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Glenn Beck: Up With Child Labor!

Our guest blogger is senior fellow John Halpin, co-director of the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress.

Glenn Beck’s dire warning yesterday at CPAC against progressivism — “the cancer in America” — was truly one for the Texas state history books. In exacting detail, Beck outlined for the uninitiated conservatives in attendance how progressivism is a dangerous form of mind control that has eroded our constitutional order and brought tyranny to our innocent shores.

What is a concerned patriot to do to recover his lost country?

According to the iron-clad logic of the chalkboard, the only way to combat this oppression is to fight for the repeal of the Progressive and New Deal eras and everything progressivism has ever done to this country. And here is what conservatives will get for this brave liberation of the body politic from the horrors of progressivism:

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— No one will ever again have to work an 8-hour day or a 40-hour week or be forced to relax on the weekend. (Progressives established the legal framework for the modern workweek.)

— America’s children can get back to the factories. (Progressives banned child labor.)

— Rich people will have incentives to work again and their heirs will be free to find themselves. (Progressives established the graduated income and inheritance taxes.)

— The unemployed can take to the railways. (Progressives created unemployment insurance.)

— Women and minorities will be protected from the hardship of voting. (Progressives expanded suffrage and passed civil rights legislation.)

— The natural resources sector will have more opportunities to ply its trade on millions of acres of national parks and wilderness areas. (Progressives established conservation and the protection of American lands and waterways.)

— The nation’s food and drug supply can come in undisturbed from other nations. (Progressives created regulatory protections for consumers.)

— Citizens won’t have to worry about electing their own Senators or political candidates. (Progressives expanded the right of citizens to select their own leaders in Congress and in party politics.)

— Workers will be free to pay for their own accidents at work and won’t have to listen to meddlesome unions. (Progressives passed workers’ compensation laws and recognitions of labor unions.)

— The minimum wage will no longer harm our economy. (Progressives created a floor for wages.)

— People won’t have to suffer from the indignities of Social Security and Medicare in their old age. (Progressives passed basic social protections for the poor, sick, disabled, and elderly.)

The Revolution starts today. Back to the 1890’s!