A recent letter writer to this newspaper expressed her fear that a liberal left ideology, started early in the 20th century, has the purposeful intent to destroy our country. 

Specifically, she said “it is anti-American, against our Constitution, and causing us to lose what has made the U.S. the best country on this planet.”

Conservative Republican politicians have been fear mongering about their more liberal opponents since the end of World War II. One of the darkest chapters of our national history was McCarthyism, when Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy led widespread accusations of “anti-Americans” as communists intent on destroying our country. 

It took the Supreme Court to reestablish that Americans are free to hold and voice different views.

What was anti-American were McCarthy’s accusations and slander.

Today, we have reached an equally high level of anti-American accusations of liberals or progressives, labeling them as socialists or communists intent on destroying our country.

 Since this so-called plot has been in progress for over 100 years, let’s take a closer look at our country in the early 1900s to see how great it was before the liberals starting destroying it.

At the beginning of the 20th century American women were not allowed to vote. During World War II, millions of American women worked in factories producing the weapons and ammunition the free world used to win the war. “Rosie the Riveter” symbolized these women and has been a lasting symbol of American feminism. 

Today, the contributions of women make the U.S. the most productive country the world has ever seen. Perhaps we were better off keeping women in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.

High-risk speculation in an unregulated stock market caused the Great Depression. Twenty-five percent of the American work force had no job. Another 25 percent were under-employed. 

When the economy couldn’t employ people, a Democratic-led government stepped up with the New Deal. Millions were employed, building infrastructure that remains to this day. And Social Security was started to provide an economic safety net for senior citizens – many who had worked a lifetime but were financially destitute.

Perhaps we should’ve stuck with Republican President Herbert Hoover, whose conservative principle was that people needed to step up and provide for themselves vs. expecting their government to help. 

After Hoover, Americans put a Democrat in the White House for 20 years, until electing a war hero who could’ve run for either party. 

They appreciated that liberals were there for them in their darkest hour.

During times of extreme economic distress, children worked in sweatshops, enduring dangerous work conditions and long hours. Families didn’t want this for their children but desperately needed whatever little income they could provide. 

Today, we legally prevent this practice and look for other means to provide economic support, thanks to liberal ideology.

The Industrial Revolution was in full steam at the beginning of the 20th century. Pittsburgh was producing the steel to build America. Coal pollution was so severe that street lights were used during the day to aid visibility. Coalminers were dying in mine collapses or dying prematurely from lung diseases. Appalachian mountaintops were reduced to wastelands and groundwater was dangerously polluted from mining wastes.

With no employment alternative, wages were suppressed to keep working families in poverty. Sounds like a great time to be an American, before liberals imposed environmental and work safety rules.

The America before liberals “destroyed” it had regular outbreaks of smallpox, measles and polio. Scientific progress produced vaccines that eventually fought through public resistance to become standards of healthcare, nearly wiping out such diseases. 

The introduction of fluoride in drinking water, again resisted without scientific fact, helps millions of Americans to this day keep their teeth as long as they live.

The root of the word “progressive” is progress. 

Progress requires a willingness to challenge the status quo and make change toward a better approach to a problem. 

If you look back to the beginning of the 20th century, who wants to go back there?

The root of the word “liberal” is liberty. The Latin meaning is “free.” I thought our country was founded on the ideal of freedom.

Self-serving conservative politicians have been trying to convince us for a long time that “progressive” and “liberal” are bad words. Our history suggests otherwise. 

Perhaps instead of listening to their unsubstantiated hot air, we should start asking them why they are so intent on “conserving” the past instead of building a better future.