The Paradise of Fools Is At An End
Foreshadowing From George Washington & The Times of London
No superlatives exist to accurately describe the level of disgust and horror at which I was repulsed by the behavior of the criminal traitor and his lickspittle Nazi in waiting in their interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky on Friday last.
Certainly, I and other veterans find their behaviors particularly appalling. When inducted into any branch of the US armed forces one swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The criminal traitor lied about a medical condition to avoid military service. He is a coward. He has, however, sworn an oath similar to that of service members, twice. He has openly and arrogantly broken that oath. Both times. He is a liar. He is a traitor. He is a domestic enemy of the United States actively working in support of foreign enemies to destruct our institutions, desecrate our history, and destroy our allies and alliances.
As we view and live through the despicable and abhorrent behaviors and actions of the criminal traitor and his lickspittle lackey, I find solace and context in the “Farewell Address” of George Washington in 1796. History notes that Washington was assisted in the composition of the address by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.
The address has been read aloud in the US Senate each year in February since 1888. This year it was read by Republican Roger Wicker MS. From all indications, however, most of the senators either don’t pay attention or simply don’t understand. I’m thinking Tuberville and Blackburn for examples, but I digress…
The introduction to the text of the address by the US Senate Historical Office says:
“Washington’s principal concern was for the safety of the eight-year-old Constitution. He believed that the stability of the Republic was threatened by the forces of geographical sectionalism, political factionalism, and interference by foreign powers in the nation’s domestic affairs. He urged Americans to subordinate sectional jealousies to common national interests. Writing at a time before political parties had become accepted as vital extraconstitutional, opinion-focusing agencies, Washington feared that they carried the seeds of the nation’s destruction through petty factionalism.”
Following are excerpts from the address dated 19th September 1796. The boldface is me. (www.govinfo.gov)
As Washington contemplated his decision to retire to private life once again it was his fervent hope,
“…that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained… that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these states, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing…”
Washington was very concerned that parochial division would be advantaged by unscrupulous persons for political benefit. He wrote earnestly about how “designing men” would misrepresent the views and positions of others for their own, unethical purposes. Those connivances he thought could result in a dilution of the purpose and sanctity of the Constitution itself.
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. 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.”
At the founding of our republic one of the most prominent and now historically revered figures in history foresaw the dangers persons with ulterior motives presented to democracy. He foretold of the kind of corrosive mischief in which unprincipled individuals and factions might engage such as Executive Orders attempting to abolish birthright citizenship as consecrated in the 14th Amendment, or Congressional proposals to allow additional presidential terms beyond the two certified by the 19th Amendment. Washington was far from favorably disposed to the obsessed and cultish loyalty to a faction such as is MAGA.
To the contrary, Washington thought that strict adherence to political division was the bane of common purposes and the liberty and freedoms at the core of our democracy.
“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 councils 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.”
By these generated divisions we are detracted and disturbed, posed Washington, creating false agitations, that foment animosity toward others leading to “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.”
Washington counseled us that revenge is a “frightful despotism” that has resulted in horrific outcomes throughout history. Such vengeful retributions are often how democracies fail as they are enacted by despots, authoritarians and dictators like Kim, Xi, Putin and his protégé puppet now in the US.
“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 warned against the consolidation of power in any one branch of government lest such encroachment lead to despotism.
“But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
“The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave… 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.”
“And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country…”
“There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation.”
Washington was to be clear a sort of ‘America first’ guy warning in particular about entanglements with European countries. That caution was due to the extant geopolitical conditions on that continent in the late 1700s. He tempered his views with the prescient caveat that such diplomatic views were, “…liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate…”
This farewell address, as were many of his actions, is prescient and wholly representative of the stature granted to and admiration for the individuals of the Enlightenment era we so fondly call the Founding Fathers. The actions we are observing being taken by the criminal Russian asset and his psychophant sidekick were clearly foreseen by Washington.
Their failure to hold sacred the Constitution, their constant misrepresentations (lies) intended to factionalize the country, their flaunting and disregard for laws, their cunning and unprincipled self-serving ambition, their obstruction, their usurpation of authority in flagrant disregard for the separation of powers, their alignment with Russia as “ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country…” are all embodiments of that which Washington warned about.
“As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.”
As Heather Cox Richardson wrote in Substack on Feb 21:
“On (Feb 17), James Marriott of The Times, published in London, noted that the very stability and comfort of the post–World War II liberal order has permitted the seeds of its own destruction to flourish. A society with firm scientific and political guardrails that protect health and freedom, can sustain “an underbelly of madmen and extremists—medical sceptics, conspiracy types and anti-democratic fantasists.”
“Our society has been peaceful and healthy for so long that for many people serious disaster has become inconceivable,” Marriott writes. “Americans who parade around in amateur militia groups and brandish Nazi symbols do so partly because they are unable to conceive of what life would actually be like in a fascist state.” Those who attack modern medicine cannot really comprehend a society without it. And, Marriott adds, those who are cheering the rise of autocracy in the United States “have no serious understanding of what it means to live under an autocratic government.”
“The paradise of fools is coming to an end... I just hope they do not take the rest of us down with them.” – James Marriott, The Sunday Times; Feb 21, 2025