Some of you blog-readers have expressed a severe disinterest in history. For me, that serves as a red flag. If Americans don’t know their own history there’s no way they can learn from the mistakes and misjudgments of the past.

So, for the sake of education, I’m going to go through a brief, non-partisan history of the pros and cons of the US presidents of recent times.

Roosevelt: The New Deal

The Plus side:

“Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt

Tell me why you like Roosevelt, poor man's friend

That's why I like Roosevelt, poor man's friend

That's why I like Roosevelt, poor man's friend

Good God almighty, he's the poor man's friend

“Cause in the year of nineteen and thirty-two

We had no idea just what we would do

All our finances had flowed away

Till my dad got a job with the WPA

“That's why I like Roosevelt, poor man's friend

That's why I like Roosevelt, poor man's friend

That's why I like Roosevelt, poor man's friend

Good God almighty that's the poor man's friend

Good God almighty that's the poor man's friend “

From:

©1974 Jesse Winchester

From the LP “Learn To Love It”

The down side:

Fought the ‘Secret War’ from 1939, to 1941, using US military vessels to support foreign convoys supplying munitions to UK and Soviet Union, in contravention of International Law for Neutral Nations and at a time when the US public was distinctly undecided about whether to enter WWII. The only secret of the ‘Secret War’ was the American public. Everyone else on both sides knew.

Cooperated in secret agreement, August, 1941, with UK Prime Minister Churchill cutting off the Japanese Empire oil supply at Singapore, assuring that the Japanese would attack US holdings. September, 1941, Roosevelt issued a classified warning to US forces in Manila to expect an attack there. That mistake of location almost lost the US war in the Pacific before it began with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. It was clear to Roosevelt that the US public would be unwilling to enter the war unless US holding were directly attacked. He arranged for the attack, but underestimated cunning of the enemy.

Allied the US with the Soviet Union for the duration of the war. Put up with Joseph Stalin’s stalls concerning opening a new front into Manchuria, thereby allowing Japanese troops to be used entirely in China, and on the Pacific Islands, extending the war in the Pacific at the cost of thousands of lives of US servicemen. Participated in the pre-post-war agreement to give Eastern Europe to the Soviets, which was the root cause of the Cold War.

The issue here isn’t whether we should, or should not have entered WWII. The issue is the well-documented record of a President of the US and his administration to deceive US citizens to manipulate public opinion in favor of his own agenda by subterfuge.

The worst thing about the Roosevelt Administration, however, was that during his decade in office he stacked the US Supreme Court with lifetime appointments of innovative readers of the US Constitution, so’s to assure his programs stretching the document to the limit weren’t declared unconstitutional by the high court.

Two of the most divisive results of this free and easy reading of the Constitution can be found in the Miranda Decision (got to read’em their rights), Roe v. Wade (the Constitutional right to abortion). Miranda was a matter for Congress to decide and adopt into the Criminal Code, clearly wasn’t a right given by the framers of the Constitution. The ‘right’ to abortion was an issue for State legislators to decide within their areas of jurisdiction, as well as one for the US Congress. Both were usurped by the US Supreme Court in these two of countless decisions since Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt is the father of litigious America. Father to legions of lawyers hoping and trusting the ‘current court’ will read the Constitution in favor of their clients.

Roosevelt had his strengths and his flaws, same as any other president. But he was the beginning of the King Worshiper phase of American political philosophy that’s become a monster in the US today, and has been encouraged increasingly by every president since, except Eisenhower, Ford and Carter.

Before Roosevelt, Americans recognized each president was just a man, same as them, full of mistakes, flaws, and driven by self-interest. After Roosevelt they were in a habit of thinking they could trust politicians.

In a few days I'll give you Harry Truman.

Jack