Posted on 02/22/2008 7:02:20 AM PST by stand_your_ground
I don’t care if you insult me, but insulting George Washington seems a tad ungrateful on his birthday, don’t you think? I think it’s also fair to point out that virtually EVERYONE in the academy makes it their business to “demythologize” the founders every day. (They wouldn’t want modern secularist college students having any heroes, now would they?) It’s that kind of thinking I find insulting and spoiled.
But Washington didn't "run for President." He didn't put himself forward for the office.
Or for top commander. Or for chairman of the Constitutional Convention. His peers demanded that Washington serve.
So in that very important way he was probably less of an opportunist than other politicians or maybe even the rest of us.
Below is from George Washingtons Farewell Address!
Warns against the party system.
It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....
agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....
against another....
it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...
thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
Stresses the importance of religion and morality.
Where 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?
On stable public credit.
...cherish public credit.
One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible...
avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt....
it is essential that you...bear in mind, that towards the payments of debts there must be Revenue,
that to have Revenue there must be taxes;
that no taxes can be devised, which are not...inconvenient and unpleasant...
Warns against permanent foreign alliances.
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world...
I also did a report on “Washington’s Expense Account” in college...fascinating subject! It was amazing how he offered his services for free and that all he requested was that his expenses were paid for. How generous of him!
In fact this turned out to be the beginning of excessive government spending.
You know the old saying, “George Washington slept here...”
The real reason he slept in so many inns during the revolutionary war instead of in troop housing (tents etc) was that the tab was being picked up by the new taxpayers.
I also marvelled at the entries regarding his misplacement of his pistol.
It’s good someone remembered that Feb. 22 is George Washington’s birthday (New Style, anyway). (He was born before the calendar reform of 1752, and I read somewhere that he continued to think of Feb. 11 as his birthday).
I never insulted you and I never insulted George Washington. I was just stating a quirk of history that I found interesting and you took it in an insulting manner and started all this. I know some people on FR enjoy fighting but I’m not one of them. I have felt a little insulted by your responses and I guess you enjoy that.
Yep, he’s a wonderful man, but he’s human too. If more people could find the human side of history, we probably wouldn’t see so many distortious or re-writing of history today.
You called the father of our country “an opportunist,” and you don’t expect to get your nonsensical, junior-college evaluation fired back at you? You shouldn’t be in the kitchen if you don’t like the heat.
Yes, for some on FR, he wouldn’t be conservative enough!
He was a great man.
LOL!
“When I was in college, I became aware of a book named George Washington’s Expense Account. Here is a snippet of the editor’s review of that book—judge for yourself.”
Ok I am not starting a flam war, but I have heard that even though that book was de bunked the leftys keep using it as another reason to insult Washington.
Success to Liberty and Victory to Washington,
D.H.T. Shippey
Campaign Manager
Washington 08
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