Wednesday, January 31, 2007

We could use a man like George Washington again!

I just got back from my martial arts class. I am enjoying it greatly though I am completely spent. Thought I would send you over to here to read of George Washington’s farewell speech. It is an excellent read and I would say wise council that applies even today – funny how truth is like that. He knew what he was talking about when he said:

“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.”

That speech only gets better. Go on over and check it out. I am headed for the hot water bottle and a beer.

Talk to ya soon.

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