"The truth is not pretty. FDR’s
economic programs were pretty much a mirror image of what Hitler,
Mussolini, and Stalin were in Germany, Italy, and Russia. See, for
example, the book
Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy,
and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939 by Wolfgang Schivelbusch or
this review of the book by the Cato Institute’s David Boaz."
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Obama’s Preemptive Strike and
FDR’s Court-Packing Scheme
by Jacob G. Hornberger
People are taking President Obama to task for suggesting that the Supreme
Court should not interfere with the will of Congress by declaring his
healthcare legislation unconstitutional. Critics are reminding Obama that
under our system of government it is the responsibility of the federal
judiciary to determine the constitutionality of congressional enactments,
including even those that are approved unanimously by Congress.
But let’s give credit where credit is due. At least Obama hasn’t yet done
what liberal-conservative icon Franklin Roosevelt did when the Supreme
Court was declaring his New Deal programs unconstitutional. FDR proposed
a radical restructuring of the Court that would have enabled him to pack
the Court with additional FDR legal cronies who would sustain the
constitutionality of his programs.
Conservatives can call Obama a socialist all they want, but it was FDR,
whom conservatives revere just as much as liberals do, who foisted both
socialist and fascist programs onto the United States.
Sure, today public-school teachers and university professors refer to
FDR’s New Deal measures as simply “free-market reforms that saved free
enterprise.” That’s been the official line that has been drummed into the
minds of American students for decades.
The truth is not pretty. FDR’s economic programs were pretty much a
mirror image of what Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were in Germany,
Italy, and Russia. See, for example, the book
Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy,
and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939 by Wolfgang Schivelbusch or
this review of the book by the Cato Institute’s David Boaz.
Don’t forget that the FDR administration, with the approval of Congress,
nationalized and confiscated the gold of the American people,
notwithstanding the fact that such coins had been the official money of
the American people since the founding of our nation. That was no
different in principle from the nationalization of private property
taking place under Stalin and the communists in the Soviet Union.
FDR also brought into existence Social Security, a socialistic program in
which the state takes money from one group of people the young and
productive and redistributes it to another group, the elderly. That
revolutionized American life, not only leading directly to Medicare and
Medicaid but actually to the entire panoply of welfare state programs,
including farm subsidies, education grants, foreign aid to dictators, and
all the rest.
Where did FDR get the idea of Social Security? From German socialists.
That’s where the idea originated. Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor
of Germany, had taken the idea and run with it, bringing it to Germany
before FDR brought it to the United States. That’s why the Social
Security Administration here in the United States carries a bust of
Bismarck on its
website. By the time Roosevelt brought us Social Security, Hitler’s
Germany already had it.
FDR imposed the National Industrial Recovery Act on Americana businesses
and industries. It encouraged businesses and industries to form giant
cartels that had the authority to collude to set wages and prices. With
its combination of business and the state, it was a fascist program
straight out of Mussolini’s economic playbook. In fact, FDR’s infamous
Blue Eagle campaign, a high-pressure propaganda campaign that came with
the NIRA, would have made Mussolini proud.
Economic regulations and government-business partnerships? FDR, Hitler,
and Mussolini all loved them and believed in them. Unlike Stalin, who
favored complete state ownership of the means of production, FDR, Hitler
and Mussolini favored leaving the means of production in private hands
but subject to strict governmental regulation, control, and direction.
Obviously, FDR’s socialist and fascist programs were contrary to the
heritage of economic liberty on which America was founded. Thus, not
surprisingly, the Supreme Court began declaring much (but, unfortunately,
not all) of his New Deal programs unconstitutional.
FDR, like Obama, was outraged. How dare the Court interfere with the will
of the majority? Doesn’t the Court know that the United States is in a
severe economic crisis, just like Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and
the rest of the world? The Constitution is not a suicide pact! Desperate
times require desperate measures!
But the Court’s position was simply that the law was the law. The
Constitution sets forth the delegated powers of government and it
provides for no extraordinary powers due to economic emergency or crisis.
If the Constitution did not authorize FDR’s programs, it was the
responsibility of the federal judiciary to declare them unconstitutional.
If people didn’t like that, they could amend the Constitution to
authorize FDR’s economic revolution.
Although FDR’s court-packing scheme went down to defeat, FDR and the
statists ended up winning the war. As pro-Constitution judges began
retiring, FDR was able to replace them with his statist legal cronies,
who promptly let it be known that the Supreme Court would never again
interfere with majority will when it came to matters involving economic
liberty.
Roosevelt’s revolution was complete. Seizing on a temporary economic
crisis, he was able to effect a permanent revolutionary transformation of
American life, from one based on free enterprise and free markets to one
based on socialism and fascism.
Of course, just as people in Cuba are not permitted to question or
challenge Fidel Castro’s communist-socialist revolution, Americans are
not supposed to question or challenge FDR’s socialist-fascist revolution.
Everyone is expected to mentally accept and embrace that the
revolutionary change that FDR brought to our land was nothing more than a
much-needed reform that saved America’s free-enterprise system.
Obama’s pressuring of the Court to declare his healthcare program
constitutional might or might not be successful. But even if the Court
declares it unconstitutional, nothing fundamental will change, given that
both conservative and liberal justices and judges adhere strictly to the
same life of the lie that most Americans adhere to a lie that
revolutionized American economic life eighty years ago and that continues
to do so.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-04-05.asp
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