Time for the Parties to be over

George Washington, political prophet, speaking of parties in his Farewell Address in 1796:

They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

I'm always annoyed to see Washington listed as a "Federalist" in history book lists of the Presidents and their party affiliations. Washington abhored formal political factions, and while his personal policies may have leaned to what we now call the Federalist platform, he would have disavowed any formal affiliation. He certainly would have protested the extent to which political party machinery now exerts extra-Constitutional power within government.

Party manipulations and media collusion have already resulted in unfair disadvantage for Ron Paul's campaign this season. But it's not limited to his run on Constitutional principles. In the Michigan Democratic primary today, supporters of Barrack Obama or John Edwards will be unable to vote for them... because their name does not appear on the ballot. A squabble between the state and national party apparatchiks resulted in their names remaining off ballot. And guess what? Write-ins don't count.

I'm as far from voting for either man as you can get, but this still galls me on principle. Of all the so-called "electable" Democratic candidates, only Hillary's name will be on the ballot. Still think your voice matters at all?