Some sayings from some of the forefathers of OUR COUNTRY back in the day, you know history you folks are working on destroying. Still applies today, these guys were good. Parties suck the life from us all who allow them to continue to do so and allow them to do disservice to the needs of our Country.
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all..
Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.
"In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time."
“Party knows no impulse but spirit, no prize but victory. It is blind to truth and hardened against conviction. It seeks to justify error by perseverance, and denies to its own mind the operation of its own judgment. A man under the tyranny of party spirit is the greatest slave upon the earth,
"Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect."
"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man."
"It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions."
"An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes."
"It is the steady abuse of power in other governments which renders that of opposition always the popular party."
"The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people."
"To restore... harmony,... to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot.
The current ruling two-party duopoly is so ubiquitous that we take it as a given. We teach the “two-party system” in government classes. Taxpayers pay for their primary elections, notwithstanding that legally, parties are private associations. We have allowed the two ruling parties to institutionalize themselves in our political and governing systems. They get preferential ballot access and legislative committee assignments and campaign finance laws are rigged in their favor . . . . just to name a few of the advantages they are afforded.
Given this dominance, one might conclude that the two-party system arises from our constitutional roots. But in fact, the opposite is the case. Virtually every one of the Founding Fathers eschewed the idea of political parties and fretted over what might happen to the country if political parties were to come to dominate the country.
Let’s start with the Founding Father. Just before the end of his second term, George Washington wrote a letter to his “friends and fellow-citizens.” It was published in newspapers throughout the country and later came to be known as his Farewell Address.
Nearly a third of Washington’s address is devoted to warning his fledging country about the dangers of political parties and encouraging his fellow citizens to never allow political parties to gain control of the government. Here is part of what he had to say:
“[Political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests. . . .Let me now . . . warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party ..
. . . . It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeebles the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption . . . A fire not to quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame . . .”
Washington must be rolling over in his grave, watching what is going on in our country today. And he was far from alone among the Founding Fathers in his views on political parties.
