The least of many evils

Political parties and their belief the Senate should produce a president.

The least of many evils

I heard one of my favorite commentators make the statement the people may be a little leery of junior senators jumping into the political arena when they’ve barely gotten their trunks fitted for the fight they believe they’re ready for as they pursue the presidency.

It’s almost like they believe, because they’ve attained the magical age necessary to run for the presidency (35 years old), they possess the necessary maturity, wisdom and track record of statesmanlike demeanor to be automatically qualified to direct the future of the greatest nation on earth, and influence the conduct of our friends and foes alike.

American politicians think we must accept only the “cream of the crop”; those people who’ve achieved residence in the “upper chamber” of the Congress (the Senate) as worthy and/or capable of running this nation. One need only look at the likes of Chuck “the Schmuck” Schumer and Harry “The Red” Reid on the left; and “Linseed” Graham and John McCain on the right to see and understand how absurd this idea is in historical fact. Bombast and blather issued according to the ideology of partisan politics accepted with an almost religious fervor shouldn’t be enough to indicate who’ll be chosen to advance to the highest office of the land.

That choice of candidate should be chosen by the people not political party insiders. George Washington knew of the dangers of partisan political parties in 1796: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages & 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 & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & 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.”

He additionally said: “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.”

One need only assess the apparent histories of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama to understand the obvious dangers in the perceived inevitability of their call to dominate. To be fair Richard Nixon was once perceived as the worst betrayer of the system of Checks and Balances prescribed by the Constitution.

America set up a personalized form of aristocracy when it was realized the southern gentry would be under-represented by population. Therefore, as slave holding states they divined there would be a valuation of the black slaves to a point of representing 3/5th of a white person’s electoral presence. This was of course a devaluation of a human being based only on his position in society. It was the beginning of the two party system where the gentry claimed prominence over those allegedly more egalitarian northern representatives living on less land, earning smaller profits from their holdings and living under what appeared to be a more puritan and utilitarian ethic. The south was into the usage of their profits and holdings to self-elevate as the new American upper-class.

Through history the political classes, composed of the wealthy and well-positioned, had nothing more to do than hypothesize concerning man’s place in the cosmos. They conjecture there are only so many people in the minority with the skill and mental resources to control and direct the forward motion of a nation. Individually it becomes the belief only one out of the millions of possible choices in this nation can hold the reins of government competently. Therefore, that ONE must come from their self-anointed “superior” class.

Thus it is today with political parties and their belief the Senate should produce a president.

American politics is composed of egotists, narcissists, self-publicists and ego-maniacal frauds so self-absorbed as to believe because they got lucky, told the better lies and had sufficient monetary backing from their brethren in arms and society; they alone can be president.

To Jonah: yes my friend, many people are sorely displeased with the belief we as a nation can be led by children holding high elected office because they were seen as the least of many evils.

I weep for this nation; and my children’s’ future.