Page 17 - 1776 Report

More significantly, the Progressives held that truths branch of government called at times the bureaucracy
were not permanent but only relative to their time. or the administrative state. This shadow government
They rejected the self-evident truth of the Declaration never faces elections and today operates largely without
that all men are created equal and are endowed equally, checks and balances. The founders always opposed
either by nature or by God, with unchanging rights. As government unaccountable to the people and without
one prominent Progressive historian wrote in 1922, constitutional restraint, yet it continues to grow around
“To ask whether the natural rights philosophy of the us.
Declaration of Independence is true or false, is
essentially a meaningless question.” Instead,
Progressives believed there were only group rights that Fascism
are constantly redefined and change with the times. The principles of the Declaration have been threatened
Indeed, society has the power and obligation not only to not only at home. In the 20 Century, two global
th
define and grant new rights, but also to take old rights movements threatened to destroy freedom and subject
away as the country develops. mankind to a new slavery. Though ideological cousins,
the forces of Fascism and Communism were bitter
Based on this false understanding of rights, the enemies in their wars to achieve world domination.
Progressives designed a new system of government. What united both totalitarian movements was their
Instead of securing fundamental rights grounded in utter disdain for natural rights and free peoples.
nature, government—operating under a new theory of
the “living” Constitution—should constantly evolve to
secure evolving rights.

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands.
Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not
happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, because if the American Constitution
should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.

Daniel Webster

In order to keep up with these changes, government Fascism first arose in Italy under the dictatorship of
would be run more and more by credentialed Benito Mussolini, largely in response to the rise of
managers, who would direct society through rules and Bolshevism in Russia. Like the Progressives, Mussolini
regulations that mold to the currents of the time. sought to centralize power under the management of
Before he became President of the United States, so-called experts. All power—corporate and
Woodrow Wilson laid out this new system whereby political—would be exercised by the state and directed
“the functions of government are in a very real sense toward the same goal. Individual rights and freedoms
independent of legislation, and even constitutions,” hold no purchase under Fascism. Its principle is instead,
meaning that this new view of government would in Mussolini’s words, “everything in the State, nothing
operate independent of the people. outside the State, nothing against the State.” Eventually,
Adolf Hitler in Germany wed this militant and
Far from creating an omniscient body of civil servants dehumanizing political movement to his pseudo-
led only by “pragmatism” or “science,” though, scientific theory of Aryan racial supremacy, and Nazism
progressives instead created what amounts to a fourth was born.

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