Posted on 08/26/2008 8:11:42 AM PDT by J. E. Quidam
Does George Washington's warning about political parties resonate with Americans in 2008? Or will this just not make sense to people?
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty." — George Washington, September 19, 1796
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/Baneful_Parties.htm
This is the reason for my screen name.
“Does George Washington’s warning about political parties resonate with Americans in 2008?”
Well, it resonates with SOME of us; and we even “take a beating” sometimes at FreeRepublic from those who think that Conservative = Republican.
However, I don’t think it resonates with the American public as a whole. After all “the two party system” is all most of us have ever known.
Below is from George Washington’s Farewell Address!
Warns against the party system.
“It serves to distract the Public Councils,
and enfeeble the Public Administration....
agitates the Community with ill-founded
jealousies and false alarms; kindles the
animosity of one.... against another....
it opens the door to foreign influence and
corruption... thus the policy and the will
of one country are subjected to the policy
and will of another.”
Stresses the importance of religion and morality.
“Where is the security for property, for reputation,
for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert
the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation
in Courts of Justice?”
On stable public credit.
“...cherish public credit.
One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly
as possible... avoiding likewise the accumulation of
debt.... it is essential that you...bear in mind,
that towards the payments of debts there must be
Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes;
that no taxes can be devised, which are not...
inconvenient and unpleasant...”
Warns against permanent foreign alliances.
“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world...”
“George Washington’s Farewell Address!”
We aren’t doing ANY of these today!!!
One of my favorite quotes:
“If all else fails, I will retreat up the valley of Virginia, plant my flag on the Blue Ridge, rally around the Scotch-Irish of that region, and make my last stand for liberty amongst a people who will never submit to British tyranny whilst there is a man left to draw a trigger.”
George Washington, at Valley Forge.
Transcript of entire farewell address:
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/GW_farewell.htm
Excerpts thereof relating to political parties:
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/Baneful_Parties.htm
If anything we have a stealth monarchy with many implanted fractions of the elected cooperating and leading us into the direction of communism.
This is why they hated Bush and that is why I call him a Maverick. If it wasn't for Fox News and the Internet...their goals would have already been accomplished.
He, reportedly, also warned against “foreign entanglements” from his death-bed.
But his political philosophy is SOOOOOOO late 18th century.
We’re so much more enlightened now...
Washington was correct on parties. But people tend to organize themselves in groups.
Right now, both political parties have sold out to special interest groups inimical to the the American People.
The Democrats in the recent past have presented themselves as the party of farmers and the working man and labor unions. They have instead become shanghaied by radical extremist groups - gays, PETA nuts, environmentalist wackos, communists, socialists and Aztlan freaks among others.
The Republicans in the recent past have represented themselves as the party of patriotism, pro-American interests, traditional values, and of free enterprise.
They have been taken over by extreme free-market capitalists,one-worlders and globalist corporate interests whose primary loyalties are not to America, but to profit at any price.
We need and deserve an alternative to both these pandering monstrosities. If the Republicans can't win this next election, they are and should be finished as a political party. The Democrats will never go or reform themselves unless they are faced with an effective opposition. The Republican Party has demonstrated it is incapable of serving that function as too many Republicans are sympathetic to the same radical interests which destroyed the Democrat Party.
Amen, GW!
I'll go one step further...the "two parties" scratch each others backs to keep it that way. But eventually one overwhelming ideology will engulf the other and we will be left with a pseudo party to keep up the appearances of the two party system. I'm afraid we are more than halfway there already.
I totally concur with your astute observation.
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