Some words to pass on to your Senators

Given the rush to pass a budget, please pass the following to your Senators.  They had it read in January and probably ignored it the next day.

“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 councils 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.”

- George Washington, "Farewell Address"

Let’s have facts, not factions

Every year the Senate reads George Washington’s Farewell Address, and every year they ignore it.  This also leads to the break-down of the deliberate designation of three INDEPENDENT branches of government.

The quiescent Republicans seem to have ignored Washington’s warning agains factions more than any Congress in decades.

“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 triumphsof 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 councils 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 theeins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Please send this to your Senators and Representatives, regardless of party.  Your letters may give them some backbone to take action on George Washington's warning.

Donald Trump has worn me down

When I read the reports of Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations, I could not get over the feeling that it was George Washington’s worst nightmare.

Washington warned against factions.  Donald Trump is creating them faster than I can even type “faction”.

In his Farewell Address, which the Senate reads every year and then ignores, George Washington warned against factions:

“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.”

Donald Trump railed against North Korea and Iran.  George Washington warned against being too close to other nations and against being too hostile to foreign nations:

“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.”

I plan to send this reminder to my Senators: Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar.  If you are a U.S. reader, I hope you will send something similar to your Senators, regardless of their party.

But I have no idea how many real, live U.S. readers I have.  Every so often I get a big wave of Russian readers.  My feed is generally United Kingdom readers.  I get a lot of French readers, but I only have three correspondents in France.  Are these other readers really French, or are they Russian trolls?  I do know that at least one U.S. troll site is really a Russian front.

These trolls and Donald Trump have worn me down.  I don’t really know when I will be inspired to post more here.

When the World Is Led by a Child

Comment to New York Times article by David Brooks (note: Brooks is considered a conservative)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html?comments#permid=22518785

George Washington warned about the abject support of Trump by the Republicans:

"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.”

Every year on Washington's birthday, a member of the Senate reads Washington's "Farewell Address". And every year the Senate ignores his advice by dividing itself along party lines. We now see almost lockstep support of Trump by Republicans and lockstep opposition to Trump by Democrats.

Maybe someday the the voters will grow up and elect grown-ups to political office.

The world’s greatest deliberative body?

I’ve long thought that calling the U.S. Senate was an American conceit.  Now we are seeing it as one of the world’s greatest political games.  It is more fixed opinions than it is deliberative.

The polarization seems to grow by the day.  Have all these Senators stopped reading the Constitution?  Are they even paying attention when they have their ritual reading of “Washington’s Farewell Address”.  Among the many admonitions are his warnings about “overgrown military establishments” and the forming of factions.

If Senators have already declared their positions on almost every issue, they are really putting lie to “deliberative body”.

For more on the Senatorial dysfunction, see “On the death of the world’s greatest deliberative body”, Paul Kane, Washington Post, 2017-01-31.

Does U.S. Senate follow advice it honors?

Every year, the U.S. Senate has a member read George Washington’s Farewell Address.  For more details of this, see https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.htm.

It is a slog for many of us today to read the Address in its entirety, but it has much that has been ignored, even by those who read it.  For example,

"Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establish-ments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."

Or, very germane to the current Senate:

"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.  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.”

Have the many Republican Senators who have read the Farewell Address already forgotten:

"It is important, likewise, that the habits of think-ing 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."

There is much to agree with and some to disagree with, but the main thrust should be a guide for all of us.  What bothers me is how much those who annually read and listen to the reading of this document soon ignore it.

I ask my readers to select a few key points and write, email, or phone their two Senators if they are honestly following these points or have compelling reasons in the public interest to ignore some of Washington’s advice.

For the text, see https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21/pdf/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21.pdf.

See also "Did George Washington warn us about Donald Trump".