In America today, we show a marked tendency to label people. In the context of politics, if you follow the conservative ideology, the preferred label for those who oppose you is liberal Democrat(usually said with a sneer). Whereas if Howard Dean was your man a few years back, you likely packed a box of "Right Wing Republican" labels for libeling ... excuse me ... labeling the opposition.

When I join someone for coffee and the conversation turns to presidential politics, a common question I inevitably hear is, "Democrat or Republican?" And the subtext is, "friend or foe?

But should an individual voluntarily drape him or herself in the mantle of a particular party, a party that no doubt shares only a subset of his or her own views? Thomas Jefferson answered this question with a resounding, "No." He rejected the abdication of personal responsibility in favor of blind obedience to a particular political creed: "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent." Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, March 13 1789.

George Washington also strongly warned in his 1796 Farewell Address against the the spirit of party:

"Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

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."

His address goes on and it

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Choosing a political party?
We want to hear your view. Write now!