The Roosevelts

[reverendjeremiah]

Well, those progressives didn't really think through what happens when the unstoppable force of alcoholism meets the fairly movable (and hideable) booze bottle.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

True, and we have learned our lessons from that and now go the opposite way. We now have learned that making substances like that illegal actually fucks up the system even worse.

Hind sight is 20/20, or so they say.

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Progressive Party Platform 1912
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...cument=607

THE OLD PARTIES

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.

Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.

My favorite part