"In the two centuries or so of our history, it has happened that a few of our leaders – a very few – became symbols of some powerful idea, one that left a permanent imprint on the life of our country. Thomas Jefferson is one such symbol.
With Jefferson, it is the idea of a free, self-governing people, dedicated to the enjoyment of their God-given natural rights, in their work, their communities, and the bosom of their families.
Abraham Lincoln symbolizes a rather different idea – of America as a great, centralized nation-state, supposedly dedicated to individual freedom, but founded on the unquestioned authority and power of the national government in Washington.
And now Franklin Roosevelt, too, has come to represent a certain conception of America, one that is worlds apart from Jefferson's vision, and different from anything that even Lincoln could have imagined.
Roosevelt stands for the national government as we know it today: a vast, unfathomable bureaucratic apparatus that recognizes no limits whatsoever to its power, either at home or abroad. Internationally, it gives every evidence of intending to run the whole world, of extending its hegemony – now that the Soviet Union is no more – to every corner of the globe."
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