Ideology is harmless until and unless it results in action. A belief system held by anyone or any group has meaning to and affects only them unless through their actions it is forced upon others. Zealots of any stripe are the bane of freemen worldwide. The zealots of political party ideology have set the United States upon a course that can only lead to its downfall. Political representatives in government can not compromise for the good of the Nation for fear that their fanatical constituencies will reject them in the next round of elections. No longer is public service their mantra but a zealous adherence to party ideology regardless of the damage to the nation. The founders of the Republic understood that division into political parties would eventually end their dream of a Nation of a free and independent People. George Washington in a letter to Timothy Pickering on Jul. 27, 1795 expressed his disdain of the party sysem when he wrote:

“Indeed to be regretted, party disputes are now carried to such a length, and truth is so enveloped in mist and false representation, that it is extremely difficult to know through what channel to seek it. This difficulty to one, who is of no party, and whose sole wish is to pursue with undeviating steps a path which would lead this country to respectability, wealth, and happiness, is exceedingly to be lamented. But such, for wise purposes, it is presumed, is the turbulence of human passions in party disputes, when victory more than truth is the palm contended for.”

He also wrote:

“However [political parties] 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.”

John Adams wrote:

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

Even a modern day president Dwight Eisenhower warned of the effect of political party ideology when he said in 1956:

“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.”

So, here we stand today, a nation divided by zealous ideology at the brink of collapse, fighting over meaningless issues of political correctness while the debt piles up and the Peoples freedom diminishes. Bands of militarized police forces roam our city streets while criminals grow evermore bold and dangerous. More and more People are unemployed and receiving food stamps and government assistance while the elite crony capitalists expand their wealth through bailouts and government contracts. The ideal of a free people acting in concert with each other in a free market system envisioned by the founders has been hijacked by a political party system and political operatives whose only objective is reelection in the next cycle. Government through party ideology controls, rewards, punishes and determines the success of enterprises in the United States. The winners and losers are determined by the party in power. How is this any different than the central planning of the old school communists?

It certainly wasn’t the vision of the founders when they began the Republic. They had much more faith in the People than the politicians of today. They believed that the People deserved the freedom with which they were endowed by the Creator and that legitimate government is instituted only to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Posterity.” What inheritance shall this generation of party ideologists leave their Posterity? A mountain of debt and less and less Liberty?

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