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Current Events » in reply to And these people have what do to with FDR's New Deal?

These people are the heart of the Progressive Era, during which FDR grew up.
Mary Anne — (archived)

Their principles and activities are at the heart of his youth, and that of the people who helped him put the New Deal together.

Your attempt to hijack the argument and redirect it through the Bush meatgrinder has nothing to do with the history of why we had the New Deal, nor does it address what has happened when unfettered "individual choice" was allowed to rule the day. We call it the Gilded Age, when everyone had an "individual choice". The workers' "individual choice" was limited to "do what you're told", "unionize and risk being beaten or shot", or "go into the gutter to die".

The Progressive Movement sought to equalize things somewhat so as to restore lost opportunity to average people, to bust trusts, to extend the franchise, to reform the prisons and the mental institutions, and to protect the environment (which they called "nature" back then). The Progressives were missionaries with a zeal for reform in the face of real wrongs. When FDR was faced with the huge and dangerous crisis of the Great Depression, this was the example given to him in his youth that he called on.

History lives in present-day actions. It can't be rewritten without severe censorship; it can't be ignored unless we are eager not to learn from it.

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