The Second Ammendment Lobby and Police Safety

[TheCurmudgeon]

I am trying to stay out of the political debate, but I thought I would restate something about American's I noted earlier.

IMO we are flat out failing in our responsibility to secure the blessings of liberty for future generations. That flat out requires a longer term Vision and some type of long term Plan for the good of the country not just Republicans and/or Democrats. This something our elected officials are very poor at.

Slap, what you are seeing is a reflection of America - who it is and what it wants. I have posted earlier our compulsion to prefer the quick, easy solution. "Nuk'em till they glow!" Our elected political leaders are simply reflecting our preferences. Democracy at its finest ... or the Tyranny of the Majority, depending on how you look at it.

And finally political parties should be made illegal, they are far to destructive as George Washington said they would be. (At Least I think it was him)

You are correct in that George Washington clearly had disdain for minority associations. And although the second paragraph of the below quote from his farewell address is the one generally cited as proving that he felt political parties were a destructive force (with the word "parties" inserted where the actual words "combinations or associations of the above description" were spoken), it is clear that he was probably talking about what today we would call lobbyists and Political Action Committees (PACs). Any group that held its own private interests above the common good would be included.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description 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 last thing, Washington's definition of Liberty included obedience to the law ... duties as well as rights. Again, from his farewell speech:

This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty.

(my emphasis)