You may think that you are living through a one-of-a-kind end of liberty and civilization, but I am sorry to inform you that we're simply repeating one of history's lessons because we stopped paying attention.
In his 1796 farewell address, President George Washington warned us about everything that is happening today. From our crime lord houseplant-in-chief to our angry cultural divide to the plans to pack the Supreme Court, Washington warned us all about what would happen if we stopped safeguarding liberty for the briefest of moments.
We have all the cumulative knowledge of mankind at our fingertips every moment of the day, but we now lack simple wisdom to understand things like our basic human nature. Because of that, we don't understand a fraction of what men like Washington once understood about power, governance, and society.
Washington's whole farewell address is worth reading, but since I know you want to get back over to Facebook reels or sports ball, I'm going to give you six warnings that Washington gave us so you know what's happening as it unfolds in the years to come:
1. Weak Men Will Erode the Constitution Because It Can't Be Destroyed Overnight
Towards the preservation of your Government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles however specious the pretexts.
One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
Washington warned us that people would try to alter the Constitution to undermine it.
Here's an example from this week:
The Constitution is a document that plainly lists what the government is allowed to do. It reserves all other rights to the People, and in some cases, like the Bill of Rights, it plainly makes clear what foundational rights the government has no business interfering with.
Instead of viewing the Constitution as a clear definition of the very limited box that government must stay in, however, men like Joe Biden view it as a magic document that can give the government new rights when needed.
When you eliminate borders, blow out national spending, try to pack the judiciary, remove measures meant to temper and safeguard like the filibuster or Electoral College, rule by executive-order fiat, and have a president who constantly says his lawyers told him the Constitution gives him the powers he wants at the exact moment he wants them, you get rid of the barriers that keep a powerful person from becoming too powerful.
In religion, sports, and government, when you twist and stretch and break the rules, those rules are no longer taken seriously. What happens next is called a "free-for-all," ladies and gentlemen.
2. The Inevitability of Dictatorship after Political Parties Become Too Powerful
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
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.
Washington was saying this as the bloody French Revolution was underway in Europe. Three years after this speech, Napoleon Bonaparte would be installed as First Consul of France, followed by a lifetime appointment as emperor in 1804.
France's revolution did not have the same safeguards on government that existed in America; therefore, with public passion running high, a dictator came into power very quickly.
The same happened in 1917 Russia with the communist Bolsheviks and Lenin, 1930s Germany with the rise of the national socialists under Hitler, and 1940s China under Mao's red guards.
(You'll notice there's a certain side of the political aisle that mirrors all these movements)
Washington knew that people form tribes around our beliefs, customs, and identity, so it would be impossible for political parties to be nonexistent. He compared them, however, to fire: Necessary and useful, but also dangerous if unchecked.
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.
I do not think Joe Biden is the "chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors," who will turn the republic into an empire, but a Caesar is coming.
3. Separation of Powers and Jurisdictions is Essential
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
I want you to think for a moment how the U.S. Department of Justice is going after pro-life leaders and protesters for things like temporarily blocking the entrance to local abortion clinics.
Seriously think about that.
What business does the federal government have in that jurisdiction? It has invented it, whole-cloth, out of this insane idea that the Constitution gives the right to murder a child, and that it is the FBI/DOJ's job to enforce that law at the national level.
This is a massive abuse of the federalist system that divides national and local/state governments. The U.S. government does not even have the right to try a murder case unless it involves a crime against the national government or involves crimes committed across state lines. But these days, anything can be labelled a "national security" threat.
The government is separated into 6 major "boxes" – first into the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, then further into separate branches of each at the national, state, and local levels. There are a host of other separations involving counties, circuits, and districts as well! All of these things are meant to keep power isolated in its proper place with the proper authority that doesn't overstep its bounds, because power that can encroach beyond its limits will never stop.
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
Think of the pandemic. All liberties and rights – not given by the government, but God Almighty – were wiped out a few nerdy doctors at the CDC and NIH who gave presidents, governors, and mayors the excuse to suspend the Constitution.
But even worse than ignoring the basic rules for our national bonds, they tried to consolidate power over other spheres of government.
What other spheres, do you ask?
Well, it turns out that government is just one form of authority that God has given mankind. Yes, that's right, God gave us government.
But God also separated powers in how he ordered human society. In addition to the magistrate, God gave us the family and the church, which have separate jurisdictions from the civil government.
The government can raise taxes and punish criminals, but it cannot be your church and it cannot be your family.
Yet this is exactly what the leftists want!
The reason pastors like John MacArthur refused to close their churches during Covid was because the civil authorities had no authority over the jurisdiction of the church, or likewise over the family. They had the rightful power to close stadiums and schools and public parks, but not to impose on the freedom of worship and religion.
4. Fear of God is the Foundation of Society
...let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
We're seeing this breakdown all around us. As morality goes, society turns into clown world.
I'll leave it at that because I don't want to link to the hundreds of stories Not The Bee has about drag shows and perverts.
5. Pay off the National Debt
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.
Washington knew there would be debt. He knew America would have to raise money for war and disaster.
What he never could have seen was the sheer size of the United States, either geographically or militarily or economically, or the technological advancement that has allowed us such prosperity and specialization.
But his principle remains. Every wise person knows you avoid debt as much as possible and pay it off quickly when you must take it on. We are quite literally doing the opposite. Washington goes on in this portion to talk about the necessity of taxes, something we could much more easily bear if our elected representatives were not trying to cover their own horrible financial decisions with our wallets.
6. Unnecessary Wars Start By Playing Favorites With Other Nations
The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a 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...
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.
To all the neo-cons out there with a Ukrainian flag in your bio, you might want to listen up.
Hating on Russia as the antichrist and viewing comedian-actor Zelensky as a saint is what Washington said. Hating one nation makes you a slave to that hatred, which inevitably leads to conflict (World War 3).
Likewise, blindly loving another national creates "imaginary common interest... where no real common interest exists" and gets America involved in "quarrels and wars" it should not be involved in.
George Washington would have understood the insane push by Congress and the media right now to treat two corrupt nations fighting against each other as an epic battle between good and evil, instead of a regional dispute where there are many bad guys and few good ones.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.
I'm sorry, what kind of government?
He didn't even say "save democracy" anywhere in there. Sad!
We are seeing this warning play out as well. The Left is focused on Russia as the boogeyman. For the last decade, everything evil has been blamed on the Kremlin, even though Russia is a failing, backwards country with the GDP of Florida.
Meanwhile, the same leftists cozy up to communist China, the real economic powerhouse that is colonizing Africa, released a plague on the world, imprisoning Muslims and minorities, and actively buying up farmland and businesses all over America. No one in power, whether in government or the media or the arts or science or the academy, is standing up to China. In fact, they'll bend over backwards to edit out black people on Chinese version of movie posters even while they virtue signal against racism over here!
The Underlying Problem
Yes, George Washington warned us.
But back then, America was unified in many ways. Now, we have only a vague idea of what it even means to be American. An entire side of the political aisle is embarrassed by the label.
Do you think this observation of Washington is still true?
The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
Not only do we differ wildly on "religion, manners, habits, and political principles," but we haven't shared any "joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes" in the last few decades besides, I suppose, tracking down Osama bin Laden and all suffering under Bidenflation.
