Crisis opportunism has been the theme of the globalist establishment in the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic over the last year. The world has witnessed the left's attempt to transform society into a progressive utopia through the Great Reset. The big-government acolytes aimed to tackle their climate change and social justice pet projects through a toxic concoction of trillions in printing and spending. Despite the unmasking of the neo-Marxist agenda, globalists have yet to understand the public’s opposition, recently tweeting (and deleting) that lockdowns are “quietly improving cities.” This is what the perceived rubes are up against in the war against reason, logic, and independence. But America has been through this before when the country was digging itself out of the Great Depression and burying its fallen soldiers throughout World War II.
The Second Bill of Rights
In 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, vying for a fourth term, faced a Republican challenger in New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Despite his long tenure, FDR remained a popular figure, granting him the political capital to propose policies that could forever change the nation's fabric.
One of these ideas was a third round of the New Deal. During his 1944 State of the Union address, President Roosevelt outlined the second Bill of Rights, declaring that “true individual freedom can’t exist without economic security.” FDR listed his Four Freedoms: "the right to a useful and remunerative job," a "decent home," "good health," and "good education." According to FDR, the collective superseded the individual, pontificating the “eternally just principle of ‘fair for one, fair for all.’”
“All of these rights spell security,” FDR said. “And after the war is won, we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.”
The administration ostensibly planted the seeds in the Land of the Free for a socialist takeover during the economic collapse of the 1930s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) dictated to farmers how much crops they could grow while the federal government employed the Emergency Price Control Act. Put simply, the president and his allies attempted to steer the country away from the Founding Fathers' vision of the pursuit of happiness to a dependency on the state.
It had been the Orwellian mantra of “freedom is slavery,” further enabled by Democrats who believed in an omnipotent government. Consider this statement from Senator Happy Chandler (D-KY) attained by historian Burton W. Folsom for his book, FDR Goes to War:
"Mr. President, all of us owe the government; we owe it for everything we have—and that is the basis of obligation—and the government can take everything we have if the government needs it. The government can assert its right to have all the taxes it needs for any purpose, either now or at any time in the future."
What did the American people think? The incumbent secured a landslide victory, but his death three months into a fourth term prevented FDR from enacting this scheme. His successor, President Harry Truman, tried to carry out these reforms to the nation's foundation, delivering major speeches and endorsing legislation that favored national health care and federal housing programs. Conservatives stopped Truman in his tracks.
Libertarian author James Bovard contends that Americans are paying for legitimizing FDR's vision:
"Americans are still suffering because Franklin Roosevelt’s freedom bunkum was not immediately laughed off the national stage. Any politician who seeks more power today to bestow more freedom in the distant future deserves all the ridicule Americans can heave his way."
It has been eight decades since FDR’s death, and yet the man and his ideas remain a force in modern U.S. politics and today’s globalist movement. Subservience to the state, under the guise of protecting the environment and ending income inequality, is paramount on the left.
The Great Reset on the Road to Serfdom
“Build back better.” “You will own nothing – and you will be happy.” “This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset.” All of these statements share the same endgame of government control and social order, employing the powerful instrument of groupthink within the pillars of society to champion the cause and shut down dissension.
Every crisis triggers something in the power-hungry bureaucrats: FDR expanded the government during the Great Depression, former President George W. Bush erected the surveillance state following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and elected officials exploited the COVID-19 public health crisis to enhance governmental brawn. Any defiance against these edicts spawns a bombardment of vicious ad hominem attacks that emanate from the pages of the Gospel of Leftism, from covidiot to white supremacist to climate denier. Whether it is the 1940s or Roaring Twenties 2.0 – the Great Reset is fatal conceit poppycock.
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Read more from Andrew Moran.
