Florida's Amendment 4 and the "Modern Progressive" Movement

[Tom Platt]

Lord Acton, made famous by his "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is also the author of the less-well known observation that "Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas."
And the discovery of the pedigree or historical roots of Amendment 4 will certainly rouse the ire of those who self-label themselves as "conservatives," or "conservative Republicans" because the roots are found in what Hillary Clinton described as "modern progressives."

Amendment 4 would place the decision to make any changes in a local land use plan in the hands of the citizens in the voting booth.

The "progressive" movement, which was dominant in this country from the 1890's to the 1920's, produced radical political change in this nation. The Progressive Party, founded by Hiram Johnson, a liberal San Francisco lawyer with a law degree from U.C. Berkeley, disagreed profoundly with our Founding Fathers and the Constitution they fought and died to give us.

To understand the connection between the century-old progressive movement and today's movement to pass Amendment 4, one must briefly review what the early 20th century progressives thought about the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and our Founding Fathers' notions of what was the purpose of government.

Be patient - let's review the roots of today's modern progressivism and you will connect the dots at the end.

The early 20th century progressives rejected the following 8 principles established by our Founding Fathers in our Constitution.

1. They rejected the Founding Fathers' firm belief that all men are created equal with inalienable rights given to them by God and God's nature. John Dewey, a prominent progressive educator rejected this belief by claiming that "Natural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology."

2. They rejected our Founders' belief that government exists to preserve life, liberty and private property from violence by others. Again, Dewey wrote that the purpose of government was to "create individuals"rather than "protect individuals." Progressives redefined freedom to mean the state's purpose is to assist in achieving "self-fulfillment."

3. Progressives rejected private, voluntary associations as a basis for society and government. Progressives like Charles Merriam disagreed, arguing that "the natural-right idea, endorsed in our Revolution, are discredited, government exists not as a result of agreement among men; rights are not found in nature, but in law." thus our political rights are those GIVEN to us by government, and not by God and God's nature.

4. Progressives views of God and religion were strongly influenced by an 18th century German philosopher named Hegel (who also inspired Karl Marx) by his writings which claimed that government "is the divine idea as it exist on earth." Thus, government replaces the God who gave His creation rights. Another influential progressive, John Burgess, wrote that the purpose of government is "the perfection of humanity."

5. Progressives soundly rejected the Founders' view that private property was to be protected by government. For example, John Adams wrote that "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." But progressives saw private property as an expression of selfishness and oppression. They proposed instead that previous limits on government be abolished. Burgess said that the basic purpose of government was "absolute, unlimited, universal power over the individual" and "all associations."

6. Progressives rejected the Founders' view of domestic policy which was protection of life, freedom and property. Instead, they advocated two major domestic policy goals:
First, government must take over the private economy through redistribution of income and property; the details of business and production by establishing wage and price controls, manufacturing and involvement in the banking system.
Second, government must be involved in the "spiritual" lives of people - diminishing religious freedoms, and shifting a "human spiritual" focus on the environment, education and tax subsidies of the arts as a means of "self fulfillment."

7. Progressives rejected the Founders' view of foreign policy, which was that, like domestic policy, government existed to secure the peoples safety and property. Instead, the progressives saw government's foreign policy goal of imperialism as best expressed on a global scale, and creation of international organizations like the League of Nations, and later the United Nations, to whom America must delegate control over American troops.

8. Finally, progressives disagreed with the Founders' belief that laws should be made by a body of local elected officials with roots in the community. Instead, they advocated that the constitutional powers given to democratically elected local officials and political parties be replaced by a form of government which had failed in ancient Greece (and rejected by our Founders): a "pure democracy" in which everybody voted on everything, making a legislative branch of government useless. They accomplished this by passing four major acts which weakened the legislative branches of state governments, and dramatically weakened the states in relation to the federal government: the initiative, the referendum, the 16th Amendment, and the 17th Amendment.

With the initiative and the referendum in Florida, progressives have achieved a major goal of the modern progressives of the last century: weakening the legislative branch of government.

With the 16th amendment, the progressives achieved their goal of strengthening the central government by authorizing it to tax the incomes "from whatever source derived."

With the 17th amendment, the progressives destroyed the Founding Fathers' idea that states should remain powerful enough to resist the encroachments of an all-powerful central government. The original constitution achieved this by establishing that members of the U.S. Senate would be appointed by the respective state legislatures, and the lower House would be popularly-elected. When the progressives got the 17th amendment passed, they radically reduced the powers of the states to resist the ever-growing powers of the federal government. This will serve to weaken the current efforts of states to resist the mandatory insurance clause in the Obama health care plan.

(Would you care to speculate who the Florida state legislature would elect to the U.S. Senate today if the 17th Amendment did not exist? I personally think they'd elect Marco Rubio - not "Too-Tan Charlie!")

So, this brings us to the Amendment 4 folks in Florida.

Their spokesperson for Clay County - who lives, walks and talks among us - told me on two occasions that the Founding Fathers were (her quote) "elitists" who were "anti-democratic."

That same spokesperson told a close personal friend of mine who objected to Amendment 4 for constitutional reasons that "we don't want to go back to that old document." And that's a quote, folks!

So, if you vote for Amendment 4, you join a long line of distinguished university intellectuals, a current and several former presidents, and most of the teaching staff of the nation's leading law schools who believe that the constitution as originally written is outmoded, it should be used for an instrument of social change, and the Founding Fathers were a bunch of selfish capitalists who didn't create a form of government that deserves to continue. And you believe that the legislative branch should be supplanted with a "pure democracy" in which ultimately people decide in many cases on a ballot how your private property should be used.

So, your fellow citizens who in an explosive demonstration of how "pure democracy" works, gave us the pregnant pig amendment, the bullet train amendment, and the classroom size amendment, will next give us the land-use amendment to the state constitution.

Harry Truman - a conservative Democrat by today's standards - once remarked that our liberties could be lost if ever the time comes that we take our founding documents not as the supreme expression of our beliefs, but merely as "curiosities in a glass case."

Or as my Clay county progressive leaders called it, "that old document."



I ask you to stand with me to reject the "quick fixes" proposed by the Florida progressives. Stand with me to preserve the constitution as left to us by our Founding Fathers.

I ask you to stand for true conservatism, not progressivism.

As the famous Christian theologian C.S. Lewis wrote about those who try to take our liberties away from us:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."