Never Walked In High Heels

General Washington warned us about this. In his farewell address as president he begged his fellow founding fathers not to allow political parties to be formed in the United States. In 1796 he wrote “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.”

Sound familiar? Thought so.

I had a school teacher who refused to discuss abortion in the classroom claiming that it was an issue that was so passionate that nobody ever listened, they just became more certain about being right. I’m starting to feel that way about any political issue. I actually heard a friend tell me last month “You’re a Republican. You don’t know anything.” I don’t know which was more surprising: that fact that I was a Republican or the fact I was an idiot. I never considered myself much of either. If both are the case, I would like a refund of my college tuition.

Washington D.C., over the summer, has dissolved into a three ring circus where each faction is simply trying to dominate the other. Gone are the days of discussing ideas and refining issues. Rather, the system is being flooded by bills which are over one thousand pages long, stimulus packages nobody can afford, and fear tactics which could make a mob boss quake. Our government, born from the ideals of reason and the Enlightenment, has dissolved into the audience of a freak show with the American people as the ones in cages.

Don’t fool yourself. The democrats of today are not of the same breed as JFK and FDR. And our republicans are not of the same ilk as Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, maybe the people they serve are not of the same temper as Americans used to be. Perhaps it is my youth speaking, but there must have been a time when stating any political affiliation didn’t put you at risk for being listed as a social pariah. And perhaps those were the same times that we didn’t look to others for ‘hope’ because we were able to find it in ourselves, in our own situation, and in our mundane lives. The Washington D.C. of today is the Capitol we bred, political polarization and all.

When George Washington spoke of “the minds of men,” he wasn’t talking about politicians. The founding fathers wrote that all men are created equal, meaning that the farmer is the same as the statesman and the banker. We all have this horrible tendency to fragment and split when it comes to politics. It becomes an ‘us versus them’ form of seeing the world. As you read this, Washington D.C. is taking this attitude and running with it seizing every split and fractioning as an opportunity to seize power and clamp down on liberty. We, at home, must fix this because the problem started with us. If we all are equal, we all have an opinion meant to be heard and respected if not shared. Start speaking amongst yourselves at the dinner table. Start disagreeing so you can refine your theses. Start seeing yourselves as people who look to define freedom rather than political parties. And above all, stop waiting for other people to fix your problems.

Some political pundits say that our government no longer represents the people. They are wrong. Given how hot tempered and arrogant I’ve seen Americans become over something like torte reform and tax law, Congress is doing a very good job of representing us. People deserve the government they elect according to Alexis de Toqueville. Trouble is, now that the elected officials have seen our mayhem and used it for a show of their own, we are starting to see that elephants can smell, donkeys can look pretty pathetic, the woman in the evening gown isn’t really that good of a singer, and all the hoopla makes one wonder exactly what’s going on back stage.