This canary is singing its independence by @BloggersRUs

This canary is singing its independence

by Tom Sullivan

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan has declared his independence from the Republican Party. He did not issue a bill of particulars in the Washington Post as the colonies did against King George III in the Declaration of Independence. He did not have to. We can read between the lines.

Instead, Amash offers George Washington's farewell warning that political parties can lead to 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.

[...]

"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

Amash adds:

True to Washington’s fears, Americans have allowed government officials, under assertions of expediency and party unity, to ignore the most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism and the rule of law. The result has been the consolidation of political power and the near disintegration of representative democracy.

Roy isn't just a sitting member of Congress; he's also a former prosecutor and former assistant state AG. And yet, in this tweet, he suggests the president ignore both his lawyers and a Supreme Court ruling. https://t.co/SexgnDYwOM
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen) July 3, 2019

The son of immigrants, Amash rejects "the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us," knowing full well the welcome immigrants on the U.S. border with Mexico receive this morning. He calls out no one by name. He calls the two-party system an "existential threat to American principles and institutions." He suggests both sides are to blame, as is the fashion. We can read between the lines.

There is indeed an existential threat to American principles and institutions. A lust for power. Foreign influence and corruption. A new mad king disposed more towards his own elevation than public liberty.

Washington recommended the distribution of power as a hedge against autocrats. "The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism," he warned. If he were alive today, he would see his fears realized.

People of Washington's generation extolled the virtue of knowledge for the preservation of liberty. He wrote, "Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."

Both parties have erred in support of replacing public education with profit-driven charter schools. One seems to have seen its error. Nevertheless, enlightenment remains under attack. In Alaska, as in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and across the nation. An educated populace is more difficult to control. Informed readers need not be reminded which political party is behind attacks on higher education.

In the states, power brokers shaken by the blue wave of 2018 are facing challenges to their hegemony with something less than Washington-like grace. In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Jake Corman rolled out for fellow legislators his "Mount Vesuvius impression," writes Philadelphia Inquirer's Maria Panaritis:

Mr. Corman, your tirade about parliamentary rules while Democrats were objecting to your party’s doing away with aid for some of the poorest people in Pennsylvania was a gift, a teaching moment. It may have done what countless civics classes and news stories have failed to do over decades in the 67 counties that include blue Philadelphia, blue Pittsburgh, and a whole bunch of red country in between: It let us know that there is an elected legislature.

State @SenatorMuth refused to stop reading a letter from a man who experienced homelessness even though her male colleague tried to shout her down for minutes on end pic.twitter.com/ztuYHJO8k8
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 28, 2019

Tribalism is, as Washington warned, always lurking just around history's corner and “inseparable from our nature.” Both parties may have it within them, but one party now openly embraces domination "sharpened by the spirit of revenge." Justin Amash just declared independence from his, offering an ecumenical pox on both. But there is a difference. One party wants to govern. The other wants to rule.