Conservatism
Today is the 145 anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated on Good Friday, April 14, 1865. (Interesting that he spent Good Friday attending a comedy.)
In their zeal to find a cause of unjust big government, some conservatives turn against Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo shows why this makes no sense. Guelzo notes how government and its expense shrank after the extraordinary circumstances of the Civil War. Of course if one thinks rebellion and secession (let alone slavery) can possibly be principles of constitutional government, then all bets are off.
Such seekers of the cause of our current discontents would be better off blaming either George Washington (which would show the absurdity of their historical understanding) or, actually on-target, the bipartisan duo of Progressives Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Read political scientists Sidney Milkis and RJ Pestritto, who know well the Progressive roots of current government. (RJ, I'm told, has been featured on Glen Beck's program, which I've never seen.)
Michael Lind--one who ought to know better but doesn't, at least in this essay--attempts to demolish the Prestritto on progressivism as the intellectual origins of modern liberalism argument that Beck has been parlaying of late--an argument that beck often overplays with a furor of the recent convert. But then, if memory serves me well, Lind follows the Croly argument that Lincoln is indeed the progenitor of modern big government except that for Lind it is a wholly worthwhile and just project.
https://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/04/05/glenn_beck_s_historians
Here's something called Beckstudies--anyone know who runs this? https://beckstudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/higher-criticism-and-salons.html
I've seen it, and I don't really get it. I think someone has too much time on their hands.
Really? I looked at the beckstudies thing after coming across this, and thought it was absolutely hilarious