Were Is George Washington

[1Buckshot]

Were Is George Washington when you need him.

[tombogan03884]

If George Washington were alive today he could not get elected dog catcher.

[Ulmus]

Absolutely right!  He would be considered too radical and would never be able to handle the 24 hour never ending news cycle.

[tombogan03884]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/18/its-george-washingtons-281st-birthday-here-are-his-5-most-important-warnings-to-congress/

Although commonly referred to as “Presidents’ Day,” Feb. 18 is legally recognized as “Washington’s Birthday” (his actual birthday is Feb. 22).

However, as the Washington Examiner notes, we don’t dedicate this day to Washington because he is the greatest U.S. general (he isn’t) or even the greatest president (the case can certainly be made for others). No, though Washington’s performance in both categories is deserving of high praise, we honor him for the precedent and example he set.

“He held the proverbial ring of power, and he gave it up of his own accord,” the Washington Examiner notes.

“Washington’s selflessness separates him from lesser men who won much greater military victories but were vanquished by the temptation of power — Julius Caesar before him and Napoleon Bonaparte afterward.”

He refused this power because he believed in the cause of the republic.

Understanding the pitfalls of organized government, Washington in his 1796 farewell address to Congress urged U.S. lawmakers to guard against unnecessary wars and racking up unsustainable public debt, among other things.

Considering the fact that the nation’s capital has in recent years become a spectacle more deserving of mockery than praise, perhaps it’s worth revisiting some of his warnings to Congress.

–
On the Constitution:

This government … has a just claim to your confidence and your support.

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
    But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

On ‘Progressive’ Ideas:

    Towards the preservation of your government … resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.

    In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable.

On Political Parties:

    Let me now … warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

    This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

    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.

On War:

    Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.

    [...]

    The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. … The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy.

    The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.

    The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

On Public Debt:

    As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.

    The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate.

So there you have it. Enjoy “Washington’s Birthday” (which is technically Feb. 22). Without him, we probably wouldn’t have the Constitution or, you know, a United States of America:

[santahog]

http://www.askheritage.org/what-was-george-washingtons-example-on-religious-liberty/?utm_source=AH_Weekly&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=2013-02-22&utm_campaign=2013_Brand

What Was George Washington’s Example on Religious Liberty?

Instead of celebrating George Washington’s birthday, today we’ve lumped him in together with no-names including Millard Fillmore and William Henry Harrison as we celebrate a generic “Presidents’ Day.”

But George Washington was not simply a President. He was the indispensible man of the American Founding. Washington’s words, thoughts, and deeds as a military commander, a President, and a patriotic leader make him arguably the greatest statesman in our history.

All Presidents can learn from Washington’s leadership in foreign policy, in upholding the rule of law, and—especially now—in the importance of religion and religious liberty. While the Obama Administration claims to be “accommodating” Americans’ religious freedom concerns regarding the Health and Human Services (HHS) Obamacare mandate, it is actually trampling religious freedom. President Washington set a tremendous example for the way that Presidents should handle such conflicts.

Washington knew that religion and morality are essential to creating the conditions for decent politics. “Where,” Washington asked, “is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?”

Religion and morality are, Washington wrote, essential to the happiness of mankind: “A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.”

To match his high praise of religion, Washington had a robust understanding of religious liberty. Freedom allows religion, in the form of morality and through the teachings of religion, to exercise an unprecedented influence over private and public opinion. Religious liberty shapes mores, cultivates virtues, and provides an independent source of moral reasoning and authority. In his letter to the Newport Hebrew congregation—at the time the largest community of Jewish families in America—President Washington grounded America’s religious and civil liberties in natural rights, and not mere toleration.

Washington also confronted the limits of religious liberty. In one letter, Washington praised the Quakers for being good citizens but chastised their pacifism: “Your principles and conduct are well known to me; and it is doing the people called Quakers no more than justice to say, that (except their declining to share with others the burden of the common defense) there is no denomination among us, who are more exemplary and useful citizens.” Yet Washington ended his letter assuring them of his “wish and desire that the laws may always be as extensively accommodated” to their practice.

Such a true accommodation upholds the rule of law and religious liberty, because it allows men and women of religious faith to follow the law and their faith.

In his letter to the Quakers, Washington explained that government is instituted to “protect the persons and consciences of men from oppression.” Further, it was the duty of rulers “not only to abstain from [oppression] themselves, but, according to their stations, to prevent it in others.”

Washington’s advice has gone unheeded.

We are told that religion and politics require a strict separation; that religion is a hindrance to happiness and therefore has been gradually stripped from the public square. We’re told that displays of religious faith don’t support the community but are downright offensive to non-adherents. The Supreme Court has supported and extenuated this tortured logic. Since the 1940s, the Court has put religion and religious liberty into a smaller and smaller box. At best, religion is a private good—but one that and should not be presented to others. And religious beliefs have no bearing on public life.

We can see where this logic goes. Under Obamacare all insurance plans must cover, at no cost to the insured, abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, sterilization, and patient education and counseling for women of reproductive age. Illustrating the Obama Administration’s narrow view of religion, only formal houses of worship are afforded an exemption from the coercive mandate. Many other religious employers such as Catholic hospitals, Christian schools, and faith-based pregnancy care centers are forced to provide and pay for coverage of services that, as a matter of faith, they find morally objectionable.

Even the recently proposed “accommodation” to the rule isn’t really an accommodation. As Sarah Torre explains, the suggested fix “fails to encompass many employers—and certainly all individuals—with moral or religious objections to complying with the mandate.” To comply with the mandate requires religious men and women to violate church doctrine and their consciences. Under President Obama, we have returned to religious toleration, as defined by a bureaucrat somewhere.

Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t celebrate all Presidents equally. George Washington “was the directing spirit without which there would have been no independence, no Union, no Constitution, and no Republic,” as one President put it. He set the tone for what the American presidency should be. That’s why he was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

[Sponsor]

[Swamp Yankee]

Found Him 
Hope this dont get me banned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ex2hj5rLN48

[MikeBjerum]

If the Founding Fathers showed up today they would be arrested on sight as terrorists 

However, that doesn't matter, because they would not recognize what we have done with this nation they left us.  Mr. Franklin, we couldn't keep it, but thanks for trying 

[tombogan03884]

Found Him 
Hope this dont get me banned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ex2hj5rLN48

I'm not shocked that you posted that.
But the fact you were checking out sites that would bring you to that makes me glad you live a long way away from here.      

[fightingquaker13]

Found Him 
Hope this dont get me banned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ex2hj5rLN48

Damn straight! Don't tread on me. Molon Labe Beeatch!