs on the fly. FDR, wasn’t trying to turn America into Russia, with a state economy. But more like Europe, with healthy private and public sectors.

FDR didn’t set out to destroy American capitalism, but to save it. By putting in regulations so irresponsible people in business, wouldn’t be able to destroy the economy again. And lead to another Great Depression. And so people who fall through the cracks, can get help and not end up homeless and on the street.