See Progress: 'The Progressive Values of the U.S. Constitution'

Source:Center For American Progress- talking about the U.S. Constitution.

"A panel explores the progressive values of the Constitution at the Center for American Progress's annual "American Idea Conference" in Washington, D.C.

Featuring:

Richard Beeman, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

Jeff Shesol, Author, "Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court"

Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress

Akhil Amar, Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University" 

From See Progress

To me the U.S. Constitution is an individualist document designed to protect, promote, and advance individual liberty and limited government. Limited government being the key factor, the belief that if government becomes very big, it gets big at the expense of individual liberty, because it makes the people more dependent on government. Thats one of the beauty's of living in a liberal democracy especially if you are a Liberal. 

But I would argue for anyone who's not a Socialist, that individual liberty is protected to the point that we have constitutional rights protecting our individual liberty. Not a government designed to take care of the people, that we have the liberty to make our own lives better. 

There is a Welfare Clause in the U.S. Constitution, but that doesn't mean that government funded by taxpayers, but that doesn't mean that government is supposed to protect the country. But more about protecting the country from things that individuals can't do for themselves. Like being attacked by armed criminals, being attacked by a foreign country, being held hostage, people out of work not able to fend for themselves. Or are disabled and can't work enough to take care of themselves or can't work at all.  

If your definition of Progressive is Progressive in the classical (or I would argue real) sense that you are someone who believes in progress and that government is supposed to promote progress and work to make things better for people and for society, then you could argue that the U.S. Constitution is progressive, because it allows for government to try to make things better for the society. 

But if your definition of Progressive is more a pop culture political sense and that Progressives are supposed to be anti-establishment, anti-man (especially straight, Caucasian men) that Progressives are supposed to be radical, hippie, Socialists and are supposed to hate everything that America stands for and it's the job of Progressives who take down the current government and replace it with something that's supposed to be more Progressive, which are the basically the current stereotypes of what's supposed to pass as a so-called Progressive today, then of course the U.S. Constitution is not Progressive. 

Our Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) didn't break away from one authoritarian state (the United Kingdom) to create a socialist state in the United States. But wanted to create a society in America where Americans were free to be Americans, which is free to be ourselves and have the freedom to live our own lives and make our own decisions. With a limited government there to protect our freedoms, but not run our lives for us. 

Learn Liberty: Dr. Nigel Ashford- 'The History of Classical Liberalism'

Source:Learn Liberty- Dr. Nigel Ashford, talking about classical liberalism. The real liberalism.

"Historian Stephen Davies describes classical liberalism as a comprehensive philosophy, which has had implications in all the major academic disciplines.  Learn More:Learn Liberty.

At an abstract level, classical liberalism offers three key insights:

1) The goal of life is human happiness and flourishing. 
2) Personal choice and individual liberty are crucial in explaining and appreciating how society develops.
3) Commerce, wealth, and trade are preferable to war and conflict.

If you agree with these classical liberal insights, you might be a classical liberal!

Source:Learn Liberty

The Professor in this video does a pretty good job of laying out what classical liberalism is. That it's about individual liberty and protecting individual liberty and is skeptical of power. Governmental power or too much power in the private sector. Because as the Professor says power is the ability to make people do what they otherwise wouldn't do. And liberalism is also about rule of law, not being so-called soft on crime as people have stereotyped Liberals. But that government should protect people from the harm of others, not try to protect people from themselves.

Liberalism is about individual liberty and limited government, which those being the main two principles. All other aspects of liberalism get to that. How to promote, advance and protect individual liberty. About individualism not collectivism which is about expanding government and spending more on social insurance. Or creating new social insurance programs, but laying out exactly what government should be doing. Socialism is about welfare state programs and using those programs so none has too much or too little, as they would see it.

Again, the role of liberalism is to promote, advance and protect individual liberty. The constitutional rights of individuals to live their own lives and be as successful in life as their production will allow. To take out of life what they put into it and limiting government to doing what it can and does well. And what it only can do and should do. Not having government try to solve every problem that society faces.

And these are the things that liberalism is about, coming from liberty. It's not socialism or even but like progressivism trying to use government to make society better. It is progressive though, because again it's about promoting, advancing and protecting individual liberty for all, not just some. In the early 20th Century during the Teddy Roosevelt era which was called the Progressive Era, there was this feeling that America had to much inequality. And that a lot of Americans were falling through the cracks in the economy and that government should step in and solve these programs.

That government should create things like Unemployment Insurance, National Health Insurance, protecting workers rights and worker Safety. And a lot of these things were achieved in the FDR New Deal in the 1930s. These are all progressive policy's and a lot of Liberals all support these goals. But these aren't liberal policy's, because they are about using government to help people in need. Instead of empowering people in need to help themselves become self-sufficient.

And some so-called Liberals may sound similar as Liberals, but they are different because a lot of people who are called Liberals today, are really not. They have some liberal positions on most if not all social issues. But they tend to have  social democratic views on economic policy. And that government especially the Federal Government should be a lot bigger to solve the problems that society faces. It's great that people who actually understand what liberalism is and what it's about speak out about it.

Liberals whether you want to call us Classical Liberals, (which is fine if you're talking about John F. Kennedy) should give speeches and lectures about it and even make videos about it. Because a lot of Americans especially in the media don't understand what liberalism is. And get it mixed up with progressivism and democratic socialism. Which unlike liberalism aren't individualist ideology's, but collectivist ideology's using government through high tax rates to make society equal. Where liberalism is about using government to make people freer so we can all as a society enjoy individual liberty.

Liberalism is a political ideology based on realism and the real word. It's not about perfection and making the world as perfect and great for everyone, but instead creating a society where as many people as possible can thrive and achieve individual freedom for themselves. The ability for as many people as possible to live in freedom and make their own economic and personal decisions and then live with the consequences of those decision for the best and worst of their decisions. Doesn't sound very idealistic or realistic and something that some Hollywood movie would be based on that prefers socialism because of how romantic and idealistic it is. But liberalism is based on realism and how the world really works. Where the best decisions tend to be made.

Inside App: 'President Lyndon Johnson Signs Medicare Law'

Source:Inside App- President Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Texas) signing President Harry Truman's idea into law, in 1965.

"The Medicare and Medicaid bill passes both houses of congress by an overwhelming vote.  President Johnson signs it into law on July 30, 1965.  Harry Truman was present at the signing and Johnson helped Truman sign-up for Medicare." 

From Inside App

Source:Lyndon B. Johnson Library- President Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, Texas) signing President Harry Truman's idea into law, in 1965.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law that guarantees health insurance for senior citizens provided by the Federal Government and financed by an increase in the payroll tax, President Johnson finished off part of President Harry Truman’s presidential legacy. His Fair Deal agenda that he tried to pass through Congress. But since the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1947 and with President Truman’s unpopularity, he wasn’t able to pass it through Congress.

Lyndon Johnson was actually in Congress during the Truman Administration. (Both House and Senate) Elected to the Senate in 1948, actually served in Congress during the entire Truman presidency. And was in House during the first four years of the Truman Presidency. Both Truman and Johnson were New Deal Democrats on economic policy. So signing Medicare into law in I believe was a big deal to both Truman and Johnson and why President Truman was at the Medicare signing ceremony.

Health insurance for senior citizens is something that both Truman and Johnson were fighting for a long time. But a couple of Republican Congress’s, one in the late 1940s and another in the early 1950s, as well as the Eisenhower Administration, got in the way of Medicare coming into law. Actually, President Truman wanted to go farther and create a single payer health care system, but for the same reasons wasn’t able to get that done.

The legacy of Medicare I believe overall is pretty good, because it’s guaranteed health insurance for senior citizens as it was intended to. It wasn’t designed to become a single payer health insurer. That would essentially be the sole health insurer for everyone in the country. And outlawing private health insurers. If President Johnson wanted to do that, he probably would’ve proposed that. Because he had huge 2/3 majorities in the House and Senate up until 1967. When Congressional Republicans picked up a bunch of seats in both the House and Senate.

So President Johnson basically had three years to propose a single payer Medicare For All health care system, if he wanted to. But chose not to for whatever reasons. Perhaps he didn’t believe in a government-run health care system like they had at the time in the United Kingdom. Perhaps he didn’t believe the country was ready for that type of health care system or even wanted that. Perhaps he believed he didn’t have the votes for it.

Perhaps President Johnson didn’t have the votes for Medicare For All, with probably all Congressional Republicans voting against it, led by House Minority Leader Gerry Ford, Souse Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, Senator Barry Goldwater and others. As well as the Southern Caucus of Democrats in Congress. 

Medicare has been very positive in guaranteeing health insurance for all of our senior citizens and at the time was considered revolutionary. But today would seem somewhat mainstream like and not trying to upset anyone or chop down a tree. But something that a consensus of Americans would support. 

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Associated Press: Mark Hamrick- 'Employers Add 80K Jobs, Rate Dips to 9 Pct.'

Source:Associated Press- welcome to the United States capitol.

"The jobs crisis may be easing slightly on the strength of a fourth straight month of modest hiring and a dip in the unemployment rate. (Nov. 4)" 

From the Associated Press

Any drop in the unemployment rate is good news especially since we haven't had one since July. And we've had an unemployment rate of 9% or higher since 2010. But 80K jobs in a country as big as ours with an economy as big as ours with a workforce the size of ours, is not a great number. We should be creating 2-3 times as many jobs each month. Even in an economy as weak as ours because we have the resources and population to do so.

Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge With Peter Robinson- Stanley Kurtz: 'Radical In-Chief'

Source:Hoover Institution- Peter Robinson is the host of Uncommon Knowledge, from the Hoover Institution.

"An author, journalist, and social anthropologist (PhD Harvard), Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a contributing editor to National Review Online.  His latest book is Radical-in-Chief:  Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.

"President Obama is a socialist!"  The explosive charge has been made, rebutted, and laughed off since the 2008 campaign.  In Radical-in-Chief, Kurtz asserts that the charge is not off base and backs up his assertion with a detailed examination of President Obama's past from his college days to his Chicago associations with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.  He details the gradualist, socialist strategy of Obama's mentors and answers the key questions at the heart of this issue.  "What difference does it make what Barack Obama believes?  All that need concern us is what he does.  Isn't that right?"

From Hoover Institution

In today's politics when people on the Right and especially Far-Right when they are worried about a Democrat, especially a Progressive Democrat (take Barack Obama, to use as an example) they call that person a Socialist. 

The hyper-right-wing in America knows that Barack Obama is a likable man, with an excellent political skills and are terrified of him winning reelection next year, because they don't know if the Republican Party can beat him, even if they can beat Congressional Democrats in the House and Senate. So what they do instead of trying to beat President Obama in an election, they try to make him seem as unpopular and unelectable at the polls with Independent voters and perhaps blue-collar Democrats, so by the time the President is actually up for reelection, they think he'll be easier to beat. Which is what Stanley Kurtz is up too in his book Radical In Chief, which could've been written about a lot of members of the Tea Party.

I talk to Conservatives and Libertarians on a regular basis. Doesn't mean I'm one of them, I think for myself just like Barack Obama. The main reason why the Far-Left flank in the Democratic Party and social-democratic Independents, don't like President Obama right now and have threatened to run a so-called Progressive (Socialist, in reality ) candidate like Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich against President Obama in the Democratic primaries, is because President Obama is not a Socialist. He's not even a Democratic Socialist. 

Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is and that exactly how he describes his politics and is or has been was a member of the Democratic Socialist Party. To know that Barack Obama is not a Socialist, just look at his presidency and the legislation he's passed and proposed and the reversals he's made on major issues.

To know that President Obama is not a socialist again just look at his presidency and how he's not done what Socialists wanted him to do. During the stimulus debate in 2009, Democratic Socialists were calling for a a stimulus of around 2T$, an FDR style New Deal stimulus. With all these new Federal agency's that would do all these works projects putting unemployed workers back to work. Which is what left-wing economist Paul Krugman was calling for. The President and Congress put together a bill called the American Recovery Act of around 800B$, about 25% of that tax cuts.

Another thing Socialists don't tend to like and the so-called House Progressive Caucus ( Democratic Socialist Caucus, in reality ) proposed exactly what Socialists were calling for back in April. The health care reform debate again another perfect example of that,. Socialists obviously we're calling for a single payer health insurance system. And settled for a public option in health insurance as their compromise, but President Obama who supports the idea of a public option, settled for the Affordable Care Act which instead has a tax credit for individuals to buy their own private health insurance. As well as a Patients Bill of Rights to regulate private health insurers.

If you're going to throw out the term socialist especially in America and you use that term to put people down, you should at least have some idea of what the hell you're talking about. Who the person that you are labeling socialist is and exactly what socialism is. Otherwise you're just throwing terms because you're ignorant or you're a political attack dog. Which is exactly what Americans hate about American politics right now.

VOA News: 'US Charities Endure Hard Times'

Source:VOA News- Tasha Kennard from Second Harves.

"Voice of America (VOA) is an American international broadcaster funded by the United States Congress. It is the largest[2][3][4] and oldest U.S. funded international broadcaster.[5][6] VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in 47 languages which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe. It is primarily viewed by foreign audiences, so VOA programming has an influence on public opinion abroad regarding the United States and its people.

VOA was established in 1942,[7] and the VOA charter (Public Laws 94-350 and 103-415)[8] was signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford.

VOA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent agency of the U.S. government.[9] Funds are appropriated annually under the budget for embassies and consulates. In 2016, VOA broadcast an estimated 1,800 hours of radio and TV programming each week to approximately 236.6 million people worldwide with about 1,050 employees and a taxpayer-funded annual budget of US$218.5 million.[10][11]

Some commentators consider Voice of America to be a form of propaganda." 

From Wikipedia 

"In most developed nations, services like sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry and treating the sick, are generally provided by government agencies. However, in the United States, many benevolent tasks are undertaken by non-profit or charitable organizations. All across the United States, those charities are approaching the last few weeks of 2011 with deep concern." 

From VOA News

Of course in a recession like this with how much the economy shrunk in 2008-09 and with the economy barely recovering now, even though it picked up to 2.5% last quarter, but still not enough to save Federal, state, and local government's from having to cut their budgets even in social services that help low-income people and other people and of course with people struggling to just pay their own bills if that, people are not going to be as willing to donate money to other people and charity's. And of course charity's and the people they are there to help suffer as a result, which is what is happening right now. 

CBS News: 'Tony La Russa Retires as St. Louis Cardinals Manager'

Source:CBS News- Tony La Russa: Manager of the St. Louis Cardinals (1996-2011) announcing his retirement as manager after winning the MLB World Series.

Source:The Daily Press 

"Tony La Russa announced his retirement as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals three days after winning a seven-game world series against the Texas Rangers." 

From CBS News 

The only thing keeping Tony La Russa out of the Hall of Fame as a manager was himself, because he's been managing for 33 years consecutively, his whole career, and I believe he's been the best manager in Major League Baseball that whole period, and that includes people like Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin, Earl Weaver briefly, Bobby Cox. Joe Torre, Roger Craig, Jim Leyland, and many others.   Some may say Joe Torre because of the championships:  4 World Series Championships, 6 American League Championships, 11 Eastern Division Championships, and 13 playoff appearances.  Only Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox come close to those accomplishments in this time period.

But when Joe Torre was with the New York Yankees from 1996 to 2007, you could make a case that he had the best team in MLB every year he was there, especially from 1998 to 2007, but they came up short several times, as in 2001 losing to the underdog Phoenix Diamondbacks, 2003 losing to the underdog Miami Marlins, both in the World Series, 2002 losing to the underdog Anaheim Angels in the American League Championship, and 2004 blowing a 3-0 Series lead to the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship, something that will always be hated by Yankee Fans and loved by Red Sox Fans.  I know a few of those fans myself. And of course the Yankees always had the most money in this time period and could always basically put all-star teams together to win the World Series.

Other than the time period during which Tony La Russa was with the Oakland Athletics from 1988 to 1990 or 1991, he was there from 1986 to 1995, but in those 4 years you could make a pretty good case that the Athletics should have won at least three World Series if not four, because from 1988 to 1990 they had the best three teams in baseball.  And they only won one World Series.  Of course, one is better then nothing but in the two World Series that the Athletics lost in 1988 and 1990, they won a total of one game.

They lost 4-1 in the 1988 World Series to, I believe, the worst World Series Champion since 1969, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who only won something like 85 games that season.  And of course you had the famous Kirk Gibson home run in game one to win that game against the best closer in baseball at the time, Dennis Eckersly.  When Tony La Russa was in St. Louis with the Cardinals from 1996 to 2011, he didn't always have the best team and he still won 7-8 Central Division Championships, three National League Championships, and two World Series, and made the playoffs 9-10 times again. When only four teams make the playoffs in each league, they may go up to 5-6 teams in 2012, but we'll see. 

Tony La Russa was the best manager in MLB in his era as well as today because of what he got out of his players for the most part, not including his time in Oakland, but definitely in St. Louis, a midsize market. But with a great fan base, if not the best in MLB, it was just a matter of when Tony La Russa would retire.  That would determine when he was going into the Hall of Fame, because he's a first ballot Hall of Famer in waiting.