Teddy Roosevelt's Not Asking for Scented Candles or Smooth Jazz to Set America's Mood, Either
- Roosevelt doesn't think over-the-top hysteria is the way to react to America's problems, either. If there's no proof or no rationality behind their attacks, then any good they hope to accomplish is undone.
- We have to stay calm, but not so calm as to just do nothing. Keep a small fire of outrage burning, because apathy is just as bad as hysteria.
- We're in a general period of unrest, it's true. But we need to turn that unrest into a genuine push to make things better.
- The divide in America needs to be Good vs. Evil, not Haves vs. Have-nots or anything like it. Splitting it any other way puts scoundrels on both sides, like picking teams for sports in middle school.
- The rich man who benefits from political corruption isn't any worse than the labor leader who sparks up support for a murderer, in an apples and oranges kind of way.
- Unrest needs to do something positive. It can't exist just because. And that positive good needs to be done calmly, slowly, and rationally.
- There needs to be a distinction between fairly earned fortunes and unfairly earned fortunes. If you make your millions from reselling candy stolen from babies, then there probably should be a system in place to call you out on that.
- Sorry millionaires—spending your earnings on some nice buildings doesn't excuse how you made that cash in the first place.
- There should also be a tax on fortunes above a certain amount to stop these absurdly huge fortunes from being passed from generation to generation. People shouldn't be able to start life with the infinite money cheat activated.
- If a business is doing business across state borders, then the federal government needs to be involved in that. Interstate commerce is pretty much the Fed's ballpark.
- With the railway rate legislation, we might get to see all of these philosophical ideas in action. It's legislation that will cut down on the worst parts of corporate gouging while also offering said corporation a fair shake.
- Wickedness doesn't spring from corporations, but from corruption itself, like some kind of otherworldly plague.
- The Eighth Commandment just says "Do not steal" not "Do not steal...except in cases of stealing from the rich, middle-class, or otherwise financially stable. (Please ask your doctor if stealing is right for you.)"
- He says that morality is a two-way street; it just doesn't work if it punches toward one class against another.
- If a lawyer would backstab a corporation for the people, then he would also assuredly backstab the people in favor of a corporation. (The people must be able to put together a pretty penny in legal fees to outbid a Rockefeller, in this hypothetical.)
- We need plenty of honesty, but we also need plenty of sanity. Meaningful progress doesn't come from hotheads, but from cool, measured approaches to problems.
- If we go at reform with this attitude, it won't be the uphill climb it looks like. Mountains will move pretty smoothly.
- The corrupt fat cats won't succeed in stopping legislation, and if they did they'd get the explosion that comes with clamping a lid down on a pressure cooker. If reform doesn't come slowly, it'll come violently, and that's no good for anybody.
- On the other hand, there are also people who want to bring down the whole system with no idea of what to put up in its place; or worse, who want to put in something worse than the problems we already have. Those people need to cut it out.
- Government should focus on the well-being of the average citizen and provide them livable conditions so they don't want to rip the government to pieces.
- We need to bring people out of poverty so they can show the best parts of what they're made of. The character of the average citizen should be in the spotlight.