on arts, endeavors, musings, sites, sights, & other senses
Sunday, 2021 January 17th
issue 9
entering the 203rd decade
The nation that is at the moment of having to
face up now to its perils and potentialities
on the 3rd wave of Great Depression II
finds itself desperately tryna make out its identity.
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.
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It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration.
It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection.
It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
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In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend,
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if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.
issue 9
