Our Greatest Presidents?
February 16, 2015
Lew, thank you for posting again your classic “Down With The Presidency” speech/article on LRC on Presidents Day. It is the definitive Rockwellian statement concerning the aggrandizement of power and hubris of those audacious sociopaths claiming to reign over us. It ranks equally with Murray N. Rothbard’s “The Anatomy of the State” in its masterful synthesis and impeccable clarity of purpose.
On this topic of executive suzerainty over the American imperium and its vassal states, another of my favorite articles of all time is Ralph Raico’s “Our Greatest Presidents?” I remember when I read it decades ago when it was first published in Libertarian Review. I loved Raico’s biting sardonic irony and go-for-the-jugular stylistic touches, reminiscent of H. L. Mencken at his best. It has served as my personal catechism as a high school history teacher of what not to inflict upon my unsuspecting students as statist propaganda.
Like baby chicks in an incubator, these poor kids come into my empty classroom with minds empty of all historical knowledge which proceeded their hatching. For them, everyday is tabula rasa. They deserve a fighting chance to discover and critically analyze historical facts and data for themselves, and not be force-fed garbage by “court historian” apologists for mass murder and the sanctioned rape of the US Constitution.
Are Submarines about to Become Obsolete?