How To Learn

There are, basically, two ways to learn about a person, an event or an era. One way is to read what someone else has to say. The problem here is that you cannot always trust what someone else says.

The other way is to have lived through the era or the event, or lived during the period of the person's influence. The problem there is that you may have not been able to see the 'big picture'. Maybe you just were not privy to the rest of the story.

I am reminded of the World War II story from the Pacific. The War Department supposedly said a certain tiny, remote island was not important in the war effort. An individual soldier said "What do you mean this island is not important... I'm on it!"

I was born in the waning days of the Coolidge Administration. I have no first hand knowledge of Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, but I did live through the administrations of F.D.R., Harry Truman, J.F.K. and Jimmy Carter.

Teddy Roosevelt was a man of small stature and was such a wimp that when he first appeared in the legislature in a purple velvet suit, the other lawmakers all snickered. So he manufactured an image of a tough warrior which has stuck with many to this day.
    
For decades I've heard tell of the greatness of F.D.R.! I remember only the grinding poverty of the 1930s. I recall his failed programs - some even overturned as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and his subsequent attempt to pack the Court with six additional, new, hand-picked and like-minded justices.

F.D.R. was a horrible president. He set America on a path to destruction with bad fiscal policy. It will be nearly impossible to ever erase all the wrong F.D.R. gave us. Still, many - including our current failed president, Barack Obama - insist F.D.R. was a great president.

Finally, someone, Dr. Thomas Sowell, has eloquently made my case in a three-part column which he titled "The Progressive Legacy". Read all three parts here. 

I wish every American would read Dr. Sowell's explanation of how Progressives could advance such destructive policies periodically throughout the 20th Century, while hoodwinking the American Public into believing they were the 'party of the people'.

One may find it amazing that the Progressives never seem to learn. Obama is, today, making the same mistakes as his predecessors. We know he wasn't around to witness Teddy, Wilson, F.D.R., Truman or J.F.K. It is obvious, then, that he never read the truth about their serial failures.