http://www.fitsnews.com/2009/12/08/tea-party-overtakes-republicans-in-poll/
From Rasmussen Reports:
In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.
Wowzers.
The poll also found that 41% of all voters nationwide say Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that a new party is needed to represent the American people.
Obviously, a “Tea Party” is a long way off, and third parties have typically underperformed at the ballot box.
Still, this polling data – which reinforces the results of an October Gallup poll on voter ideology – should scare the ever living crap out of big-spending “establishment” Republicans.
“The stunning Rasmussen Poll showing the Republican Party finishing a decided third to a hypothetical ‘Tea Party’ candidate should send shock waves through the GOP,” said Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government. “It demonstrates once again that the timid, tepid Republican leadership is leading its party to the brink of disaster.”
True that.
Republicans’ inability to stick to their party’s fiscally conservative platform cost the party dearly in the 2006 and 2008 elections. In the 2008 presidential race, specifically, the GOP had nothing with which to counter President Barack Obama’s since-abandoned promise of middle class tax relief.
Additionally, Republicans have thus far failed miserably to articulate a vision for government that would contrast the socialist push of the Obama administration.
And since I'm running as an Independent for congress, and I believe that the United States is a pretty rugged country that can take another year of this garbage, so I say to the two dinasour parties, keep it up!!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Samuel D'Arcangelis. holds a Ph.D in chemistry from The Johns Hopkins University.
You may search for me on the Internet. In 1994, when I received my degree, there was no such thing as a climate scientist. Climate scientists (until recently, with Universities under pressure, I suspect) are self-proclaimed in their field. I have no direct experience in meteorology (the true Earth science relevant here) What I do have is a full understanding of reaction chemistry, molecular spectroscopy and photochemistry, and reaction kinetics, with enough experience thermodynamics and physics to speak on any level of authority, and I will put my qualifications up against "san quentin" or pretty much anyone else, for comparison so long as I live. It should also be understood that if I can't comprehend an explanation in excruciating detail about how a self-proclaimed climate scientists knows something is true, then you can hardly expect me to jump on the bandwagon. We'll start there.
I have seen precisely zero evidence that global warning is an artifice of Mankind. In fact, I have seen little evidence, much of which is specious (before Climategate), that warming is occuring at all. That CO2 levels are rising, and indeed they can be shown to be, and coincidentally the human population is growing, is a false correlation. "Proof" of that relationship has come in the form of a great deal of data, in which hugh assumptions about relationships are made (e.g. tree ring size to temperature) Also, another false correlation (one that becomes weaker in the last decade) is that between rising temperatures and rising levels of carbon dioxide.
The foundations laid down by these false correlations in the grand double correlation is: that Mankind has increased in numbers and consumes more and more fossil fuels, causing a rise in the CO2 component in the atmosphere. The increased CO2 traps more and more heat causing the average world temperature to rise.
Carbon dioxide is a minor component of our very complex atmosphere. It absorbs precisely three narrow bands of infrared light in a huge manifold of light up through the ultraviolet, that come from the Sun, much of which passes effortlessly to the planet surface. If CO2 and the rest of the atmosphere were that effective in trapping, or arresting incoming solar irradiation, then sunshine wouldn't feel warm on your face.
Water can be (should be)regarded in precisely the same way as CO2, with three bands, (close to the CO2 bands), absorbing infrared light. The main difference is, while there is anywhere from 250 to 350 ppm CO2 in the air (0.03%), distributed essentially equally across the globe, there can be anywhere up to 4 parts per hundred (4.00%) of excess water, distributed inhomogeneously, and locally, across the Earth. But there is much more water than that.
At the earth surface, oceans await to be heated by the solar influs. Consequently, clouds form. Clouds can, in fact, rob one of the sensation of warming one's face during the day. Clouds in turn can block out the sun (or lock in heat) completely. (This is why deserts get so hot in the daytime and cool so quickly at night, not because of the lack of atmospheric CO2, which is everywhere, but because of the lack of water vapor and bodies of liquid water trapping heat or resisting heating and cooling.)
(Direct evidence is seen in infrared radar, used to heighten contrast in weather precipitation. It doesn't see all that excess CO2 rising from industrial regions, but sees atmospheric water vapor, isolated or in clouds.)
Water is by far a more effective "greenhouse gas", and in fact, is the pre-eminent greenhouse gas on the planet, and so shall it always be.
So why not consider water as a componenet in the latest EPA endangerment finding, when CO2 has been labeled such. Because, that would be absurd to the layperson, and rightfully so. CO2 is singled out because it is policitally expedient to do so. Too bad the contribution of water is neglected in every AGW proponents' work. Their modelling might work out to be much more predictive.
Speaking of modelling, until Climate gate, the algorithms for their models have been a closely held secret. This is a shame to the scientfic community. I suspect that they are hiding something, but can't prove it, and that doubt works in their favor.
I DO know for a fact (because we really don't have a good way of doing it now) that the biosphere is completely neglected from the calculations, which again is absurd on its face. Green plants not only remove CO2 from the air, they do so endothermically, that is to say in the process of removal, they ALSO REMOVE HEAT from the system, the atmosphere. This is why forests, even rain forests in the equatorial tropics, are temperate. They'd be much warmer if they photosynthesis didn't consume light directly and convert water and CO2 into sugar and oxygen. At night, the reverse reaction happens and plant warm the cooling atmosphere and trap the heat with the CO2 and water they release. In the ocean, CO2 is taken directly from the water by green plants and algae and replaced by atmospheric CO2, fairly quickly, through wave agitation. This happens wherever plant life exists, everywhere on the planet, with some variances in season, and mode of photosynthesis
This process is the single most important factor in quantifying the kinetics of CO2. Modellers don't have sufficient algorithms to represent forests and green plants (and oceanic photosynthesis for that matter), SO THEY DON'T. What they must do is this: treat the world in the absence of human influence as forever in balance, and static, and assign whatever changes they find to human activity. This is a dangerous, incorrect, and neglectful set of assumptions, presuming that the world doesn't change unless Humans change it. Assuming that the terrestrial arena and the biosphere coupled to it are harmoniously constant is patently absurd. Any conclusions from this mindset are automatically hung on the evils of human activity (which was the original point, I think).
Anyone who knows something about chemistry and physics knows that first you must have the relationship right, then you design an experiment in isolation to derive an immutable, meaningful constant. Take, for instance, CO2. How many times have AGW proponents had to revise a "forcing constant"? "forcing constants" are proposed based on the assumption that the world is being forced out of an established equilibrium by human activity. The very definition of a "forcing constant" reveals it bias. The constant is based on a correlation between temperature rise, and CO2 concentration. Thanks to wealth of dispute data, and an inability to reconcile the original value for the constant with a lack of predicted event coming true, the constant has been changed. This is a pity. I have a better constant, a known, immutable one, to apply to carbon dioxide as a green house gas. Carbon dioxide can have, like every other substance that absorbs light, a molar absorptivity constant ascribed to it. Colored compounds have them, and so too can substances that absorb in the infrared but not in the visible. CO2 would have three such constants permanently affixed to it, one for each band of absorption. The constants would define, using a derived century-old law (Beer-Lambert), just how much light would be absorbed per molecule of CO2. Molar absorptivity. It's little wonder why climate scientists needed a new set of constants: they can't manipulate the true ones.
Just as a taste, we have false correlations, from multivariate data, with lots of room for statistical interpretation. The treatment of CO2 as a input variable and not a output. The negligence of factors which actually dominate the deterination of heat and carbon dioxide, namely photosynthesis and the dominance of water. Models whose algorithms are subjected to outside scrutiny. Manufactured constants.
Climategate is merely the end result of all these machinations, a bunch of liars getting thrust into the sunshine who are now trying to cover their deliberate attempt to dupe the world into doing what their told, by complaining about how they'd been robbed of their confidentiality.
They are fraud writ large and they should be stopped for once and for good.
Samuel D'Arcangelis, Ph.D.
on November 29, 2009
at 10:49 PM
You may search for me on the Internet. In 1994, when I received my degree, there was no such thing as a climate scientist. Climate scientists (until recently, with Universities under pressure, I suspect) are self-proclaimed in their field. I have no direct experience in meteorology (the true Earth science relevant here) What I do have is a full understanding of reaction chemistry, molecular spectroscopy and photochemistry, and reaction kinetics, with enough experience thermodynamics and physics to speak on any level of authority, and I will put my qualifications up against "san quentin" or pretty much anyone else, for comparison so long as I live. It should also be understood that if I can't comprehend an explanation in excruciating detail about how a self-proclaimed climate scientists knows something is true, then you can hardly expect me to jump on the bandwagon. We'll start there.
I have seen precisely zero evidence that global warning is an artifice of Mankind. In fact, I have seen little evidence, much of which is specious (before Climategate), that warming is occuring at all. That CO2 levels are rising, and indeed they can be shown to be, and coincidentally the human population is growing, is a false correlation. "Proof" of that relationship has come in the form of a great deal of data, in which hugh assumptions about relationships are made (e.g. tree ring size to temperature) Also, another false correlation (one that becomes weaker in the last decade) is that between rising temperatures and rising levels of carbon dioxide.
The foundations laid down by these false correlations in the grand double correlation is: that Mankind has increased in numbers and consumes more and more fossil fuels, causing a rise in the CO2 component in the atmosphere. The increased CO2 traps more and more heat causing the average world temperature to rise.
Carbon dioxide is a minor component of our very complex atmosphere. It absorbs precisely three narrow bands of infrared light in a huge manifold of light up through the ultraviolet, that come from the Sun, much of which passes effortlessly to the planet surface. If CO2 and the rest of the atmosphere were that effective in trapping, or arresting incoming solar irradiation, then sunshine wouldn't feel warm on your face.
Water can be (should be)regarded in precisely the same way as CO2, with three bands, (close to the CO2 bands), absorbing infrared light. The main difference is, while there is anywhere from 250 to 350 ppm CO2 in the air (0.03%), distributed essentially equally across the globe, there can be anywhere up to 4 parts per hundred (4.00%) of excess water, distributed inhomogeneously, and locally, across the Earth. But there is much more water than that.
At the earth surface, oceans await to be heated by the solar influs. Consequently, clouds form. Clouds can, in fact, rob one of the sensation of warming one's face during the day. Clouds in turn can block out the sun (or lock in heat) completely. (This is why deserts get so hot in the daytime and cool so quickly at night, not because of the lack of atmospheric CO2, which is everywhere, but because of the lack of water vapor and bodies of liquid water trapping heat or resisting heating and cooling.)
(Direct evidence is seen in infrared radar, used to heighten contrast in weather precipitation. It doesn't see all that excess CO2 rising from industrial regions, but sees atmospheric water vapor, isolated or in clouds.)
Water is by far a more effective "greenhouse gas", and in fact, is the pre-eminent greenhouse gas on the planet, and so shall it always be.
So why not consider water as a componenet in the latest EPA endangerment finding, when CO2 has been labeled such. Because, that would be absurd to the layperson, and rightfully so. CO2 is singled out because it is policitally expedient to do so. Too bad the contribution of water is neglected in every AGW proponents' work. Their modelling might work out to be much more predictive.
Speaking of modelling, until Climate gate, the algorithms for their models have been a closely held secret. This is a shame to the scientfic community. I suspect that they are hiding something, but can't prove it, and that doubt works in their favor.
I DO know for a fact (because we really don't have a good way of doing it now) that the biosphere is completely neglected from the calculations, which again is absurd on its face. Green plants not only remove CO2 from the air, they do so endothermically, that is to say in the process of removal, they ALSO REMOVE HEAT from the system, the atmosphere. This is why forests, even rain forests in the equatorial tropics, are temperate. They'd be much warmer if they photosynthesis didn't consume light directly and convert water and CO2 into sugar and oxygen. At night, the reverse reaction happens and plant warm the cooling atmosphere and trap the heat with the CO2 and water they release. In the ocean, CO2 is taken directly from the water by green plants and algae and replaced by atmospheric CO2, fairly quickly, through wave agitation. This happens wherever plant life exists, everywhere on the planet, with some variances in season, and mode of photosynthesis
This process is the single most important factor in quantifying the kinetics of CO2. Modellers don't have sufficient algorithms to represent forests and green plants (and oceanic photosynthesis for that matter), SO THEY DON'T. What they must do is this: treat the world in the absence of human influence as forever in balance, and static, and assign whatever changes they find to human activity. This is a dangerous, incorrect, and neglectful set of assumptions, presuming that the world doesn't change unless Humans change it. Assuming that the terrestrial arena and the biosphere coupled to it are harmoniously constant is patently absurd. Any conclusions from this mindset are automatically hung on the evils of human activity (which was the original point, I think).
Anyone who knows something about chemistry and physics knows that first you must have the relationship right, then you design an experiment in isolation to derive an immutable, meaningful constant. Take, for instance, CO2. How many times have AGW proponents had to revise a "forcing constant"? "forcing constants" are proposed based on the assumption that the world is being forced out of an established equilibrium by human activity. The very definition of a "forcing constant" reveals it bias. The constant is based on a correlation between temperature rise, and CO2 concentration. Thanks to wealth of dispute data, and an inability to reconcile the original value for the constant with a lack of predicted event coming true, the constant has been changed. This is a pity. I have a better constant, a known, immutable one, to apply to carbon dioxide as a green house gas. Carbon dioxide can have, like every other substance that absorbs light, a molar absorptivity constant ascribed to it. Colored compounds have them, and so too can substances that absorb in the infrared but not in the visible. CO2 would have three such constants permanently affixed to it, one for each band of absorption. The constants would define, using a derived century-old law (Beer-Lambert), just how much light would be absorbed per molecule of CO2. Molar absorptivity. It's little wonder why climate scientists needed a new set of constants: they can't manipulate the true ones.
Just as a taste, we have false correlations, from multivariate data, with lots of room for statistical interpretation. The treatment of CO2 as a input variable and not a output. The negligence of factors which actually dominate the deterination of heat and carbon dioxide, namely photosynthesis and the dominance of water. Models whose algorithms are subjected to outside scrutiny. Manufactured constants.
Climategate is merely the end result of all these machinations, a bunch of liars getting thrust into the sunshine who are now trying to cover their deliberate attempt to dupe the world into doing what their told, by complaining about how they'd been robbed of their confidentiality.
They are fraud writ large and they should be stopped for once and for good.
Samuel D'Arcangelis, Ph.D.
on November 29, 2009
at 10:49 PM
Thursday, November 19, 2009
I know “heathcare reform” is a big topic right now, but one aspect not often written about is health insurance is cheaper in some states. In others it costs as much as the lease on a Ferrari. This isn't because of any flaw in the free market. It's because we don't have a free market! What we have instead are laws that reward corporate welfare benefits to special interests and insurance companies.
The average medical plan in New Jersey costs $37,164 per year. The monthly premiums exceed the lease for a Ferrari! By comparison, Indiana has far fewer corporate welfare mandates dictating what health insurance must cover. People in that state can choose between 43 plans costing less than $5,400 annually!
If the New Jersey family could buy medical insurance from an Indiana provider, they'd save over $31,000 a year! Extend this to the entire country and the results would be dramatic. Simply dropping the law that prohibits insurance companies from selling across state lines, would cover more Americans that this trillion dollar debacle in congress, and it would do it for no cost to the taxpayers, and save everyone who has coverage a lot of money.
One study indicates that this simple reform would make medical insurance instantly affordable for over 12 million “uninsured Americans”. If Americans had the freedom of insurance choice, the State legislatures will have to start competing with other states to repeal their corporate welfare mandates. And insurance companies will compete to provide better coverage at lower prices
All Americans should have free market choices in health insurance! No American should have to pay corporate welfare benefits through their insurance premiums, or have to go without insurance. You can make this possible, so call your senators and make your opinion known. Oppose the cancerous healthcare bill being pushed in the House and Senate. Oppose complicated insurance buying pools. Instead, please just fix the problems politicians created!
This issue is important to people here in the 7th district, and people want to be represented by someone who shares their appreciation of market solutions instead of failed political “solutions”
The average medical plan in New Jersey costs $37,164 per year. The monthly premiums exceed the lease for a Ferrari! By comparison, Indiana has far fewer corporate welfare mandates dictating what health insurance must cover. People in that state can choose between 43 plans costing less than $5,400 annually!
If the New Jersey family could buy medical insurance from an Indiana provider, they'd save over $31,000 a year! Extend this to the entire country and the results would be dramatic. Simply dropping the law that prohibits insurance companies from selling across state lines, would cover more Americans that this trillion dollar debacle in congress, and it would do it for no cost to the taxpayers, and save everyone who has coverage a lot of money.
One study indicates that this simple reform would make medical insurance instantly affordable for over 12 million “uninsured Americans”. If Americans had the freedom of insurance choice, the State legislatures will have to start competing with other states to repeal their corporate welfare mandates. And insurance companies will compete to provide better coverage at lower prices
All Americans should have free market choices in health insurance! No American should have to pay corporate welfare benefits through their insurance premiums, or have to go without insurance. You can make this possible, so call your senators and make your opinion known. Oppose the cancerous healthcare bill being pushed in the House and Senate. Oppose complicated insurance buying pools. Instead, please just fix the problems politicians created!
This issue is important to people here in the 7th district, and people want to be represented by someone who shares their appreciation of market solutions instead of failed political “solutions”
Monday, September 21, 2009
I was reading http://www.biggovernment.com/ and came upon a reply that really made sence, so I wanted to share it with y'all.
There seems to be an obsession on the left to understand the mind of evil people.
All of MSNBC's programming between their daytime and primetime anchoring duties is devoted to analyzing either Charlie Manson's mind, being inside of a high security prison, or catching a sexual predator.
On the other side of the coin FOX looks at war heroes with Oliver North.
If you ever want to understand the difference between a mind of a liberal and a mind of a conservative, this is it.
No wonder the left seems so open to evil people like Chavez and Castro, and willing to bring people like Ahmadinejad from Iran to the table. They're walking into the abyss and don't know the way back.
watchman - September 19th, 2009 at 12:15 am
http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/18/dateline-nbc-to-catch-an-acorn-organizer/#more-5074
There seems to be an obsession on the left to understand the mind of evil people.
All of MSNBC's programming between their daytime and primetime anchoring duties is devoted to analyzing either Charlie Manson's mind, being inside of a high security prison, or catching a sexual predator.
On the other side of the coin FOX looks at war heroes with Oliver North.
If you ever want to understand the difference between a mind of a liberal and a mind of a conservative, this is it.
No wonder the left seems so open to evil people like Chavez and Castro, and willing to bring people like Ahmadinejad from Iran to the table. They're walking into the abyss and don't know the way back.
watchman - September 19th, 2009 at 12:15 am
http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/18/dateline-nbc-to-catch-an-acorn-organizer/#more-5074
Saturday, September 19, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that Indiana's voter identification law is unconstitutional.
6News is looking through the 29-page ruling now and will provide details from it as soon as possible.
The decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's voter ID law in 2008, a week before the presidential primary, in a splintered 6-3 ruling.
Backers of the law, which requires a voter to present a photo identification to cast a ballot, said it curbs voter fraud.
Those against the law contend that it keeps poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.
The law passed in 2005 with the ardent support of Gov. Mitch Daniels and other Republicans in state government.
The argument is that its not fair that absentee voters aren't held to the same standard as in-person voters. (Because the supreme court has already ruled that the way IDs are handled for in-person voters is permissible, so they are tossing up a bogus complaint that absentee ballots are treated differently. easy fix, ask for the same ID requirements for absentee ballots)
The supreme court has ruled that its permissible to ask for ID if the state allows for free ID for those without means.
(In this day and age, who can do anything without ID? How do you cash a check? get on a bus, or plane?)
Two thoughts,
1. Those of you in Indiana must contact your State legislator immediately , and change the absentee ballot process by adding a requirement to add a state ID number, and adding a state procedure wherein county registrars cross verify that the ID number matches the name and address. Military ID similar, asking them for military ID number on the affidavit.
2. Missouri residents, our voter ID law is related and similar enough that the folks that rely on voter fraud to get elected will encourage the ACLU to file a suit to throw our law out on similar grounds. So the same thing for us, call your state rep, explain the problem, and ask for a bill to standardize ballot access between in-person and absentee voters.
This will affect the 2010 mid-term elections if not fixed quickly.
If I am elected to the house of Representatives, my first effort will be to work to enact similar federal requirements for federal elections.
Dean Moore
www.deanmoore.us
6News is looking through the 29-page ruling now and will provide details from it as soon as possible.
The decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's voter ID law in 2008, a week before the presidential primary, in a splintered 6-3 ruling.
Backers of the law, which requires a voter to present a photo identification to cast a ballot, said it curbs voter fraud.
Those against the law contend that it keeps poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.
The law passed in 2005 with the ardent support of Gov. Mitch Daniels and other Republicans in state government.
The argument is that its not fair that absentee voters aren't held to the same standard as in-person voters. (Because the supreme court has already ruled that the way IDs are handled for in-person voters is permissible, so they are tossing up a bogus complaint that absentee ballots are treated differently. easy fix, ask for the same ID requirements for absentee ballots)
The supreme court has ruled that its permissible to ask for ID if the state allows for free ID for those without means.
(In this day and age, who can do anything without ID? How do you cash a check? get on a bus, or plane?)
Two thoughts,
1. Those of you in Indiana must contact your State legislator immediately , and change the absentee ballot process by adding a requirement to add a state ID number, and adding a state procedure wherein county registrars cross verify that the ID number matches the name and address. Military ID similar, asking them for military ID number on the affidavit.
2. Missouri residents, our voter ID law is related and similar enough that the folks that rely on voter fraud to get elected will encourage the ACLU to file a suit to throw our law out on similar grounds. So the same thing for us, call your state rep, explain the problem, and ask for a bill to standardize ballot access between in-person and absentee voters.
This will affect the 2010 mid-term elections if not fixed quickly.
If I am elected to the house of Representatives, my first effort will be to work to enact similar federal requirements for federal elections.
Dean Moore
www.deanmoore.us
Thursday, September 17, 2009
(stolen from Liberator online) Signs from the Rally in DC 9/12
Here are a few of our favorites, culled from photos scattered across the Web:
"No Child Left a Dime"
"You Are Not Entitled to What I Earn"
"Don't Steal -- The Government Hates Competition"
"Our government needs to be small enough to fit inside our Constitution."
"STOP the March to SOCIALISM"
"Bankrupt America, Yes We Can"
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
"I'm Not Your ATM"
"NOBAMACARE"
"Change We Can't Afford"
"The IRS is 96 Years Old -- Let IT Die"
"Karl Marx is Not a Founding Father"
"HONK if I'm Paying Your Mortgage" (held by small child)
"STOP Spending MY future!" (held by child)
"Help me, Mr. Obama. They want me to work and stuff."
"As government expands, liberty shrinks."
"Party like it's 1773."
"Don't tax me, bro!"
"Silence is consent"
"Chains We Can Believe In"
... and we especially like this one, which pithily combines sound policy and common sense: "LIBERTY: All The Stimulus We Need!"
Here are a few of our favorites, culled from photos scattered across the Web:
"No Child Left a Dime"
"You Are Not Entitled to What I Earn"
"Don't Steal -- The Government Hates Competition"
"Our government needs to be small enough to fit inside our Constitution."
"STOP the March to SOCIALISM"
"Bankrupt America, Yes We Can"
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
"I'm Not Your ATM"
"NOBAMACARE"
"Change We Can't Afford"
"The IRS is 96 Years Old -- Let IT Die"
"Karl Marx is Not a Founding Father"
"HONK if I'm Paying Your Mortgage" (held by small child)
"STOP Spending MY future!" (held by child)
"Help me, Mr. Obama. They want me to work and stuff."
"As government expands, liberty shrinks."
"Party like it's 1773."
"Don't tax me, bro!"
"Silence is consent"
"Chains We Can Believe In"
... and we especially like this one, which pithily combines sound policy and common sense: "LIBERTY: All The Stimulus We Need!"
Obama stabs our Eastern European allies in the back. not cool. I think this is stupid and shortsighted. And for normal, thinking Americans, I am sorry. this is not how normal Americans act or think. Please hold out hope that this can be corrected at our next election, dont hold it against us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/world/europe/17iht-letter.html?_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/world/europe/17iht-letter.html?_r=1
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense, which is paramount to all positive forms of government; and which, against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success, than against those of the rulers of an individual state. ... Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments; and those will have the same disposition toward the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. ...
"It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority."
"It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority."
"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. Winston Churchill.
There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
The Spartans at Thermopylae knew this.
The fighting Jews of Masada knew this, when every man, woman and child died rather than submit to Roman tyranny.
The Texans who died at the Alamo knew this.
The frozen patriots of Valley Forge knew this.
The "expendable men" of Bataan and Corregidor knew this.
If there is one lesson of Hitlerism and the Holocaust, it is that free men, if they wish to remain free, must resist would-be tyrants at the first opportunity and at every opportunity.
Remember that whether they the come as conquerors or elected officials, the men who secretly wish to be your murderers must first convince you that you must accept them as your masters. Free men and women must not wait until they are "selected", divided and herded into Warsaw Ghettos, there to finally fight desperately, almost without weapons, and die outnumbered. The tyrant must be met at the door when he appears. At your door, or mine, wherever he shows his bloody appetite. He must be met by the pistol which can defeat an army. He must be met at every door, for in truth we outnumber him and his henchmen. It matters not whether they call themselves Communists or Nazis or something else. It matters not what flag they fly, nor what uniform they wear. It matters not what excuses they give for stealing your liberty, your property or your life. "By their works ye shall know them."
There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
The Spartans at Thermopylae knew this.
The fighting Jews of Masada knew this, when every man, woman and child died rather than submit to Roman tyranny.
The Texans who died at the Alamo knew this.
The frozen patriots of Valley Forge knew this.
The "expendable men" of Bataan and Corregidor knew this.
If there is one lesson of Hitlerism and the Holocaust, it is that free men, if they wish to remain free, must resist would-be tyrants at the first opportunity and at every opportunity.
Remember that whether they the come as conquerors or elected officials, the men who secretly wish to be your murderers must first convince you that you must accept them as your masters. Free men and women must not wait until they are "selected", divided and herded into Warsaw Ghettos, there to finally fight desperately, almost without weapons, and die outnumbered. The tyrant must be met at the door when he appears. At your door, or mine, wherever he shows his bloody appetite. He must be met by the pistol which can defeat an army. He must be met at every door, for in truth we outnumber him and his henchmen. It matters not whether they call themselves Communists or Nazis or something else. It matters not what flag they fly, nor what uniform they wear. It matters not what excuses they give for stealing your liberty, your property or your life. "By their works ye shall know them."
Thursday, September 03, 2009
My local school district has told me that they had no intention of showing Obama's video assignment.
Good for them. Another school district has publically said they they will tape it, look it over, give parents time to absorb its contents, and decide for themselves what to tell their kids. After that they will decide when to show it, and for which grades. good for them.
In my old state, schools would have played it without hesitation, and told parents to pound sand.
Good for them. Another school district has publically said they they will tape it, look it over, give parents time to absorb its contents, and decide for themselves what to tell their kids. After that they will decide when to show it, and for which grades. good for them.
In my old state, schools would have played it without hesitation, and told parents to pound sand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeuBB_mOFIA
www.donttearmedown.com
if you are a Patriot, this should really tick you off.
www.donttearmedown.com
if you are a Patriot, this should really tick you off.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friends and Citizens:
We the People
We the People, does that mean anything anymore?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America...
Friends, we are at a crossroads in American history. The American family has had trials before, we have had hard times, and monumental struggles, these are not new, what’s new is the scope of the gaping division between the American people, and the government they own, and are supposed to control.
The government that is supposed to be ours is actively working in its own self interest, and not ours as a people. The “arsenal of democracy” is being systematically dismantled, and our strengths of resources are denied us. We have the best skilled workforce the world has ever seen, yet our jobs go overseas, to escape smothering taxes. We have natural resources to rival anywhere else on earth, yet many are off limits, enabling foreign powers to control us unnecessarily. We are one American family, yet we are polarized into groups. Groups are more easily controlled and coerced. Individuals in large numbers are not as easily coerced or controlled.
George Washington wrote in his farewell address that political parties and special interest groups “may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
In case you have been away, we are here now.
He also stated “It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”
Overlapping spheres of expanding government at all levels is smothering the freedom and liberty we grew up with and assumed we would be able to pass down to our “posterity”
President Washington also spoke about public debt. “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate.”
In this day and age when “we the people” has been replaced by “you the mob” and Americans are sensing that their liberty is being eroded before their eyes. Our focus as freedom-loving Americans needs to be on how we get back to our foundation, and systematically dismantle the extra-constitutional and un-constitutional appendages that extend out of every pore of our government, like snakes from medusa’s head.
We didn’t get here overnight, and we shouldn’t expect to get back overnight, but we need to steer the ship of state back onto its original course. The 2010 elections will signal whether we wish as a people to continue to drift towards stateism, or freedom, towards socialism or liberty.
I’m not denouncing government; I love constitutional government and the stability and justice it provides. I am asking you the owners of our shared government to use your ownership to return our shared inheritance back to the government that made us a great nation, and repel the current movement toward tyranny.
Dr.Seuss said it well, “ Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple”The problems facing our nation are many and complicated, but the correct answers are simple. Freedom, Liberty and personal responsibility will correct and overpower politics as usual every time it’s tried.
We the People
We the People, does that mean anything anymore?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America...
Friends, we are at a crossroads in American history. The American family has had trials before, we have had hard times, and monumental struggles, these are not new, what’s new is the scope of the gaping division between the American people, and the government they own, and are supposed to control.
The government that is supposed to be ours is actively working in its own self interest, and not ours as a people. The “arsenal of democracy” is being systematically dismantled, and our strengths of resources are denied us. We have the best skilled workforce the world has ever seen, yet our jobs go overseas, to escape smothering taxes. We have natural resources to rival anywhere else on earth, yet many are off limits, enabling foreign powers to control us unnecessarily. We are one American family, yet we are polarized into groups. Groups are more easily controlled and coerced. Individuals in large numbers are not as easily coerced or controlled.
George Washington wrote in his farewell address that political parties and special interest groups “may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
In case you have been away, we are here now.
He also stated “It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”
Overlapping spheres of expanding government at all levels is smothering the freedom and liberty we grew up with and assumed we would be able to pass down to our “posterity”
President Washington also spoke about public debt. “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate.”
In this day and age when “we the people” has been replaced by “you the mob” and Americans are sensing that their liberty is being eroded before their eyes. Our focus as freedom-loving Americans needs to be on how we get back to our foundation, and systematically dismantle the extra-constitutional and un-constitutional appendages that extend out of every pore of our government, like snakes from medusa’s head.
We didn’t get here overnight, and we shouldn’t expect to get back overnight, but we need to steer the ship of state back onto its original course. The 2010 elections will signal whether we wish as a people to continue to drift towards stateism, or freedom, towards socialism or liberty.
I’m not denouncing government; I love constitutional government and the stability and justice it provides. I am asking you the owners of our shared government to use your ownership to return our shared inheritance back to the government that made us a great nation, and repel the current movement toward tyranny.
Dr.Seuss said it well, “ Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple”The problems facing our nation are many and complicated, but the correct answers are simple. Freedom, Liberty and personal responsibility will correct and overpower politics as usual every time it’s tried.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Washington's Farewell Address 1796
1796
Friends and Citizens:
The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They 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.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and 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 and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and 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.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: 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 ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.
How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.
In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the twenty-second of April, I793, is the index of my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.
The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.
Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
Geo. Washington.
1796
Friends and Citizens:
The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.
The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.
Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They 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.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and 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 and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and 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.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: 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 ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.
How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.
In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the twenty-second of April, I793, is the index of my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.
After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.
The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all.
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.
The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.
Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
Geo. Washington.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Thursday, August 06, 2009
John Bresnahan – Thu Aug 6, 5:33 am ET (found at Politico)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moves in a rarefied world of high society and high-level politics — and nothing underscores that fact quite like her plans for the August recess.
Pelosi will spend next weekend quietly tending to top party donors and political allies at a series of private events in Northern California.
The two-day “issues conference” starts next Friday night with a dinner for roughly 170 guests on the back lawn of Pelosi’s multimillion-dollar home in the fashionable Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco.
The following day, Pelosi will shepherd her guests to a Napa Valley winery with buildings designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry; the speaker and her husband, investor Paul Pelosi, own a nearby vineyard worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to her annual financial disclosure report.
There’s nothing unusual about leaders using recess to fund- and friend-raise. Before leaving town last week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor raked in $1.1 million for fellow Republicans at a lobbyist-heavy fundraiser on Capitol Hill.
And Pelosi’s staff notes that her California session will involve more than just schmoozing with the wealthy and well-connected. The speaker will lead policy discussions on health care, energy reform and the economy, among other topics. Scheduled to speak are Obama adviser David Axelrod, CNN commentator and former Clinton adviser James Carville and Mark Zandi, an economic adviser to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign who has been providing advice to the Obama White House. (imagine that)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moves in a rarefied world of high society and high-level politics — and nothing underscores that fact quite like her plans for the August recess.
Pelosi will spend next weekend quietly tending to top party donors and political allies at a series of private events in Northern California.
The two-day “issues conference” starts next Friday night with a dinner for roughly 170 guests on the back lawn of Pelosi’s multimillion-dollar home in the fashionable Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco.
The following day, Pelosi will shepherd her guests to a Napa Valley winery with buildings designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry; the speaker and her husband, investor Paul Pelosi, own a nearby vineyard worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to her annual financial disclosure report.
There’s nothing unusual about leaders using recess to fund- and friend-raise. Before leaving town last week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor raked in $1.1 million for fellow Republicans at a lobbyist-heavy fundraiser on Capitol Hill.
And Pelosi’s staff notes that her California session will involve more than just schmoozing with the wealthy and well-connected. The speaker will lead policy discussions on health care, energy reform and the economy, among other topics. Scheduled to speak are Obama adviser David Axelrod, CNN commentator and former Clinton adviser James Carville and Mark Zandi, an economic adviser to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign who has been providing advice to the Obama White House. (imagine that)
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005 (My first Pastor)
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005 (My first Pastor)
Monday, August 03, 2009
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