Oh, what entangled alliances we weave

I'm up on my soapbox. So today from my great country I have awakened to headline making news that some Democrats in Connecticut are calling for Lieberman's blood. It seems that his decision to go with his conscience over party loyalty has led some to want to censure him even further than what they have already done in removing him from certain chairs and voting 42-13 to condemn his statements supporting McCain. They seem to have forgotten that in 2006 he declared himself to be an independent democrat and did not win his re-election to senate on the Democratic ticket.

Not to be outdone by the Democrats, Republicans are rushing to illustrate their self serving agendas by attacking Nebraska Republican Senator Hagel for daring to criticize his party as well as most of Washington for failing to actually do anything for the country other than furthering their own agendas. In response to Rush Limbaugh labelling him "Senator Betrayus," Hagel responded by saying, “You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office. They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything. And they would be elected overwhelmingly. [The truth is] they try to rip everyone down and make fools of everybody but they don’t have any answers.”

Sigh. I remember when I was little I used to wonder when the time would come that I would finally be a grownup, and I believed that being a grown up meant that I would one day stop doing those pesky, childish things like lying and being a brat. Eventually I grew older and realized that adults are sometimes little children in bigger, bullying bodies.

Politics and political parties: the framers of the Constitution of the United States regarded political parties to be self serving, harmful to good governance, and cultivating dissidence. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned us about the dangers of political parties:

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.

Other cautions of Washington's address included avoidance of embroilment in affairs of other nations, concentrations of an efficient government, free of foreign influence, and avoidance of special interest groups.