Ask anybody you meet these days what is wrong with this country and your likely to receive one of two answers: it's the conservative Republicans or it's the liberal Democrats. The days of members of each party disagreeing on day to day issues, but understanding what our core principles are and sticking to those are long behind us. Politicians disagreeing obviously isn't anything new, it goes back to the beginning of our nation and beyond.
But back then, the founders, even founders that disagreed, still understood what our core tenets were.
As a self proclaimed historian, I believe that our founding fathers got it right and that the Constitution is a document suitable for all times and situations, but only when used as it was intended. The Constitution very clearly lays out exactly what powers are delegated to each branch of our government. It then says that if something isn't specifically delegated to the federal government, then it falls to the states and the people. Sounds pretty easy to understand right? If the Constitution doesn't specifically give a certain power to the federal government, then it can't do it.
But the problem is the manipulation of the Constitution. The Constitution has been manipulated for decades now by Presidents and politicians, all in the name of interpretation. They claim that they "interpret" the Constitution in a different way than others might have. This is a total and complete fallacy. There is no "interpreting the Constitution", there is only reading it. It says what it means and it means what it says. When you get pulled over for say, running a red light, you don't tell the officer, "I'm sorry officer, but I interpreted that as meaning to stop only if there's traffic", or something along those lines.
With each passing day the division in our country becomes greater and greater. But Why? How did it start and where did it come from? Well, unfortunately the answer goes very deep and it would take an entire book to really flesh out what all of our problems are and where they originate from, so I'm just going to go straight to the source: political parties.
Political parties are the bane of our system of government. The biggest problem facing our nation today is that we have an overly bloated, overly intrusive, and over powered federal government. If the founders could see our nation today they'd be overwhelmed with feelings of sorrow and failure. This is not what they intended. Democrats and Republicans hate each other. There's no nice way to word it, they HATE each other. Just read any number of comments on political stories on any number of websites. But it's not supposed to be this way. And it's not like we weren't warned.
Here's a small snippet of what our first president, George Washington, had to say regarding political parties in his farewell address to the nation:
"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."
So here we have George Washington, one of our nation's founders and our 1st President of the United States, telling us that political parties would be bad for our nation and our system of government all the way back in 1796, talk about foresight. He spends a good deal of time pointing out the dangers of political parties in his Farewell Address because he truly believed that it posed a very great danger to our republic.
Here is what he had to say about why it wouldn't work:
"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."
Sound familiar? This is exactly what we are experiencing today, and have been for many decades. Political parties only serve to separate us in times of trial where we should be closer than ever. The political party serves as the engine to one of the oldest war tactics in history, divide and conquer. Turn us against each other so that our enemies may more easily triumph against us.
We have lived under a two-party dictatorship for almost the entirety of our union. Has it worked? I would say a resounding "no" properly answers that question. Every four years Americans go to the polls and vote for either a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal. These titles, Republican, Democrat, Conservative, and Liberal are tools used to turn us against each other.
So what's the solution? A good starting point would be to remove party affiliation from the ballot box. List only the candidates name. Removing party affiliation would force voters to actually learn about the candidates instead of just walking in and voting for whatever party they belong to. To maintain a truly free nation it would be unwise to simply outlaw political parties, so the next step would be a more gradual but ultimately more rewarding outcome, which is to create a general consensus that political parties are bad for our nation.
We need only to use the previous two hundred years, from the beginnings of political parties to the current day, as a shining example of the treachery of party. Party serves only to divide the people, to bend the nation to the will of the party, to allow control by satellite nations. Party serves to create fear, angst, prejudice, and hate between the patriotic citizens of a nation. I fear that in the end it will be the political parties that are our nations ultimate undoing, because any other threat that befalls us will have been made possible by the cancer that is political parties.
