POLITICAL PARTIES AMERICA’S DOWNFALL?

George Washington knew it. So did John Adams. Political parties would be the downfall of our republic. The partisanship would interfere with proper use and administration of the Constitution and the willfulness of the parties would work against the country. We’re seeing it now. Let’s reflect.

Starting with North Korea, imagine if when Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed, and given real thought, not knee-jerk partisan puffery, we’d likely not have an issue with North Korea, or Iran, or Pakistan, etc. Why? Because with our technological advantage we’d have developed something that would have disincentivized nations from striving toward ICBMs that we by now would have the ability to target and shoot down.

Then speaker of the house, Tip O’Neill (D) Massachusetts, immediately began saying Reagan was the “stupidest” person to occupy the seat of the president. (Sound like a variation on a current theme?) Yet, the dunce hat has to go to O’Neill and his fellow Democrats in congress for not authorizing the research needed to better protect our country from ICBMs, a Constitutional responsibility.

Democrats were the problem here. But Republicans have also had their share of making America less great simply because Democrats had a good idea they could kill, including a more effective health care plan (not Obamacare) that would take care of the truly indegent among us..

It’s time to vote, not by party, but by the Constitution. First, become educated on the Constitution and educate your children and grandchildren about it. Hillsdale College has a free online course and it’s a good start, but reading the document itself, with all amendments, and the Federalist Papers in addition is better. Read what Madison, Franklin, and other framers had to say about intent, in their words not in revisionist books.

Then, only vote for candidates who will stick to it. Consider this…We pretty much followed our Constitution at the federal level until the Woodrow Wilson administration. In fact, when he was incapable of fulfilling the office, his wife took over his responsibilities. Definitely anti-Constitutional. That said…

Our nation was a 3rd world backwater country that beat the British army (not the world’s largest at the time as so many uninformed people say) and the British Navy the world’s largest at the time. We did it through attrition. Metaphorically, not politically, we were North Vietnam and Britain was the French, then Americans. We wore them out. Yes we trapped them at Yorktown, but that was due to a lack of sending more forces against us. The people of Britain grew war weary. We were draining blood and treasure.

Enough of the mini-lecture on history. The truth is, in 1789 we had a new Constitution. Just 125 years later we went from that backwater 3rd world nation to a superpower. We did this by adhering to the Constitution. It make us great financially and militarily.

Absent the U.S. involvement World War 1 could have been the 2nd Hundred Years War. We learned from that and developed a strong national defense with greater and better technology.

And we learned from that as well. The Germans’ technology outpaced our own. They had jets in the sky. Rockets launched from German striking targets in Britain and getting more and more sophisticated in a short period of time.

But in the intervening years, our politicians and our citizenry started slipping the Constitution under the rug. It really became birdcage liner in the 1960s and progressed from there.

Today, 33 years after Reagan wanted the SDI program, we’d have a tremendous Strategic Defense Initiative system in place that would cow-tow our adversaries when it comes to ICBMs. But we don’t. Why? Political Parties. Partisanship. What we need in office is more common sense and adherence to the Constitution. Those are the candidates we need to seek out, work for and get in office so we can truly Make America Great Again. Not in a Trumpian throwaway line, but as a matter of fact.