by Scott Creighton (inserts from George Washington’s Farewell Address)

You want to see what blind allegiance to “Party” looks like? Would you like to guess where it leads? No nation, based on a constitutional representation of the will of the governed, of the whole of the governed, can stand for long when it’s spirit is skillfully divided and fractionated by an elite ruling class.

- “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;…” GW.

There must be a set of norms that we all accept that define us as a community and as a nation to bind us one to the other. These are the standards of behavior and laws that govern that make up the very belief systems that, to some degree, we must all share as a common identity. This is who we are as a people; the core principles of our communal agreement. And this is what is being systematically undermined through party manipulation by these elites who are beholden to the precepts of no party, but rather, to an oath of loyalty to each other.

- “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.” GW.

There is no party that has within it’s charter, a call for the ultimate erosion of our unified freedoms as a whole. All parties believe they alone know the way to advance the common interests of the nation and it’s people. They all proclaim adherence to our laws, to the oaths of our shared constitution, and to the pursuit of the greater good for all Americans. As we adopt a party’s mandates that conform to our personal perception of what is best for this nation, none of us do so with the willing intention to undermine the progress of this nation. In short, we are all fighting to “save this country” by the acquisition of power for our chosen party.

- “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.” GW.

No individual can rise to legitimate power over the whole of the governed, born in contempt of so many and with complicity of his own indiscretions from the rest, to justly rule with the consent of all. As is the case within our personal lives and with the image we project abroad as a people, it is always within our own that we must demand the highest standards rather than accepting the lowest denominator, if we are to insure, not the perception of integrity, but integrity itself.

- “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.”GW.

Once any institution becomes deliberately detrimental to the continuation of the core unity of our community, then it must be either struck from the community or reformed. If we are ever expected to demand from the opposition party leaders adherence to; our common laws, our standards of behavior, and our belief systems, and yet we are then encouraged to extend to our party leaders immunity from that same demand, then we have been, in fact, encouraged to forgo those basic tenants that hold us one man to the other. We have been asked to turn our backs on our brother, for the purposes of party. And in some cases, such has been demanded of us.

Any willingness to ignore serious indiscretions, places the needs of the party over the demands of the nation. Such actions cannot ever produce positive results, for if we do not hold our party to the constructs of what we have agreed to as a people and a community, then what does our party truly represent? The ultimate danger of this, is that once we begin to blindly review our own, we must as a sentient being, thus justify this complacency, our willing complacency, by removing the perception of the offending action as a trespass on the communal contract. We redefine what is at our core, the binds that unite us all, to suit the needs of the artificial faction.

And then we are not nation of brothers but a nation defined only by the happenstance of birth; bound only by the limits of our geographical boarders.

- “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?” GW.

- “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.” GW.

The standard of uniform vigilance must never be reduced, as leaders of parties both would have us believe, to a race to find the lowest common denominator that we as a people will accept. Morality, courage, faith, and integrity are the cornerstones of this community, our nation, our people. It has always been such. Be wary of any who would suggest even a momentary lapse from these our highest of standards. For this is not the country that we seek to hold together, but its soul. And our own.