By Rick Boettger
Without naming names, I feel so outraged by one of our local elections I have to discuss it in general terms of how our country is going to HELL. In brief, one of our well-established and respected candidates is being attacked with outrageous lies by an outside funded PAC group on behalf of a brand new candidate who is being investigated for felony election fraud by her own party.
In what is a truly nonpartisan office, it is tragic that the single reason these attack ads are coming is because of our ridiculous two-party cult devotion to MY TRIBE. A rich megadonor in one camp has spent a quarter of a million dollars so far on every candidate in Florida he likes in his party. Unscrupulous hit piece writers make up outright lies and post them in text messages, on national TV, and on the radio. By lies, I mean they say the good guy is against gay marriage, despite his getting thanked by the successful Florida gay marriage lawyer for his assistance in the successful appeal to a judge that allowed the marriage. Another is that he made spurious claims about the newcomer, but every one is factually correct.
Our Founding Fathers warned us against exactly what we have:
“There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republick into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution,” said John Adams in 1780.
George Wahington elaborated in his Farewell Address: “I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state,…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. …The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it... 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…”
My goodness, I’ve heard of this in general before, but never looked it up until now. “Spirit of revenge…” “Seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual…” The last three sentences should be as commonly memorized as the Gettysberg Address: “mischiefs…agitates with .. ill founded jealousies…animosity….riot and insurrection…foreign influence and corruption…”
I’m done. Choosing the “lesser of two evils” only creates continuing evil. I am now third party, aka Independent, and we Independents now outnumber either of the damned Two Parties. I’m voting for a person I respect, one of the many overqualified and spotlessly ethical people who would lead us into a far better future if only we would give up our cult devotions and choose based on the merits, not on Blue or Red. My only hope for this election is that one party or the other loses so badly that we as a nation give it up and start over. We need a national Reboot.
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