humility

I'm just flipping through George Washington's Farewell Address.

It strikes me as interesting that no president since has ever had occasion to be as humble or self-effacing in describing himself as unworthy of the office. These days it's all about how the subject in question is without reservation the Best Man For The Job.

Also about how factionalized government sucks:

17 All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. 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.

18 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.

And then about Bush, Putin, any dictator ever, basically:

22 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.

There's also a lot of stuff in there about how bad it is to get involved in entrenched foreign partisanship. It makes a lot of sense, and wouldn't have kept the US out of World War II, 'cause that wasn't so much an act of favouritism as stopping an outta-control tyrant-conqueror. But it would probably have kept the US out of Israel, and that's something I'm wrestling with -- mostly because I do love Israel, and am frustrated with both its actions and those of its enemies in cultivating an unending tide of blood. Would US disassociation improve or damage the situation?

Anyway, Washington had a lot to say that could be used as a b.s.-cutting tool in the current political climate, but I worry that idiots who follow politicians with names that rhyme with Prawn Squall would (and do) oversimplify it into "eliminate government and go back to gold".