[quote briansd1]If we have new rules, please alert me because I’m happy to play by them too.
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There are new rules.. and you have been semi-personally notified of them by the site’s creator. I know at least 3 posts where it has been done.
briansd1, don’t take this personally, but there is a point at which you just have to ‘drop it’. Sometimes there is no point in trying to have the last word, particularly if you end up proving your ‘opponents’ position for them by trying to have the last word.. as in here and the following 2 posts. I knew you were going to respond, and respond quickly. You couldn’t resist.
With respect to political parties: George Washington warned about the dangers of political parties. From wikipedia:
While Washington accepts the fact that it is natural for people to organize and operate within groups like political parties, he also argues that every government has recognized political parties as an enemy and has sought to repress them because of their tendency to seek more power than other groups and take revenge on political opponents. He argues that these parties’ efforts to seize power and exact revenge upon their opponents have led to horrible atrocities and will ultimately end in despotism as people throw their support behind the most powerful faction and the faction focuses on increasing their own power instead of promoting the public liberty.
There is also discussions within the “Papers of Federation”, where there was concern of a two party system. The concern was of the parties seeking to maintain their power and authority at a cost to public liberty. The political parties would try to frame the discussions into ‘us’ vs ‘them’, instead of what really mattered.