FYI from BATR

America went wrong, in his view, when Lincoln crushed "the localist Confederate rebellion," and it went further astray when Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt took charge in the twentieth century: "Our pious canting imperialism, the favoring of big over small business, the bloating of the executive branch, the centralization of power in Washington, permanent involvement in the affairs of Europe, conscription, confiscatory taxation--the cousins Roosevelt hammered gilt nails in our collective coffin."