Carl Herman
L.A. Examiner
February 15, 2010
After 45 years of service to the newly created United States, George Washington published a message to the American people; the summation of what he most wanted to contribute to Americans’ understanding of defending our Constitutional government.
Washington’s Farewell Address is considered so important that it is read in its entirety every year in the Senate, and has been read in one or both chambers of Congress every year since 1862.
The following three paragraphs give us context and his advice: guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
In our current US wars of invasion, our own government investigations have revealed the exactevidence backing claims that these are defensive wars for our national security.We now know from the evidence that all of these claims were not only false, but known to be false at the time they were told to the American people and Congress under the pretense of “national security.”“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. 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 counsels 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…
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, 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.” – George Washington, Farewell Address, an open letter to the American public published on September 19, 1796.
These are “the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
We also have lying rhetoric for an offensive war in Iran, propagandized as “pre-emptive” defense, despite its illegality in the clear letter and intent of the law, and easily understood through analogy of the laws governing an individual’s use of self-defense on the street.
These are “the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
Let’s embrace Washington’s advice and end these “obstructions to the execution of the laws” of our Constitution to end these treasonous and cowardly wars that have so-far killed over 4,000 American troops. They echo the advice of our Founding Fathers. I also wrote three articles honoring President Lincoln’s advice to defend our nation.
