The Ideal of Non-Party Government

Article V Blog ^ | April 28th 2017 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

Among the features of the ideal republic is the absence of factions and political parties. As per James Madison, a faction is a group of citizens, either a majority or minority, united and actuated by some common passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or the aggregate interests of the community. A political party is typically a collection of factions.

Imagine if every representative, senator, president, and bureaucrat took the Preamble of our Constitution to heart, and selflessly dedicated themselves to secure the Blessings of Liberty to themselves and their posterity. This is the public virtue hoped for in the early days after independence from Great Britain. As noted by Thomas Paine in his Common Sense (1775), “society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.” In the uplifting Preamble to our Constitution, society compacts to promote happiness. Public vices are restrained in Article I Section 10, “the No State shall” section.

While the Framers couldn’t foresee the rise of an authoritarian scotus and presidents with arbitrary powers resembling the prerogatives of divinely ordained kings, they understood factions. Since they knew the damage that political parties could do, why didn’t the Framers include a “there shall be no political parties” clause in the Constitution? Because unlike Utopian dreamers and Article V opponents, our Framers were realists.

They understood faction is to government as sin is to man. Both are to be avoided, yet both are impossible to evade. When left unchecked, they corrupt the souls of republics and men. Both drag their practitioners into misery. Whereas sin is the cause of man’s private fall from virtue into vice, unrelenting faction is the cause and effect

[PGalt]

Imagine if every representative, senator, president, and bureaucrat took the Preamble of our Constitution to heart, and selflessly dedicated themselves to secure the Blessings of Liberty to themselves and their posterity.

They could if they weren't filtered through factions, collectives, parties...if they were real men, women, reps...(thus the appeal of Donald J. Trump)

Useless unipartarians BEWARE! RESIGN now.

2018 and 2020 are just ahead.

[Wuli]

There is nothing “ideal” about the absence of parties and factious. They are nothing less, and important as, the joining of like-minded forces, whether in general or on a single issue, whether as a long term union or temporary. They are an important result of free speech AND FREE ASSOCIATION.

Look at California. It turned primaries into “non-partisan” events and its pretty much a Democrat uni-party state.

When someone says “ideal”, run from it.

Its only utopians that talk that way.