“By George” – He was Right!
A couple of months ago following a family discussion about the increasing power of political parties and the danger that it presents to our constitutional government, my 15 year old son got on the internet and found a quote from George Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796. The paper he printed it off on is still taped right here in front of me on my computer screen.
The Father of our Country basically sounded a warning over 200 years ago that while political parties may serve some purpose in helping organize and educate citizens they are likely 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 reigns of government”.
As I’ve listened to my Republican husband, friends, and neighbors tell of some negative experiences in the Utah County Republican Party – of veiled threats, intimidation, black balling potential delegates, changing the party rules to put power into the hands of fewer people, and a few of my own negative experiences within the Democrat Party - I’ve thought time and again – “By George – He was right!”.