Teddy Roosevelt, "Socialist" Advocate of Progressive Taxation

Imagine that...a Teddy Roosevelt who would be run out of today's Republican Party for being a socialist. Go figure!

The Rich corporations rip off everyone else.
I have no problem with the richest in America being taxed.
How many multi-million dollar americans get that way thru honest work?

Thanks for this post, Steven Waldman. I was Googling for just this type of information when I found your post. Other things I think we cannot avoid taking into account, I think, are the facts that a number of wealthy families made their fortunes through government contracts during wartimes, and many others have benefited from loopholes and other government actions on their behalf. In other words, the free market, as John Sidney McCain III has to know, is not always free. How sad to see him depart yet once again from one of his role models.

(BTW, now that we seen have Colin Polin endorse Barack Obama, I am wondering if Meg Whitman has endorsed anyone. Recall that those two, in addition to Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), were the three people Sen. McCain said at the Saddlebrook Forum that he would turn to for advice in a McCain White House.)

Interesting to read that so many leftists like to think that 99.99% of the millions of millionaires in this country made their money by profiting from warmongering or dishonest work. Makes it easier to steal from them, eh?

This is how losers view the world, that they would have more money if not for the rich, as if there were a fixed pot of gold in the universe and the wealthy merely bogarted it all for themselves.

BTW, I linked to your article from mine, Lewis Diuguid is an Idiot

I am not sure what is trying to be proved here. In using teddy as an example of a socialist one ignores his comments about no welfare but to earn your own way. Teddy use of money ws not to "spread the wealth" but to more reasonably distribute the ligitiamte costs of government and that governments role was to provide equal opportunity for all.

john

For Bernie: I've heard this nonsense that "Our Society is not a (financial) zero sum game!" It was from Neil Bortz (spell?) as I recall. How sophmoric to suggest that essentially everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer and you get the picture. Career opportunities are very limited and this becomes proportional to population size i.e. more toilets means more toilets breaking, more plumbers needed and alot more crap to dispose of.

You may want to recall that Europeans not only fled religious persecution wanting such freedoms, but we seem to have forgotten (as a People) that in much greater numbers despite the historical myths, they left behind lands with limited to no opportunities to buy a piece of land to live on, attend a decent or ANY school, afford a doctor when needed, or even find enough meaningful work to feed themselves somewhat reliably year round.

I leave you with one example, of thousands around the world. Nigeria is and has been a country with tremendous oil and mineral wealth, it has been extracted for many years now. A handful of priveleged Nigerians and non-Nationals own this wealth--nearly all of it and the power to perpetuate that same wealth and power generation after generation--their choice entirely.

Now I'm sure some "compassionate conservative" pundit would offer the "It's not a zero sum game" and I would point out that greed, like alcoholism is denied by the afflicted, and regularly by countering with any deceptions necessary. But in the end I ask you who is really being deceived? Overall, if you're a survival-of-the-fittest thinker then nothing else matters but accumulating as much as possible. Just remember that holding such beliefs means you can't complain when someone more powerful decides to take all that you have simply because they can and want to, perhaps with similar deceptions or even a club over the head.