Hypocritic oath and an ignored reading

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

U.S. Constitution, Article VI

Somehow, we have a Congress that gave an oath to the Koch brothers and made sure they passed the religious anti-tax test of Grover Norquist.

Every year the Senate has a public reading of George Washington’s “Farewell Address” and the next day they ignore what he wrote.  Maybe many of them stayed away during the reading or slept through it.

"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 an habitual hatred, or an 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."

Who has the U.S. become beholden to either as a friend or as an enemy: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Cuba .

Does the Senate really believe Washington's Farewell Address?

I posted the following to “Will the Presidency Survive This President”, Eric Posner and Emily Bazelon, New York Times, 2017-05-20

Dear Reader,

Every year on Washington's Birthday, the Senate has one of its members read George Washington's "Farewell Address".  You can find a copy at https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/WashFarewell.pdf.

Your homework assignment is to read George Washington's "Farewell Address" and send both your Senators a quote that you feel is appropriate to current events.

You probably can find many quotes that support what the Senate is doing and that chastise them for not following the advice Washington gave.

Two that stand out for me are his warning about factions and the danger of foreign entanglements, both with friend and foe.

Reminders from George Washington

Tomorrow, if tradition is followed, a U. S. Senator will read George Washington's "Farewell Address".  Correction: the reading is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Monday, 2013-02-25.  .Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, read it last year, and so a Republican Senator will read it this year.  Click here for more about this tradition.

No matter the party of whomever reads it, from Congresses past and current actions, I feel that Congress, and many others, politicians or not, ignore some very important parts of Washington's address.  Click here for the full text from the Library of Congress.

Here are some of my selections that I feel we as a nation have ignored:

"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. "

"To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute."

"The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government pre-supposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government."

"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."

"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 spirit of party] "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.'

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…"

"…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 an habitual hatred, or an 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."