“Reagan's story of freedom superficially alludes to the Founding Fathers, but its substance comes from the Gilded Age, devised by apologists for the robber barons. It is posed abstractly as the freedom of the individual from government control a Jeffersonian ideal at the roots of our Bill of Rights, to be sure. But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.” MeanStillsStoriesGovernmentAgeTodayPoliticalFatherIndividualSocialWealthResponsibilityRightsCenturyIdealsRootsBillsDemocraticSubstanceFoundingLicensePolitical SystemsBill Of RightsRobbersGildedGilded AgeRobber Baron Author:Bill Moyers
“Our Founding Fathers well understood that concentrated power is the enemy of liberty and the rights of man. They knew that the American experiment in individual liberty, free enterprise and republican self-government could succeed only if power were widely distributed. And since in any society social and political power flow from economic power, they saw that wealth and property would have to be widely distributed among the people of the country. The truth of this insight is immediately apparent.” PeopleIfsMenWellsSelfCountryWisdomGovernmentPoliticalFatherPoliticsIndividualSocialWealthLibertyEnemyEconomySawsRightsEconomicRepublicanSucceedUnderstoodFlowPropertyInsightExperimentsLiberalismEnterpriseFoundingOur Founding FathersPolitical PowerFree EnterpriseIndividual LibertySelf-governmentEconomic Power Author:Ronald Reagan
“The United States, which has been called the home of the persecuted and the dispossessed, has been since its founding an asylum for emotional orphans. For over three hundred years, refugees from political oppression, religious persecution, famine, poverty, and a rigid class system which limited educational and economic opportunities have been leaving their native villages and cities and coming to the United States in search of freedom and a better life.” YearsHas BeensStatesHomePoliticalThreeOpportunityReligiousUnitedCitiesClassPovertyUnited StatesEconomicEmotionalHundredLeavingEducationalOppressionNativeVillagePersecutionFoundingRefugeeBetter LifeFamineOrphanAsylumsPersecutedClass SystemReligious PersecutionPolitical Oppression Author:Eileen Simpson
“To call the American role in the world imperial was, for many who did so, a way of asserting that the United States was misusing its power beyond its borders and, in so doing, subverting its founding political principles within them.” WorldWayStatesPoliticalUnitedPrinciplesRolesUnited StatesBordersFounding Book:The Case for Goliath: How America Acts As the World's Government in the Twenty-First Century Source: The Case for Goliath: How America Acts As the World's Government in the Twenty-First Century