American Values and Principles Part Eight

Part Eight: American Values and Principles
Somewhere along the road we have become Europe. The “natural aristocracy” of virtuous people is gone in America. Now people are too wrapped up in their own lives to even want to serve their country. Now we have career politicians, people who have never even had a “real” job before trying to run other businesses. This was unheard of in the days of our founding fathers. Like I said George Washington came out of retirement to serve his country, not to mention some wanted to give him the crown of a king. What did Washington do each time? He returned home where he belonged. Now politics has become a place of profit, a place where politicians receive special benefits not accessible to “ordinary” citizens. No longer do we have virtuous people in Washington. Unfortunately I think now is the time that we start thinking about term-limits for our elected officials. Washington served two terms and went home, eight years of service to his country. This was not a set mandatory term limit as it is now; Washington set the precedent that all others followed up until the presidency of FDR where he served almost four terms. It is of interest to not that after FDR died his own party (the democrats) introduced the bill to set term-limits for the president. Wait I thought he saved us from the depression? Ya right his own party knew he had taken to much power from the people and set up a huge centralized federal government.
“Even with an annual salary of $25000 that was provided in the Constitution for President Washington, he determined to somehow manage without it. Some might think that this was no sacrifice because he had a large plantation. However, the Mount Vernon plantation had been virtually ruined during the Revolutionary War, and he had not yet built it back into efficient production when he was called to be President. Washington declined his salary on principle. He did the same thing while serving as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces during the Revolutionary War” (The Five Thousand Year Leap). Where are these people now?
Once again I have to say people need to pull themselves away from the television and start educating themselves. I know that some people hate politics but if we want to reverse the trend of where the United States is headed we need to get involved. As John Adams said: The science of government is my duty to study, more that all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take place of, indeed to exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

I say to you that this is not a linear time line of events but rather a cyclical time line. We have studied the finer things in life for far too long as we watched our country being taken away. Now it is time to start studying politics and war again. We already have a huge head start with a document that begins: “We the people of the United States”.