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The America First Committee

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One of the most remarkable episodes in American history was the spontaneous and widespread opposition to Franklin Roosevelt's obvious attempts to embroil the United States in the European war that broke out in 1939. That opposition was centered in the America First Committee. In modern accounts of the war period, the committee is either ignored or maligned as a pro-fascist, anti-Semitic organization. It was nothing of the kind. The America First Committee had its origins at Yale University Law School in 1940, where R. Douglas Stuart Jr. and other students began circulating a petition with the intention of establishing a national organization of college students opposed to intervention in the European war. (This account is based on historian Justus D. Doenecke's highly valuable book, In Danger Undaunted: The Anti-Interventionist Movement of 1940-1941 as Revealed in the Papers ...

Vietnam Redux: All Power to Lying Politicians

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Americans are once again dying overseas because politicians have dragged the nation into an unnecessary war. Once the U.S. military invaded Iraq, Bushs approval ratings shot up through the roof. As American blood was flowing, most Americans approved of Bushs conduct. And yet it is precisely when a politicians approval is highest when his power is greatest that the greatest dangers arise, not only for American soldiers but for American freedoms. The Vietnam War vivifies the danger that is created by politicians power over Americans. Conscription effectively gave politicians unlimited power over the lives of millions of young American males. Had it not been for the military draft and perennial government lies Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and the U.S. Congress could not have squandered the lives of scores of thousands of Americans in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. In 1964, Johnson campaigned for reelection by warning that if his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, was elected, the United States would ...

Do Elections Guarantee Freedom?

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Elections are sometimes portrayed as practically giving people automatic remote control on the government. Elections kindly provide a chance for people to pre-program the government for the following years. The government will be based on the popular will, regardless of the ignorance of the populace or the duplicity of the government. President Lyndon Johnson declared in 1965 that the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. But the fact that voting rights helped undermine Jim Crow restrictions on blacks did not prevent the government from ladling new restrictions and burdens on all citizens. During the election campaign the prior year, Johnson had promised, We are not about to send American ...