Desperately Seeking George Washington, and Finding only George Bush
True American leadership has fallen on hard times. As is the desire of a free and peace-loving people our nation’s history has always been to turn to our individual cares, concerns and needs unless our attentions are drawn by attack or a media induced frenzy. Having recently liberated Eastern Europe and much of Central Asia from Communist domination the American people turned inward to home and hearth once again. Unfortunately our government, driven large by the power lust of our leaders, did not.
Our leader’s lust for power is insatiable even in victory, and as they look outward on a world without constraints, has grown even larger in their vision. Such a vision of power attracts those whose lusts fill the opportunity. During the 1990’s two such came to power as a his and her team whose sick need for control and power are still on prominent display.
Conservatives rightly sounded the alarm on the Clinton’s betrayals of our nation, but as our fellow citizens ignored our warnings our alarm turned to frustration. Unfortunately the lust for power is equitable in its distribution and resides as strongly within the ranks of those proclaiming a conservative worldview, as it does within the liberal worldview. The election of 2000 was a meeting of these two camps and the outcome for the nation has differed only in the details not the result.
Currently we are engaged in a great debate, aided by the unsuspecting, for the domination of the body politic. To the conservative mind the liberal assault is clear as day. Yet the nation’s betrayal is as real from those purporting to hold a conservative worldview.
Our current President, a creation of committee, is leading an administration as dedicated to growth and power as any. Conservatives looking for George Washington have instead found George Bush.
True American leadership warns, “… the common and continual mischief of the spirit of (Political) party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.” (Note 1) Yet the politics of the Third Way depend on party “mischief” as the means to every end.
True American leadership warns, “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.” (Note 1) But the demagogues of reform with the weak acquiescence of re-election politics undercut free speech and liberty, and give in to sign Campaign Finance into law.
True American leadership warns, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake…foreign influence is one of the most beneficial foes of republican government.” (Note 1) Instead the legal banter of lawyers is heard granting clearance for pre-emptive attack against Iraq while cooing soothingly to the rich oil Princes.
The attributes of true American leadership require a personal foundation of knowledge, wisdom, and belief, and the self-confidence to rely on each. The uses of power require only the pulling of the strings of government, and the personal detachment to allow it to happen.
The rancor of the two-party system today is but one such string being pulled to bring conservatives to heel. The last true American leader once asked this nation “Are you better off today then you were four years ago?” America’s answer to that question gave the American Presidency to Ronald Reagan.
Today’s conservatives need to ask, “Is America better off today then it was Fourteen years ago?”
The legacy of true American leadership has carried the nation far. The legacy of Reagan’s leadership gave us a world freed from the captivity of the false philosophy of Communism and an unleashed and mighty American economic engine.
The legacy of the lust for power has given the nation a victory over Iraq by a military forged to defeat the Soviets, but ten-years later we still face the “mortal” threat of Iraq. Power lust has driven a strong economy into economic burnout, dealing in hot air and built as a house of cards, and has left the economy without an industrial base. Instead the economy must deal with NAFTA, GATT, and PNTR for China, ever growing trade deficits, and American workers out of jobs while cheap labor is imported to do the work Americans will not be paid to do. The legacy of the lust for power continues undeterred to the nation’s harm.
While many conservative voices try to morph George Bush into George Washington, grassroots conservatives should ask “will America be better off four or eight-years from now then it is today?”
That view built on today’s reality shows a government continuing to grow unchecked, deficits again on the increase, a war on terror devolving into re-fighting a war ten-years gone, an administration cozying up to terror’s financiers, real tax reform subverted by $600 tax cuts, and free speech, personal liberty and constitutional government taking a beating. The hindsight of the future, built on the actions of today is a desperate vision.
Conservatives are desperately seeking the reality of George Washington and instead are finding the virtual reality of George Bush. Yet no matter how hard you might pretend, there is no substitute for the real thing.
Note 1: George Washington’s Farewell Address
Glenn R. Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project, former State Chairman for Buchanan Reform and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn also served on the Executive Committee of the Reform Party USA. Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
© Glenn R. Jackson