Understanding Progressive Nationalism

In his speech to Congress on December 7, 1915, Woodrow Wilson made the following point about hyphenated Americans:

There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue.

Their number is not great as compared with the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched in recent generations out of virile foreign stock; but it is great enough to have brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it necessary that we should promptly make use of processes of law by which we may be purged of their corrupt distempers. America never witnessed anything like this before. It never dreamed it possible that men sworn into its own citizenship, men drawn out of great free stocks such as supplied some of the best and strongest elements of that little, but how heroic, nation that in a high day of old staked its very life to free itself from every entanglement that had darkened the fortunes of the older nations and set up a new standard here,that men of such origins and such free choices of allegiance would ever turn in malign reaction against the Government and people who had welcomed and nurtured them and seek to make this proud country once more a hotbed of European passion.

A little while ago such a thing would have seemed incredible. Because it was incredible we made no preparation for it. We would have been almost ashamed to prepare for it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves, our own comrades and neighbors! But the ugly and incredible thing has actually come about and we are without adequate federal laws to deal with it. I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out.

Now, first of all, it chills me to the bone to see any American President talking about any other citizen in the context of "crushing", but with that aside..............

This quote has gotten a little bit of attention from other historians, so I want to highlight what they have highlighted:

Citizens..... born under other flags..... have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt.....

Notice how he puts government ahead of all others? Government is more important than all industry, more important than anything else. Except one thing.

Wilson says "our national life". Theodore Roosevelt spoke much the same way, both in and outside of the context of "hyphenated-Americans", and here is one such example:

Therefore, we should devote ourselves as a preparative to preparedness, alike in peace and war, to secure the three elemental things; one a common language, the English language; two, the increase in our social loyalty - citizenship absolutely undivided, a citizenship which acknowledges no flag except the flag of the United States and which emphatically repudiates all duality of national loyalty; and third, an intelligent and resolute effort for the removal of industrial and social unrest, an effort which shall aim equally to secure every man his rights and to make every man understand that unless he in good faith performs his duties he is not entitled to any rights at all.

See, this is a trick. It's a dirty trick by a dirty trickster, that TR. "Social loyalty"?

Please. What an insult. This key word "social" is always used by progressives as a way to load the entire sentence with bull crap, and TR did it just the same. Others may not notice, but I notice it.

When TR, Woodrow Wilson, or any other progressive(Moreso in the early 20th century than today, for certain reasons; mainly globalism) uses the word "nation" or phrases like "our national life", they mean the most sinister and devious things you can think of. This is why no progressive can ever, ever be trusted. They take things which should be considered a good thing and they abuse it, pollute it, pervert it. We should be able to reasonably discuss the problem with those who would put something hyphenated in front of their title as an American, but as a conservative, under no circumstance should quoting of any progressive take place. Progressives have no credibility. This word "social", because of what they mean by it and how the statists use it, is at the root of so many of our problems. It's probably at the root of every single problem.

Now, Theodore Roosevelt was a disciple of Herbert Croly, who arguably got the "New Nationalism" from Croly. Like Croly, Roosevelt believed in the supremacy of the NATION, and I put that in both bold and caps for a reason. Croly was a big time statist. His belief about the nation was as a near cultification. For those of you who are well versed in Stalinism and the cult of personality that he built up around himself, its very much like that.

Croly hated the parties, because it divided loyalties. Croly hated religion, again, because it divided loyalty. Croly, and TR by extension, believed the same things - that everybody should worship at the mantle of the big NATIONAL government. The bigger the better. TR wanted a government as big as his own personality was. Now that's big. It's a total Jim Jones-ification of what people believe with regards to nationality.

Did you notice that both progressives Wilson as well as TR emphasized the flag? Again, these are progressives. These are dirty tricksters. You're not supposed to worship the flag! You're supposed to worship God.

God says "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". What Croly, TR, and so many other progressives say is that you shalt have no other gods before the nation. When TR proclaimed the "New Nationalism", what do you think he was impugning as the old nationalism? That's right, the same old saw from progressives that we've heard for the last 100 years. Those old dusty musty old ideas of the Founding Fathers, those all need to be put to bed. Put it back up in the attic and forget about it. That's sooooo 18th century. This is the New Nationalism. New. Shiny. Clean.

Constitution schmonstitution, your nation is before you. So bow down and be walked all over. You don't want to be walked over? We progressives will steamroll you. Prepare to be audited by the IRS.

To put it shortly, what progressive nationalists believe is probably the grossest perversion of the entire concept of nationalism. Unfortunately, that perversion persists to this day.

The Founding Fathers did not believe that the NATION ought to be dictator of all of our lives, quite the reverse. The Founding Fathers believed that THE PEOPLE ought to be above the nation, with God above all. Even as the Constitution was being built and a strengthening of the general government was under way, the Founders never went so far as nationalism. They chose federalism instead.

God first.

The people second.

Localities third.

The states fourth.

The nation? Last. Dead last. Now it is true that 17 powers were nationalized, but the rest of the powers were kept as far as could be from the nation, because that's tyranny.

Conversely, the progressives work in the opposite fashion. This is why they reject God. Government is their god.

The people last.

Localities fourth.

Regions third.

States second.

The nation first.

This is why globalism is a natural turning point for progressive nationalists, because there's only one form of government bigger, and that's globalism. Even Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the need for global governance, in his Nobel Prize speech. They're progressives, and progressives love government. The bigger the better.

Somewhere down the line, our children's children's children are going to have to fight the progressives and their intra-globalism, because one world government just isn't big enough. They need one universe government. That's progressivism, and Progressive Nationalism is a step along this path. Gotta "make progress" to the bigger government at every turn.

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