Herbert Hoover in 2012!

About a year before the Great Depression, presidential candidate Herbert Hoover used the term "rugged individualism" to describe the American system of government.

It was Oct. 22, 1928 and Hoover was giving a speech in New York City during the closing days of his campaign.

Hoover contrasted the "rugged" American system with the European systems of government, which he called, "paternalism" and "state socialism."

He brought these issues up during the campaign because there were plenty of people, particularly his opponents, criticizing the Republican Party's ideals. Rugged individualism, a relic of the pioneer days, was passe. Socialism and communism were enlightened.

In November of 1928, the socialists lost, and Hoover was elected president. In October of 1929, the stock market was slammed by three days of huge losses.

Hoover's response to this financial perfect storm is an interesting study in hindsight.

As the nation spiraled into what would end up being called the Great Depression, Hoover stuck to his rugged philosophic guns. During his term, his administration eschewed large scale intervention in U.S. industry but he did try to help certain U.S. businesses by raising tariffs on imported goods.

The desired result ---- stronger core companies, more jobs for Americans and more buying power for working Americans ---- didn't happen, proving right the group of more than 1,000 economists that had urged Hoover to veto the legislation.

The tariffs ended up leading to higher costs for products, shots to the pocketbook that hurt working Americans.

This pain inflicted on working Americans turned "Hoover" and his economic philosophy into an punch line.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed some of the criticism that had been heaped on Hoover by ridiculing President George W. Bush's support of free market economics.

"It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their jobs - life isn't fair. It let's us say to the child born into poverty - pull yourself up by your bootstraps," Obama said.

The "it" Obama talked about ---- but didn't name ---- during that speech is Hoover's "rugged individualism" and his definition meshes nicely.

In that Oct. 22, 1928 speech, Hoover said: "Our distinctly American system has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance ... because of this freedom of initiative and enterprise."

Progress ---- Hoover said, citing the country's forefathers ---- was the sum of the progress of free individuals.

Obama, in stark contrast, said in an address to Knox College, "Our individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

While it's tempting to say ---- Hoover was obviously wrong and Obama is obviously right ---- there is the small issue of hindsight.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a debate in Congress about controversial "Buy American" provisions in the proposed $800 billion stimulus package.

Like the Hawley-Smoot Tariffs, these provisions were supposed to help U.S. businesses, which would in turn help working Americans.

Problem was, the same countries that complained about the tariffs in the 1930s complained about the proposed provisions. Economists blasted the plan and foreign countries accused the U.S. of trying to violate trade treaties.

The criticism caused Congress to modify the "Buy American" provisions, removing anything that would conflict with existing treaties.

So what happens to the Maytag workers who lost their jobs? Our country is locked into treaties that make the idea of making Maytag appliances here economically laughable.

Obama said during the campaign that green jobs would help provide new opportunities. In the first few months of his term, "green" companies that make solar panels and wind turbines have been laying people off.

Projects that would have transformed west Texas into the wind power capital of the world have been delayed.

So what about the child born into poverty?

The problem with poverty is that it's relative, a concept foreign to socialists who argue that there is a fixed cost for 10 feet of linen.

Unless everyone makes the same amount of money, someone will always be "poor."

McCain had an opening, he had a chance to rebrand the idea of "rugged individualism" and make it about giving the child born into poverty a chance to rise above that birth.

Instead, he flogged Joe the Plumber, crying about the tax burden of a man making more than $250,000.

Thankfully, "rugged individualism" isn't tied to McCain.

It's our wide open spaces. It's our "I'm walking here!" It's the progress of free individuals. It's "Slumdog Millionaire" being a Best Picture nominee.

There will be a person, in the near future, who can make rugged individualism resonate with the American people. That person will unite us by tapping into our disgust for both paternalism and socialism.

In that 1928 speech, Hoover did a good job of explaining it but his support of the tariffs and the timing of the speech made his very name, much less his economic credentials, suspect.

Hoover said that as the government inserts itself into the management of U.S. businesses the government becomes competition for U.S. citizens.

Hoover also cautioned against the government becoming a companies' board of directors. He said there's no way a large legislative body, representing competing interests, could manage a business effectively.

Both Bush and Obama have thus far avoided the trap of tariffs and anti-trade policies.

But they have both helped make the government competition for private enterprise and they have allowed members of their cabinet to run businesses via restrictions and caps on executive pay.

By letting government ---- synonymous with bureaucratic malaise ---- seep into business, the U.S. is embarking on a dangerous path, Hoover warned.

"Bureaucracy does not spread the spirit of independence; it spreads the spirit of submission into our daily life, penetrates the temper of our people; not with the habit of powerful resistance to wrong but with the habit of timid acceptance of the irresistible might," he said.

If we don't do something, this country is headed toward an era of big government that will turn many of our daily interactions into trips to the DMV, the unemployment office or court.

For all of our sakes, let's give the Maytag workers who lost their jobs and the child born into poverty an incentive to raise themselves up by their bootstraps or die trying.

A life of timid acceptance of the irresistible might doesn't much sound like a life worth living.