Everyday Annoyances

Calvin Coolidge would have many lessons for today’s so-called progressives and quite a few for today’s conservatives. Becoming president by succession when Warren G. Harding died in office he was re-elected in 1924 and oversaw the roaring twenties after a recession in 1920-21. His small government views would be considered rabidly right wing today and the modern left would say that his policies would destroy the country even though under the first year of his administration unemployment was down to 3.3% from a high of 20% in 1921.

Here are a few of the things that he said.

No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.

Todays liberals would do well to understand this rather than to promulgate class warfare. People do not become successful without performing a service for others unless they are engaged in something illegal.

It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern.  But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter.  If all men are created equal, that is final.  If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final.  If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.  No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.  If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.  Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress.  They are reactionary.  Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

This is just as relevant today as it was when Coolidge said it. The idea that men’s strengths or their weaknesses and vices have advanced is just plain wrong. Those who pervert our language and claim themselves as “progressives” are just plain lying or, if they believe their own claims, stupid.

The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.

Modern unionists and the politicians that support them should all read that one.

Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.

President Obama should heed this when he next signs a bill that extends the government into what should be completely private domains.

The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct.

This should reflect badly on all of the closed meetings that the current administration is so fond of.

There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means.

Balanced budget amendment anyone?

To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.

Maybe Obama needs to take another look at this “flawed” document. Perhaps his reading comprehension has improved after all his time spent with the teleprompter.