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This is very timely, and reminds me of George Washington pleading for Americans to beware party politics in his farewell address[1], where he willingly surrende

This is very timely, and reminds me of George Washington pleading for Americans to beware party politics in his farewell address[1], where he willingly surrendered power and went home: > 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. > ...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. He could've written this last week. [1] https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/W...

yibg 2y ago
Unfortunately people as a mass, don’t tend to learn from history. Or at least forget the lessons from history fairly easily. Maybe we are doomed to repeat the same historical lessons.
- mmooss 2y ago
  The US has been a 'democratic republic' for almost 250 years, so many generations have learned. Such government has thrived in every culture and place, from East Asia to South Asia to almost all the Americas, many parts of Africa, Europe of course. Somehow, democracy works exceptionally well - far better than any alternative ever has - and is resilient. ... unless the people are somehow convinced that it is not, that it is not important, and they despair and give up.
  - eszed 2y ago
    Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.
    - klooney 2y ago
      Matt Yglesias wrote a great summary of this awhile back- https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doom...
      - rv3392 2y ago
        Very interesting read as an Australian. Helped me with understanding why US politics feels so different to Australia despite the cultural similarities.
      - piva00 2y ago
        Thanks for sharing, that was a great and prescient article.
      - eszed 2y ago
        That's the very article I remembered, but couldn't find, when I wrote my comment.Your google-fu is better than mine!
  - koolba 2y ago
    Representative democracy only works when the people of the nation actually drive the formation of said government. The last 70+ years have shown that it explicitly does not work when imposed by third parties. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China, and Vietnam are all examples of this failure. It’s not that those people should not have a say in their government. It’s that they clearly don’t have the coordinated will to organize it sustainably. Maybe the rest of us just lucked out to have society form at just the right sweet spot of information spread without information control. But there’s clearly something different about all those places that it didn’t quite end up the way the rest of us would consider acceptable.
themgt 2y ago
> The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. > Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
- akio 2y ago
  > So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. A key part.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  Sure was a simpler time. Now we have Russia pointing nuclear weapons at all our major population centers, and the engagements we have with a number of our allies against this nation are not being fulfilled, in bad faith.
  - briantakita 2y ago
    Yet the USA was the only country to drop atomic weapons on civilian populations. If country X didn't have nukes & wanted to remain sovereign, the USA + global banking cartel would impose a regime change. It would be better if relations were better. But that would require acting in good faith...which hasn't been the case. Most people want peace & for the various powers to act in good faith...as most people don't benefit from war, sanctions, tariffs, excessive taxation, & the multitude of other statutes that benefit centralized power, bureaucracy, oligopoly, & middle-men imposing rent. All of this requires well-defined & consistent application of ethics. However, the language of ethics has been tortured to justify coercion & self-serving interests. The simulacra of morality is merely cover for will to power impulses. Nonetheless, I believe that most people want fairness & morality. However, most people also face a dilemma at times. Sacrifice on the hill of Principles or gain something such as a home, food, wealth, ownership, control over something. If people choose Principles, then they may lose opportunities. If they choose to accumulate wealth in conflict with Principles, then the society rots, one selfish action at a time. Unfortunately, the social rules are often set up to create this conflict. And the simulacra of morality is a tempting panacea to have the "best of both worlds". Or one can do the hard work to choose a better set of Principles to take care of their needs & create peace & prosperity for most if not all.
bobxmax 2y ago
Two parties, each controlled entirely by corporate interests ferrying out puppets for the populace to choose from The American republic is failing in exactly the ways Plato and Socrates would've predicted it would.
- dartos 2y ago
  At this point I’d settle for the party that at least pretends to follow the rules they make. It’s better for my mental
MarkMarine 2y ago
Our system of government was predicated on different geographical interests pushing against each other, it was well understood that if “the rich” grouped together and put their class interest above the interests of the people around them, our system would fail. This language against factions, the paternal idea that rich elites would act against their own economic interests to serve some higher good… it had failed before it even started. We didn’t make it one term. While Washington was giving this speech there were already factions, that is why he was cautioning against them.
Amezarak 2y ago
Washington was mad about political parties because his federalist-aligned coalition was collapsing. He resigned because of his declining health and because it was no longer obvious he could win if be ran again, and he feared the resulting reputational damage. There was extreme political contention at the time and Washington’s administration was becoming increasingly controversial. This very deeply bothered him, because he didn’t like opposition. In the words of Thomas Paine: > Being now once more abroad in the world I began to find that I was not the only one who had conceived an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Washington. It was evident that his character was on the decline as well among Americans as among foreigners of different nations. From being the chief of a government, he had made himself the chief of a party; and his integrity was questioned, for his politics had a doubtful appearance. This culminated in his federalist allies later criminalizing free speech and deporting dissidents under the Alien and Sedition Acts. The farewell address was an explicitly political speech and you should read it in its historical context. You wouldn’t read Bush, Obama, or Trump speeches and take them at face value. Don’t read past ones at face value.
- ctrlp 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 2y ago
    Please don't do this. I know it's frustrating, but it's against the site guidelines (more than one, actually) and only makes the threads worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ctrlp 2y ago
      Yes, ok, sorry dang. I promise to only post thoughtful comments that add value with the absolute minimum sprinkling of sarcasm. I do believe I'm trying to contribute to a diversity of opinion on HN and make arguments that others might not have encountered before, but I see that I've violated some of the rules. I've read and committed the guidelines to memory now. Can you please unthrottle me? It's hard to engage in substantive back-and-forth if I can't post more than a couple of times a day.

yibg 2y ago

Unfortunately people as a mass, don’t tend to learn from history. Or at least forget the lessons from history fairly easily. Maybe we are doomed to repeat the same historical lessons.

mmooss 2y ago
The US has been a 'democratic republic' for almost 250 years, so many generations have learned. Such government has thrived in every culture and place, from East Asia to South Asia to almost all the Americas, many parts of Africa, Europe of course. Somehow, democracy works exceptionally well - far better than any alternative ever has - and is resilient. ... unless the people are somehow convinced that it is not, that it is not important, and they despair and give up.
- eszed 2y ago
  Indeed. However, parliamentary democracies have a better track record of stability than federal structures (modeled after that of the US). Adjust for cultural and historical differences as you see fit, but the US has heretofore been an outlier.
  - klooney 2y ago
    Matt Yglesias wrote a great summary of this awhile back- https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doom...
    - rv3392 2y ago
      Very interesting read as an Australian. Helped me with understanding why US politics feels so different to Australia despite the cultural similarities.
    - piva00 2y ago
      Thanks for sharing, that was a great and prescient article.
    - eszed 2y ago
      That's the very article I remembered, but couldn't find, when I wrote my comment.Your google-fu is better than mine!
- koolba 2y ago
  Representative democracy only works when the people of the nation actually drive the formation of said government. The last 70+ years have shown that it explicitly does not work when imposed by third parties. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, China, and Vietnam are all examples of this failure. It’s not that those people should not have a say in their government. It’s that they clearly don’t have the coordinated will to organize it sustainably. Maybe the rest of us just lucked out to have society form at just the right sweet spot of information spread without information control. But there’s clearly something different about all those places that it didn’t quite end up the way the rest of us would consider acceptable.

themgt 2y ago

> The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. > Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

akio 2y ago
> So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. A key part.
mullingitover 2y ago
Sure was a simpler time. Now we have Russia pointing nuclear weapons at all our major population centers, and the engagements we have with a number of our allies against this nation are not being fulfilled, in bad faith.
- briantakita 2y ago
  Yet the USA was the only country to drop atomic weapons on civilian populations. If country X didn't have nukes & wanted to remain sovereign, the USA + global banking cartel would impose a regime change. It would be better if relations were better. But that would require acting in good faith...which hasn't been the case. Most people want peace & for the various powers to act in good faith...as most people don't benefit from war, sanctions, tariffs, excessive taxation, & the multitude of other statutes that benefit centralized power, bureaucracy, oligopoly, & middle-men imposing rent. All of this requires well-defined & consistent application of ethics. However, the language of ethics has been tortured to justify coercion & self-serving interests. The simulacra of morality is merely cover for will to power impulses. Nonetheless, I believe that most people want fairness & morality. However, most people also face a dilemma at times. Sacrifice on the hill of Principles or gain something such as a home, food, wealth, ownership, control over something. If people choose Principles, then they may lose opportunities. If they choose to accumulate wealth in conflict with Principles, then the society rots, one selfish action at a time. Unfortunately, the social rules are often set up to create this conflict. And the simulacra of morality is a tempting panacea to have the "best of both worlds". Or one can do the hard work to choose a better set of Principles to take care of their needs & create peace & prosperity for most if not all.

bobxmax 2y ago

Two parties, each controlled entirely by corporate interests ferrying out puppets for the populace to choose from The American republic is failing in exactly the ways Plato and Socrates would've predicted it would.

dartos 2y ago
At this point I’d settle for the party that at least pretends to follow the rules they make. It’s better for my mental

MarkMarine 2y ago

Our system of government was predicated on different geographical interests pushing against each other, it was well understood that if “the rich” grouped together and put their class interest above the interests of the people around them, our system would fail. This language against factions, the paternal idea that rich elites would act against their own economic interests to serve some higher good… it had failed before it even started. We didn’t make it one term. While Washington was giving this speech there were already factions, that is why he was cautioning against them.

Amezarak 2y ago

Washington was mad about political parties because his federalist-aligned coalition was collapsing. He resigned because of his declining health and because it was no longer obvious he could win if be ran again, and he feared the resulting reputational damage. There was extreme political contention at the time and Washington’s administration was becoming increasingly controversial. This very deeply bothered him, because he didn’t like opposition. In the words of Thomas Paine: > Being now once more abroad in the world I began to find that I was not the only one who had conceived an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Washington. It was evident that his character was on the decline as well among Americans as among foreigners of different nations. From being the chief of a government, he had made himself the chief of a party; and his integrity was questioned, for his politics had a doubtful appearance. This culminated in his federalist allies later criminalizing free speech and deporting dissidents under the Alien and Sedition Acts. The farewell address was an explicitly political speech and you should read it in its historical context. You wouldn’t read Bush, Obama, or Trump speeches and take them at face value. Don’t read past ones at face value.

ctrlp 2y ago
[flagged]
- dang 2y ago
  Please don't do this. I know it's frustrating, but it's against the site guidelines (more than one, actually) and only makes the threads worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - ctrlp 2y ago
    Yes, ok, sorry dang. I promise to only post thoughtful comments that add value with the absolute minimum sprinkling of sarcasm. I do believe I'm trying to contribute to a diversity of opinion on HN and make arguments that others might not have encountered before, but I see that I've violated some of the rules. I've read and committed the guidelines to memory now. Can you please unthrottle me? It's hard to engage in substantive back-and-forth if I can't post more than a couple of times a day.